We Sign is based on research, studies and information demonstrating how movement, music and the use of American Sign language, ASL, with all children (babies, toddlers, preschoolers, elementary age and families) helps to foster early communication, language growth, increased vocabulary, motor skill development, brain development and more.

Learning and teaching using movement and participation is probably one of the oldest forms of education. Confucius, over 2000 years ago said: “If you tell me…I will forget. If you show me…I may remember. If you involve me…I will understand.”
 
   Studies have shown that people will retain:

• Only about 10% of information told to them after 3 days;
• About 20% of information shown to them after 3 days;
• 65% of information they are involved in learning after 3 days.

Supporting this, another study found that we retain:
 
  10 percent of what we read;
  20 percent of what we hear;
  30 percent of what we see;
  50 percent of what we hear and see at the same time;
  70 percent of what we hear, see and say; and
  90 percent of what we hear, see, say and do.( Pica 9)
 
Involvement for children in their learning is natural for them.  “Hands on” learning begins early on.  So the more varied and the richer learning environments we provide for our children will foster and encourage and enthusiasm for learning.  Movement, music and sign language provide for varied learning. 

Play and playful learning activities are also important for children to learn. Psychologist Lev Vigostky believed that play was an indispensable part of learning and development. Fergus Hughes, in the book "Play and Intellectual Development," states that “considering the importance of motor activity in the acquisition of knowledge, it seems clear that creative movement as a form of play can be an enriching intellectual experience.” (p.181). He goes on further to say that movement and play is a highly effective way to teach children almost anything they need to learn.
 
Parents, teachers and caregivers all want to provide a rich learning environment for children. They want to provide playful learning activities that will challenge children and yet be fun, interesting and within their ability to do. Keeping learning activities fun is very important. John Holt wrote in his book "How Children Learn," "If we take away the fun…we will destroy that which we are trying to do" (Holt p.56).

We Sign's goal is to provide fun educational programs that encourage learning through movement, music, interaction and play.
 
For all We Sign products, American Sign Language provides a structured language to movement and is the fourth most common in the US. It is a visual language that uses hand, arm, facial and body movements. We Sign uses these signs used in conjunction with spoken vocabulary and songs to provide children with a powerful learning tool that is fun and playful. Researcher and writer, Marilyn Daniels, states in her book "Dancing With Words," that children “find an inherent joy in signing,” (Daniels p.75) and that using Sign Language is fun!
 
Signing has grown to become valuable to hearing children because, through its inclusion into everyday life, into communication, into the playful activities of singing songs, telling stories and rhymes, playing games and while reading books - children learn. Studies in the US and around the world, demonstrate over and over again that signing: 

• Enables preverbal infants (as young as 10 months) and toddlers to have a “hands-on” method of communicating their wants and needs – helping to reduce temper tantrums.
• Helps to ease parental communication frustrations – eases the communication guessing game.
• Provides parents with an insight into the world of their preverbal and newly verbal toddlers.
• Accelerates language development – often giving signing children twice the usable vocabulary of their non-signing friends.
• Stimulates brain development.
• Increases IQ scores.
• Provides for increased communication skills that help to expand language and knowledge (scaffolding). Giving children a “Jump Start on Smart” in preparation for elementary school.
• Develops fine and gross motor skills.
• Stimulates memory retention and recall.
• Improves reading readiness.
• Develops confidence and positive self-esteem.
• Provides for a fun parent child / teacher child bonding activity.
• Fosters an enthusiasm for learning.
• Is a fun and playful activity.
• Supports the learning of educational basics – ABC's, Colors, Numbers, Rhymes, Animals, Phonics, and vocabulary.
• Is a wonderful “silent” way to maintain classroom management and control.

From as early as the mid 1800's advantages offered to hearing children who signed were documented. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, developer of American Sign Language, saw that hearing children's language development increased from the use of sign. This led him to believe that “the more varied the form under which language is presented to the mind through the various senses, the more perfect will be the knowledge of it acquired, and the more permanently will it be retained," (Daniels p.126).
 
This “varied form” or multi-sensory approach to learning has been widely embraced. Leading the way is Howard Gardner who says there are multiple ways we learn. His list of Multiple Intelligences is widely accepted today. Basically, children do not have fixed intelligence nor do they all learn the same way. Children learn in multiple ways and their intelligence is developing continuously.

