sign language

Is anyone teaching sign language to their kids? I have been signing 'eat', 'milk' and 'more' to my daughter since she was about 4 months. Just today she signed eat for the first time. She was getting crabby so I asked her what she wanted (not expecting a response of course!), and she signed 'eat'. I was so happy and proud I think I woud have given her chocolate cake if it was handy . Anyway, I was just curious if anyone else was doing this and what their experiences were.

[Flynn]

We didn't formally do a class or read a book, but made up our own sign language for "all done," "more," etc. It just sort of happened.

I had friends who took the class and read the book and they loved it! I think anything that increases communication (accurate that is! ) between baby and parent is a great tool!!!

I will have visions of my daughter when she was much younger saying "all done" for the rest of my life!

Have fun!

We did sign language with our older daughter. Not a lot, just a few words like nurse, eat, bath, all done, sleepy/tired/nap, more. That's it I think. It was really helpful especially because we had hard time understanding her when she just started talking.

[SueC]

I always mean to do that but so far have never gotten around to it. A friend of mine used signs with her son, it was pretty cute to see him sign for a drink, food, etc. Maybe I'll try it with this baby.

[houseelf]

Yes, we signed with our son and plan to do so more with this one. There is a wonderful, albeit expensive, book and video that goes through the basics. Although there will be critics (i.e. my family who thinks who chide that we are the consumate yuppies) I think that teaching your child almost anything is a good idea.

Interestingly, my son's Spanish preschool class also uses a lot of signing to teach Spanish because this school believe that certain children learn visually and others learn kinetically through movement. Sign language encompasses both of these learning styles. (There IS a name to this theory early foreign language teaching but it is escaping me right now.) The kids say "nieve" (snow) while signing as if all spanish speakers say snow while making the hand gesture.

Kelly

The book and video are kind of expensive but I was able to check it out from my local library. We just used the signs that we could remember after returning the video.

We have taught our boys sign language....
There have been several interesting discussions between DW and her co-workers (of course, the one WITHOUT kids) about sign language and it slowing the childs verbalization. Whatever! Then we show them our four year old who talks more/properly/loudly/constantly than most first or second graders!!!

We taught more, drink, thank you, and please.

We were taking Colton in for his scope yesterday and had to page Gretchen from a waiting room. A gentleman was sitting at the table nearest the phone and offered me a chair. When I said 'Thank you', Colton immediately did the sign for it!!

I think its great. People also asked me if teaching sign would make language slower to develop. I agree, whatever! At such a young age kids are able to communicate with their hands much better than their voices.
I think I have the book/video set you are talking about, my MIL got it for my daughter for Easter. Actually I was a bit disappointed with the book, its really short, and I found a really great website with a ton of signs shown on little video clips. I thought the suggestions in the book on what signs to introduce were pretty common sense too, eat and drink are really easy. But I haven't read it thoughly yet. Also we don't have a VCR anymore, so I haven't been able to watch the video. The chart it comes with is a good idea though. I'm sure I can pass it along to someone without my MIL finding out

[PrincessFiona]

Wow...I'm impressed....and admit I feel sort of lame.....I can actually sign the pledge of allegiance (learned in 5th grade) but have never thought about teaching the kids...

You guys are awesome.

kris

[Phoebe]

Interesting discussion. I always thought it would be neat to teach my baby sign language, but never got around to it. I think we kind of made up our own signs and my toddler still does them for things like "all done" etc.

Shella- What is the website you mentioned in your post? I would be interested to check it out.

Jennifer

[Sheherezade]

My upstairs neighbors taught their 17 mos old adopted Chinese girl sign language first when she arrived. It improved her spirits immensely. I think it was a very fast-to-learn limited vocabulary that allowed her to communicate her needs. She signed often then. She still isn't talking much (she's 2.5 now); but since her early life has been pretty traumatic I think I won't blame the signing!!! I would recommend it to anyone. I didn't do it with my kids, but they were early talkers---motormouth runs in my family....

Angie

[peggyfromwastate]

I'm with Kris on this one--- haven't done this with my kids but am very impressed at you all! I have a Sign with me book designed for kids, but I've not even looked at it. Mac knows sign language fairly well- he's even tutored a deaf man before- and he's always looking to take more classes, but we are so bad in the language department for teaching our kids. We both speak Spanish, but Kate's pronunciation is horrid and one would never know she used to know more than 100 words, but now...

Anyway, maybe I'll turn into supermom with #4... Who knows?

I've been signing "cat" since my daughter was around 6 months old and I still haven't seen her do the sign. What is so bizarre is that I started signing "flower" (by wrinkling nose and sniffing) about 3 weeks ago and just this week, she started wrinkling her nose and sniffing when she saw the flowers around the house! It is adorable! We have so many vases of er, uhm, faux flowers around the house so she spends a good majority of her day sniffing now! She is 11 months now. So. . .I'm a believer!

The web address is: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
I had to download some kind of player, but it was really quick.

I find it really helpful to see the sign being done as opposed to looking at pictures. And so much is the facial expression. Thats so cute with the flowers. I'll have to add that one to the list of eventuals.

My husband as really wanted to expose our daughter to spanish as well, but neither of us speak it. He insists having her listen to the language in general will help her in understanding it, but that just doesn't make sense to me. I wish I knew another language well enough to teach her. It would be such an advantage to be bilingual.[/url]

[BonBon]

I've been signing 'milk' for Gav for about 2 months now. He recognizes both the sign and the word 'milk'. He also knows the word applesauce. Both get him really excited , just like his mommy. Nothing more exciting then an impending meal.

I will admit to being too cheap and lazy to actually buy the signing book. I just made up a sign for milk and eat. I would think that signing would speed up language development. After all, you are encouraging your child to connect a gesture and spoken word with a specific meaning.