|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Signing with Elementary School Children Signing is fun and it can be incorporated into so many aspects of learning and classroom management. Signing, with American Sign Language, will help students to learn and remember many core educational concepts like ABC’s, numbers, colors, animals and nursury rhymes. For elementary school age children, studies are showing that the inclusion of ASL, as part of instruction, provides a wide range of benefits. Signing has been shown to increase vocabulary and enhance language skills that help to improve reading abilities. Researcher Marilyn Daniels states: “The size of a child's vocabulary is significant, because knowing a lot of words means knowing a lot of things…vocabulary acts as the currency for learning more words” (Daniels p 37). During the early years of the educational process one of the most important skills, if not the most important skill, children are required to learn is reading. Reading is the cornerstone to every year of their educational process. The ability to recognize letters, sounds and words and then understand their meaning quickly and effortlessly is crucial. Children first learn to read and then they can read to learn. ASL has been shown to be beneficial in helping children in the first years of elementary school to learn and remember many of the skills necessary to become great readers. The research of Marilyn Daniels shows that the use of signing can “improve hearing children's English vocabulary…spelling ability” and has been “used to help children read.” She reports that even “the International Reading Association recognizes and recommends sign language as a reading aid.” (Daniels 2 p 13-14) Learning the alphabet with sign has proven to be a great way for children to learn and remember. ASL is wonderful because children can sign the letters skillfully long before they can sit and write them. They can begin to spell earlier using finger spelling. Children do not need to be writing proficient for this early spelling knowledge. ASL can also be taken and used everywhere, at home, in the car as well as at school. We Sign promotes the movement and visual nature of ASL with songs in an enriching way for children to learn. Confucius, over 2000 years ago said, “Involve me and I will learn.” Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, one of the pioneers of sign language in America believed “The more varied the form under which language is presented to the mind through the various senses, the more perfect will the knowledge of it acquired, and the more permanently will it be retained” (Daniels p126). Signing provides a multi-sensory way for children to learn and use a wide variety of multiple intelligences. This varied learning process provides for better memory retention, recall and helps to foster a real enthusiasm for learning. Signing can be used to support curriculum, to reinforce lessons learned and to enrich the school environment. By combining songs with the movement of sign language teachers, parents and caregivers are using “one of the most important instructional tools available to the educator” ( Taylor p200). Playful signing and singing activities work on hand-eye coordination, creativity, language development, memory skills, interpersonal relationships and developing self-confidence as children accomplish new skills.We Sign™ BibliographyDaniels, Marilyn, Dancing With Words, Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, 2001 Taylor, Barbara J, A Child Goes Forth Simon & Schuster 1999. |
||||||||||||
