Sign language with hearing toddlers

[kiwimum]

My hearing daughter is 14 month old and can now sign 25+ words

Feel free to watch my YouTube clip below

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xEtWmGsXdfk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/xEtWmGsXdfk&rel=1</a>

I keep introducing new signs to her and if it's interesting/relevant enough she will learn it quite quickly.
I'd like to know what other parents have done in the past with their signing children once they got to about this stage. How did you keep it going once the toddler could speek? Did anyone teach the alphabet using sign letters? If so how did it go, tell me more?
I want to keep signing going beyond when she is able to talk, I'd like her to be able to finger spell when she goes to school and be able to comunicate in this language.
I also want her to learn New Zealand Sign Language, so any suggestions of watching ASL Signing Time won't really fit in with where I hope we are heading with this. ASL and NZSL are close but different enough that I feel it's important to stick to the local language.

Little side story
Tonight she saw the written word 'car' and then signed "car" I never taught her signing through showing her words but because of Your Baby Can Read and Brillkids she is able to link word, sound, picture and the noise of a certain objects all together. Next will come speech am I'm confident it will all come flooding out.
Without the sign skills I wouldn't be able to know this early in her education that she reconizes the word car. Oh it's exciting to find out what she will show me tomorrow. Are there other parents out there that feel the same way about their signing children?

Please feel free to ask questions, give advice etc

[Kerileanne99]

Hi Kiwimum-
Lots and lots of mums and their kiddos doing sign language with their hearing toddlers, including us! won't go into a whole lot of detail as there are so many threads laying out the myriad benefits! If you use the search function and look for Baby Signing, Signing Time ( if you haven't seen them you MUST take a look at their website!), sign language...
I will tell you a bit about out experience.  Alex is now 2.5 and I couldn't even tell you how many signs she knows.  I will say that you have to remember to continue signing with her as she gets older, or she too will drop it.  Sometimes when we read aloud she signs as many signs of the story to her stuffed friend hen.
We bought a fantastic ASL dictionary app for the IPad, used Baby Signing Time DVDs and Signing Time DVDs, and even had to find her a babysitter that signs with her as she gets frustrated when someone doesn't understand.

When we read books together we also use quite a bit of signing, and occasionally play games of ASL 'charades' style games on family game night.

We did teach her the ASL alphabet and she really enjoys this.  If I ask her to spell most 3 letter/some 4 letter words, she signs the letters as she says them aloud.  For example, last night I told her it was time for bed. She said "B-E-D, bed", manually spelling the letters as she said them aloud. I really think this is invaluable, and when you are in public places you don't always have paper/pen-but you always have your hands.
She also was signing a sentence the other day and looked puzzled when she thought she should sign the word 'at'. So she finger spelled it and kept right on going with the words she knew!

Also great for bridging the gap between languages, and helping the kids to understand a whole other culture (and the Deaf/HOH culture is just that!)

Also, If she is showing you roughly 25 signs? I would bet she actually knows quite a few more as receptive language (those she understands but can't quite form) it took Alex quite a long while before she could make the Y handshape, which is involved in MANY signs
It really helped when she would let me help her to make the sign to get her started!
Bonus: the Signing Time DVDs also show the written word which of course helps to promote early reading (as we all are very much aware here! Thanks LR )

Hope this helps a bit and good luck with your daughter. She is adorable!

P.S. My hubby is British, so we are also teaching her some BSL signs and their manual alphabet!

[kiwimum]

Thanks kerileanne99 for your story and advice. It's always nice to hear another's parents view on it.
Quick question tho, when you taught Alex the alphabet did you focus on the name or the sound of each letter? I guess everyone teaches the name of the letter first but I've read everywhere on LR that teaching the sound the letters make is more important for kids learning than teaching the names of the letters. Or did you do both at the same time?

