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Sign Language is for ALL CHILDREN

Real Benefits for Real People

There has been a growing national trend, brought on by local, state and national requirements on preschools to provide much more instruction and give these children a real foundation of knowledge prior to entering kindergarten. Children today are required to know and have basic understanding of alphabetical letters and their sounds, of numbers, of colors and of things they find all around them in the world. Preschool children are being pushed into having much larger vocabularies and informational knowledge then at any time in our countries history.

Parents are feeling this pressure and are beginning, at a very young age, to begin to provide for their children learning opportunities and programs that are geared making them smarter and better prepared for school. We do these things as responsible parents, in an effort to give our children the best opportunity possible for their future. We do these things because we love our children.

Today parents are bombarded with lots of products all of which are designed to support and enhance the learning process in young children. If children do this, they will be smarter, if they listen to this type of music, they will be smarter, if they play these games they will be smarter. But what really works?

We are told over and over that “studies show” this and “studies show” that. So many things will work. As a father of 4 and a grandfather of 4 and a professional who has worked with hundreds of thousands of children, I really question some of the claims.  Somehow, rat studies and college student studies about listening to classical music making children smarter don't ring well with me. Now helping children to learn and be smarter by playing an instrument, or actively moving and singing, or using signs when reading books rings true for me.

This brings me to the point where human history, thousands of years of cultural development, has demonstrated to us what scientists have documented and put into recent theories. It's really very simple: we have always known that young children learn best when they are learning through active, playful involvement. They learn best when interacting with parents, older children and teachers. This timeless knowledge today is wrapped around theories about movement and learning, about play and learning and about providing activities that involve the use of Multiple – Intelligences (physical learning, visual learning, verbal learning, mathematical learning, musical learning, and interpersonal learning).

What helps children to learn and remember? What provides children with information, vocabulary and skills they will need upon entering school? The answer is found in fun, playful, interactive activities that involve the use of Multiple Intelligences to provide children with educational and entertaining programming. I'm not sure I really trust other get smart claims.

This brings me to We Sign, a product and concept that I helped to develop over the past 14 years, and our claims that signing as part of daily communication and play time activities will make children smarter and better prepares children for school.

It is my hope that parents, teachers or anyone who loves and works with children would look to the information that is available about products and their claims and evaluate them, analyze them and decide on their value. It is also my hope that you would take the time to look into the use of Sign Language, music, movement and play as a valuable way for children to learn.

We Sign is a program that uses our ageless knowledge about involving children in learning and combines that knowledge with the use of American Sign Language. Children as young as 10 months, have the physical and mental ability to sign words and to communicate. Repeated research has shown that children who use sign as part of their daily activities will have up to twice the usable vocabulary (signed and spoken words) than their counter parts. The larger the vocabulary, the better the reading readiness and reading skills are the key to all future education. Signing has been proven to allow children the ability to learn and use much more vocabulary.

It has been said that throughout human history we could teach almost anything with song. By combining the visual and movement nature of sign with the playful nature of song, We Sign provides an activity that helps memory retention, expands vocabulary, and actively involves children, parents, teachers and other caregivers. This activity can be actively participated in while watching TV or without the TV as children and others can sing and sign almost anywhere.

I have always felt that one of the best places to find out about the benefits for signing with children is a book by Marilyn Daniels called Dancing with Words.  There she outlines her research, as well as others.  She demonstrates how various researchers have found that signing with children is fun, playful, improves self-esteem and helps to develop a real enthusiasm for learning.  You will find that children who sign have been shown statistically to have larger vocabularies, enhanced language skills, and have greater memory and retention.

We Sign is America's #1 interactive DVD series featuring ASL, instruction and activities, for hearing children (babies, toddlers, preschoolers and elementary ages) as well as for parents, teachers and other caregivers who wish to bring signing into the lives of their children.  The Series has won over 50 National awards and has been highly acclaimed for over 15 years.