Sign and Sing Class 1

Yesterday, we talked about ways to bring signs into your child's world during class as well as during playtime after class. You do not need to know every sign there is, or to use signs constantly for this to be effective. Start by choosing some of the signs from class last night that your child might be most interested in. The goal of this week is to get started signing and become comfortable signing yourself. The "see a lot, do a lot" signs are things that happen often during the day likebed, eat, more, finish, what, help and milk. There are plenty of opporunities thoughout the day to use these signs. The other type of signs which are an important part of the "Signing Smart" strategy are the "highly motivating signs." These are things that your child is very interesting in or might be very motivated to learn to sign. This may be different for each child. The signs we used last night from this category would bny, mom, dad, music, ball, bear, as well as a few more.

1. The first step is learning how to use the signs so that your children see them. It doesn't help to do the sign when you child isn't looking at you! When they are attentive to you, interested in something and making eye contact with you, this is the perfect time to sign.
2, the Second step is recognizing your child's early attempts at signing. If you are feeding your baby and they touch their hands together as if attempting to sign "more" then respond by giving them more of whatever they were eating! Some early attempts at signing may be accident, but if you respond to them, the child will learn that by speaking with their hands, they got what they needed. Also notice if your child is responding to the signs YOU give. If you sign and ask "more?" and you child's face lights up this is progress as well! Remember that it does sometimes take a long time for those first signs to appear. Don't be discouraged if you don't see any signals that your child is attempting to sign right away. Sometimes we cannot see the result of what we do with our babies for a long time. But these early experiences become aborbed into who they are. The time you spend communicating verbally and by signing with your baby will not go unrewarded.