[Kerileanne99]

It is funny, because I taught them to her before we found LR or BrillKids. I found this caterpillar ABC wallhanging that has a small finger puppet for each letter:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00062RWAI/ref=asc_df_B00062RWAI8628468?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=shopdc28443-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B00062RWAI

I hung them in the hallway at her level above a rail to pull herself up on and a mirror at her standing eye level.  This way she could see herself when she tried to make the letter names and sounds...I would say, oh, which one do you want? She would point or make the sign for the animal beginning that sound. I would then get the corresponding puppet down and say, oh you want the dog, d-d-d-dog, starts with d, pointing to the letter and making the sign.  Then we would do as many other words that were in her vocabulary that also began with the d sound.  For letters with multiple 'sounds' we just did words with all the sounds.

I am sure there are much simpler, easier ways to do this--the ABC signing time is good, a Preschool Prep DVD Meet the Letter Sound incorporating the manual alphabet with her on your lap, or LR with you signing the letter (or helping her to do it would work)

Our approach of playful incorporation of letter names, letter 'sounds', and signs, (all right out side the door of the kitchen!), worked well for us and I don't remember ever having to teach anything else later as she began reading

[kiwimum]

Thanks kerileanne99 for your tips. I've started to make my own version of the wall caterpillar and last night after showing her some letters and their sounds i asked my daughter "can you make the mmmm sound" she said "mum" back to me, i then asked her again but just the mmm sound and to my surprise she did exactly that. I have a plan now and I feel it's going to work well.
Thanks

[Kerileanne99]

Awesome Kiwimum!
Can't wait to hear updates as she adds more and more signs, words, and reading to her repertoire! I am quite sure she will advance exponentially in the next 3-4 months with the work you are doing...she is adorable!

[kiwimum]

Sign language has really helped her show me that she can read at an early age.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/3FwdIglLw6k&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/3FwdIglLw6k&rel=1</a>

[Korrale4kq]

She is so adorable! Little smartie.
I love her cloth nappies too.

[Ilala]

Sharing this link to signing words and speaking words with mums on Thirsday Island Torres Strait .
Thanks Kiwim and Brillkids.

Bev

[Ilala]

whoops spelling not so good from my iphone

I meant to write...... Thursday Island (Far North Queensland Australia) in the Torres Strait.

New mums at my work are keen to see how they can help their babies have fun with learning.

Thanks again for sharing Kiwimum

Bev

[Mela Bala]

Kiwimum,
 
Congratulations to the two of you!  You have quite the little reader there and she is soooo cute!
I can't wait to see more videos of her progress. 

[lelask]

She is so adorable
We have started to sign again receatly as I bought the ST app and my daughter loves it!
I was so pleased to see that book about mole in your clip as those are the stories I grow up with and are still very popular in Czech and Slovakia 

Keri, great idea with the alphabet catepillar : again something I have to make for S. and maybe even for math 

[Mandabplus3]

Wow Ilala, that would be an amazing bonus for the kids on Thursday Island. How lovely it must be for you to work there with parents intested in education, especially early education. You could make a huge impact on the community. Good luck!

[maryOfUS]

Hi Tam (kiwimum)! I just opened my FB before going to bed last night (haven't been  active there for a while) and saw your message about Chloe's progress and her video. Congratulations! I enjoyed watching her video. Awesome job! Keep it up!

Btw, about the question you left at FB, (thought I will just answer it here)---If Megan skips days
reading?

Yes, we went through almost 3 weeks of not reading for some family vacation and she never had a problem reading her previous lessons. She's also more excited in reading new stories as well. In normal days, we do Little Reader Mondays thru Fridays. Weekends are family days for us, and we spend our days with relatives or going outdoors.

[kiwimum]

She signed her first three word sentence today at 15 months, I am very impressed by that.
She saw me drinking my morning coffee and then signed "drink where mine" up until this point it's eaither just been "drink" "where's drink" or just "where" but to include the sign for herself is just taking it to another level of understanding. I think she has about 35+ words that she can sign with and about 10 she can say.

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