We Sign and Signing with Preschool Children

Educational
Core Collection

Signing and Singing works! - because they involve a variety of learning styles:

1. Physical learning (movement); Signing provides this through hand manipulation, arm and body movement and facial expression;

2. Visual learning (seeing): hand signs are visual by their nature and many of them are iconic (signs that look like what they are);

3. Verbal learning (speaking or listening): When singing and signing children combine words and signs together, simultaneously as they are talking, singing and listening to songs;

4. Musical learning (music, rhythm, melody): Singing our wide collection of songs provide rhythms, rhymes and melodies;

5. Mathematical learning (reasoning): This is encouraged as a result of the structure and sequencing involved in singing songs

6. Interpersonal learning (with other people): the entire family and the entire class will benefit from signing together and will learn from this interaction.

7. Intrapersonal learning (individual learning): We Sign videos and DVD's provide children a way to interact, on an individual basis, with songs and signing.

American Sign Language (ASL) and Songs for Preschool Children

Signing with Preschool Children

Signing is a fun, playful and educational activity for all Preschool Children. Just as with babies, who can begin early communication with sign, and toddlers who begin building vocabulary, Preschoolers can enhance the learning process by combining American Sign Language ASL with new and traditional songs. We Sign offers a collection of DVD's and videos that are interactive, entertaining and educational. Each of the titles (ABC's, Numbers, Colors, Rhymes and Animals) supports educational concepts that preschoolers need to know today before entering elementary school. We Sign also supports quality use of Television and Children.

Research had demonstrated repeatedly that chidlren retain what they learn through fun, playful activities that encourage the use of multiple intelligences (musical learning, visual learning, physical learning, verbal learning and more). Signing and signing Songs and ASL is a rich and wonderful way for children to learn and have quality interaction with parents, teachers, caregivers and others. Following some simple helpful hints signing can be very meaningful activity.

There is a large national push currently to increase the level of knowledge preschool children learn before entering school. Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, the Assistant Secretary of Education for Research and Improvement, US Department of Education has stated "we know that the precursors to literacy start at a much earlier age than kindergarten" (Whitehurst p 3). Preschool children are now expected to know letters, sounds, numbers, colors, rhymes, word play and much more. Many of these things their parents did not learn until they reached 1st grade.

The First Lady, Laura Bush, has stated that, “The years between diapers and the first backpacks will determine whether a child will succeed in school and make it to college." G. Reid Lyon, Chief, Child Development and Behavior Branch, National Institutes of Health affirmed this saying that "there is a remarkably strong and stable link between what preschool kids know about words, sounds, letters, and print, and later academic performance. Most kids who don't have this information upon entry into kindergarten will not only struggle there, but will have difficulties learning to read through high school."( Lyon p1).

First Lady Laura Bush also told Congress that parent's, teachers and caregivers need to provide preschool children with the “ language-rich activities they need for starting school.” (OC register, 2002). G. Reid Lyon reports that "President Bush let the NICHD and Department of Education know in clear terms that our children deserved to be provided effective, stimulating, and nurturing early childhood programs that are scientifically verified to ensure readiness." ( Lyon p3). "The challenge for preschool

Preschool children are very busy learning and thinking about the world around them. Parents, teachers and other caregivers are always looking for ways to stimulate their exploration of the world around them. Language development is an important part to this. Penelope Leach states that “The more language they (children) have, the faster thinking will progress. But the more thinking they are doing, the more language they will use. So language and thought, even language and 'intelligence,' are intimately entangled." (Leach p432).

Researcher and author Marilyn Daniels states that "The size of a child's vocabulary is significant because knowing a lot of words means knowing a lot of things. In addition, every word in a child's vocabulary acts as the currency for learning more words." (Daniels 37). The knowledge of words, sounds and meanings, are a vital part of establishing reading readiness and reading, as Whiterhusrt stated so clearly, "is the keystone for academic and life success." (Whitehurst p.10).

Preparing preschool children in today's world, with the language skills, vocabulary and other basic concepts needed for entry into elementary school is a demanding and yet exciting task. "Research tells us that if language, literacy and other cognitive factors are attended to through quality programming in early childhood setting, children's school to develop classroom activities that teach while engaging and developing children's interests – activities that are both readiness is optimized." (Landry and Knight p1). Preschool years are vitally important to a child's learning and academic success.

Signing offers parents, teachers and caregivers with a proven method to provide not only a fun learning activity but to also for a way to meet the new demands and requirements for increased early learning. When sign language is combined with spoken word and songs it provides preschoolers with a fun, playful, multi-sensory, language-rich activity that develops vocabulary, increases language skills, reinforces the learning of basic educational concepts (abc's, colors, numbers, sounds, animals etc.), develops reading readiness, fosters an enthusiasm for learning and better prepares them for entering elementary school.

Research demonstrates that when signing is added to the preschool curriculum, children not only find signing fun but also show a “significant improvement in receptive English vocabulary” (Daniels p40-41), and retain information for a longer periods of time. Marilyn Daniels found that the significant “vocabulary gains made in their pre-kindergarten years are sustained throughout their kindergarten year and remain with them. There is no memory decay over time” (Daniels, p49).

Memory is increased because verbal information and signed information is stored in separate parts of the brain. Daniels says that signing is “able to aid children's memory with autonomous memory stores by creating built-in redundancy that establishes two independent language sources for children to use for search and recall.” (Daniels p122). Signing helps children remember, that memory enables them to have access to much more information and that information is a strong foundation from which they can advance their education.

Signing and singing songs with preschoolers is great a way to involve them in the learning process. The use of music as an instructional tool has been used by people and cultures world-wide for thousands of years. “Music is a vital part of our biological makeup and is one of the ingredients that make us human." (Habermeyer p 4). Plato considered music to be one of the four main pillars of education. Researchers and teachers alike know that the combining of singing and movement is “one of the most important instructional tools available to the educator” ( Taylor p200).

We Sign™ provides children, parents, teachers and caregivers a wonderful and easy-to-use way to sign, to sing, to play, to interact and to learn. The We Sign series combines new and traditional songs with signing to support the learning of language and basic educational concepts. We Sign incorporates the power of music with the movement and visual nature of sign language to provide a fun, interactive and playful educational tool.