11.11.11 Is it a Special Sign?

11.11.11. November 11, 2011 is such a special day that comes around once every hundred years. 

So remember to take time on 11.11.11 to do something really special with your little ones! It's a once in a lifetime chance. 11.11.11. November 11, 2011 is such a special day that comes around once every hundred years. Don't forget to take advantage of celebrating this day with your family and loved ones. If you're signing with your children, take time in the day to have fun with them and sign along to songs. Your children love hearing songs and what better way to spend time with them than to listen to songs together. They'll surely appreciate having their mommy or daddy sign with them on this special day. 

Keep Shining and Celebrating,

etel

How a Baby Can Sign “Rhinoceros”

Sign Language has been typically associated with the deaf, but in reality, it can also benefit the lives of the hearing, which is showcased none-so-apparently than through a video of two of the most adorable children I have ever laid eyes on. I might be a bit more biased because I do get to see them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but I’m sure after watching this video, you would agree as well. My daughter Zoë (almost four in the video) and my son Dylan (16 months at the time) are reading to each other, first a book about animals and then a book about people. The truly amazing part of the video is when Zoë helps Dylan do the correct sign for rhinoceros. As their mother, I’m very proud of how well they’re communicating with each other and I definitely love seeing them get along so well. You can tell that Dylan is starting to verbalize some of these words, which is wonderful because words like “whale” aren’t typically taught to children until much later. This is a wonderful video to show how beneficial sign language can be for your family—you have time to take a break and record videos of them while your children read books to each other!

etel leit

Sign Language for Babies - Part 2

Here is Part 2 of our journey of teaching our baby Scarlette how to use baby sign language to communicate. If you missed it you can read Part 1 first.

In Part 1 we discovered how useful baby signing was before she could sign back to us, and here I will discuss what happened next.

The next milestone came the day she signed back to us. She had just finished her milk, the empty bottle was on our bedside table. She looked over at the bottle and signed 'milk' to us. We were so excited! I was lucky enough to get this special moment on video - she was only 9 months old.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where we discovered how all this fit together with her language development...

Sign Language for Babies

Baby sign language is one of the most rewarding things by far that I have tried with my own children. There are many benefits that have been discovered in the scientific research, shared at classes and documented on websites however I want to share a few of the most special moments that signing has provided our family over the past 13 months. My story is fairly long so stay tuned over the coming weeks as I tell it...here is part 1.

Scarlette is 17 months old now and we introduced baby sign language to her at the age of 4 months. We understood that it would be a long time until she signed to us but we were keen to see her reaction nonetheless. What I didn't expect at this tender age was the feeling that she actually understood us.

It did take a couple of weeks but she would intently watch us, and eventually we get an indication that she actually understood that we were communicating with her. At this early age there was no way that she was going to have the muscle control or the dexterity to sign to us however there were some important things that we could tell her - for instance that it was time for a bath, time for milk or time for bed. This proved to be very beneficial in these early months.

In part 2 I will let you in on some of the major milestones as she discovered how to communicate with her little hands...to be continued.

APPROXIMATION

You are signing with your baby for quite some time, and waiting for the day she will sign back. One day, here it is… your baby is attempting a sign. Your initial response, “was that really the sign for MILK?” “Was he really signing MORE?” I often say to parents, if you think it is an attempt to communicate, it is a sign! Now, respond with positive reinforcement.
Often times your baby’s sign doesn’t really look like the sign that you’re signing. Due to your child’s developing dexterity and fine motor skills, she cannot quite grasp the exact formation. While your baby tries to mimic your sign, the sign may look different. You may ask yourself,” does my baby really signing or just playing with his fingers?”
For example, the sign for MORE is to bring all five fingertips from one hand to the five fingertips of the other hand and tap them together. Many children will approximate the sign into one fingertip onto the palm of the other hand.
See pictures: all children sign MORE.
Approximation is signing! It is almost like saying dada for daddy at first. Please, do not manipulate her hands to form the right sign. Keep demonstrating the correct formation, encouraging your child to sign, and the right hand shape will come with time. This is one of the reasons that it is important to sign ASL so everyone will sign the same way without modifying the sign by their needs.
By accepting your child’s approximations, and encouraging her to keep signing, you will reduce her level of frustration. Consistency is the key. If you use the ASL version repeatedly, your child will eventually follow your lead and sign that version.

Let the Sign Shine!
etel

Etel Leit, M.S.
Founder & Owner http://www.signshine.com/
Publisher http://www.babysignshine.com/

How did it all start?

In the late 1980’s, Joseph Garcia, a student at the University of Alaska, became fascinated with sign language. While there were no deaf people in his family, he thought that learning how to sign would be interesting – and he began to study it seriously. Once he had a solid grasp of American Sign Language (ASL), Garcia made a number of friends in the deaf community. This resulted in an observation that changed his life – and the lives of many to come. What Joseph Garcia noticed was that the hearing babies of his deaf friends were on their way to becoming sign language “experts” at around 9 months of age. Yet the 9-month old babies of his hearing friends were not communicating much at all. The difference intrigued Garcia so much that he made it the subject of his Master’s thesis.

Why was it possible, he asked, for deaf babies of that age to communicate by gesturing… but hearing babies of the same age unable to communicate at all?

And if deaf parents could communicate with their hearing babies, would there be any benefit to teaching sign language to the hearing children of hearing parents? Using his infant sons as “test subjects,” Garcia was able to demonstrate the positive effects of signing with hearing babies in his thesis. Eventually, it evolved into his popular program, “Sign With Your Baby.” We’ll discuss the benefits of his program later in this module.

http://www.babysignshine.com/history.shtml

Let the Sign Shine!
etel


Etel Leit, M.S.
Founder & Owner www.SignShine.com
Publisher www.BabySignShine.com

Amazing video - Signing Story Time -- one year later! Must see

Click here to watch: Signing Story Time Part II: One year later, Zoe 5 and Dylan 2 1/2 are signing to each other. Zoe reads a card, signs it to Dylan and he signs it back to her and says it to her out loud!! Truely Amazing!

Did you enjoy it? Signing is not only for the deaf - Feel Free to Forward to everyone!
The joys of Baby Sign Language!
Visit www.SignShine.com for more information


Thank you for being an important part of SignShine Family!
Questions? Interesting stories to share? Email me at: etel@SignShine.com

It's Time to Shine!
etel

More every day signing games to play

I have been focussing my blogs on Signing games to play with our babies. They are very simple things everyone can do, no matter how busy we are!

This next game is one which my daughter loved as she was getting older. It helps to reinforce knowledge of phonemes (the sound of individual letters) and the fingerspelling – building a solid foundation to recognise graphemes (the written letter) at an early age.

When you are on long car journeys, or on the way to the supermarket, play the ‘I SPY’ game…with fingerspelling!

This may take a while for your child to learn particularly if she has never played it before.

You start of by saying: “I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘t-t-t’” (Signing the letter “t”)

If she doesn’t understand the game, say: “T-T-TREE” starts with a “T” (SIGNING “T”)

Find another thing beginning with the same letter.

Try other letters as well – this game can be played endlessly!

Your child will eventually learn to listen to the first sound of the words she knows – and she will learn the corresponding sign as well.

Take a look at this clip to see my daughter reading – at 2 ½ years of age!

http://www.sign2learn.signingbabies.co.uk/