Here are Gardner's multiple intelligences and how singing and signing relate to each:

• Physical learning (movement); Signing provides this through hand manipulation, arm and body movement and facial expression;
• Visual learning (seeing): hand signs are visual by their nature and many of them are iconic (signs that look like what they are);
• 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;
• Musical learning (music, rhythm, melody): Singing our wide collection of songs provides rhythms, rhymes and melodies;
• Mathematical learning (reasoning): This is encouraged as a result of the structure and sequencing involved in singing songs
• Interpersonal learning (with other people): the entire family and the entire class will benefit from signing together and will learn from this interaction.
• Intrapersonal learning (individual learning): We Sign videos and DVD's provide children a way to interact, on an individual basis, with songs and signing.

Gardner goes on to say that he believes it is important to developing children, that they are exposed to rich learning environments allowing them to explore and use as many of these intelligences as possible.

Singing and signing activities work to increase a child's knowledge not only because they are fun and playful activities but because they provide rich learning environments that allow them to explore many of Gardner's list of intelligences, all at the same time.
 
Along with studies concerning play, fun, movement and multiple intelligences, there are specific sign related studies that demonstrate wonderful benefits to hearing children. In the 1970's researchers Acredolo PHD and Goodwyn PHD showed that babies who were taught signing have a much larger vocabulary of sign and spoken words than non-signing children.
 
Other studies in the 1980's supported earlier findings of accelerated language development (the use of recognizable signs as early as 8 ½ months and word combinations by 17 months) and a larger spoken / signed vocabulary than non-signing children of the same age. The benefits of early language for young children are not only that they can communicate their needs and wants but they also will elicit many more responses from the adults and older children around them. These responses are food for these growing minds, allowing them to learn more, understand more and seek more information to grow on.
 
John Holt writes that babies grow their vocabulary because they realize that “Their talk makes things happen.”  This is important for babies, toddlers and preschoolers to learn as it enables them to unlock the information found in both spoken and written words. Signing helps children learn vocabulary and to understand more of what they hear and read as they steadily progress forward in their education.
 
Marilyn Daniels' research supports vocabulary growth through the use of sign language. She found that signing with pre-kindergarten classes had “a dramatic increase in these students' vocabulary.” In one study she documents, “the addition of sign language instruction in the pre-kindergarten curriculum yielded a striking 17.24 increase in the score that reflects these students' language ability. This compares with a 6.48 increase with normal curriculum. The results show a statistically significant improvement in receptive English vocabulary for students who received the sign language instruction."(Daniels)
 
"The use of sign language with hearing children to enhance their education works. It is fun, playful, movement oriented, visual, involves a wide variety of learning styles and not tedious. Signing involves children in the learning process and enables them to memorize information. Signed words are stored in a separate part of the brain from spoken words giving children multiple ways to learn and to retrieve information. The research is showing that the language gains of young children who sign are carried into kindergarten with them with no memory decay over time.” (Daniels).
 
Children learn to crawl, then to walk and then to run in a progression with one skill built upon the other (scaffolding). Children build foundations of learning. Each foundation is built upon a previous one and each foundation supports a child's growth to the next. Signing builds early word and conceptual foundations for young children to increase their vocabulary and their knowledge. As they grow, so can signing help to build new foundations of information that will lead to the next.

There is no doubt that signing is an important part of every hearing child's life.

We Sign provides parents and grandparents, teachers and caregivers a variety of ways to incorporate sign into early learning while having fun interacting with children. We Sign, since its inception, has embraced the use of American Sign Language as a visual moving and involving way to learn. ASL is a language that provides children with language continuity across the country and can be learned and used alongside spoken words. Millions of children, parents, teachers and caregivers have enjoyed participating with and using sign language as a result of the various video products that have been produced.

“Jump Start on Smart”.

Daniels 2, Marilyn, Sign Language Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 Fall2001. p 13-14
 
Daniels, Marilyn, Dancing With Words, Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, 2001
 
Holt, John, How Children Learn, Perseus Books, Cambridge Mass. 1983.
 
Hughes, Fergus P., Children, Play and Development Third Edition, Viacom Company, Needham Heights, MA 1991
 
Kieff, Judith E., and Casbergue, Renee M., Playful Learning and Teaching, A Person Educational Company, Needham Heights, MA, 2000.
 
Pica, Rae, Wiggle, Giggle & Shake, Gryphon House, Beltsville, MD, 2001.
 
Suggested Reading: | Top^  
Dancing With Words, Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy, Marilyn Daniels, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, 2001.
 
Suggested Dictionaries: | Top^  
Random House Webster's American Sign Language Dictionary, Elaine, Costello, Ph.D., Random House, New York, NY, 2001.