This beginner’s guide to American Sign Language introduces groups of words that children would be most likely to use; relevant groups include words related to family, home, food, colors, school, and more. There’s information on American Sign Language; illustrated how-to explanations for signing each word helps the child learn many basic signs. An included poster illustrating the proper fingerspelling for each letter of the alphabet will help children learn the signed alphabet.

Whether a child learns sign language for communicating with others or as a second language, this book assists in presenting the basic information with colorful illustrations and age-appropriate explanations.

Highly recommended. ( )

Summary: A great way to learn the beauty and language of sing language! Children and adults alike will enjoy the simplicity and detailed illustrations of how to demonstrate each sign!

Personal Reaction: This book gave a overview of basics for learning signs. I think this is so important, and that anyone who would like to learn a language would enjoy this book immensely!

Classroom extensions: I think it would be neat for students to take a letter each and demonstrate it. They could take turns teaching one sign to one another until they understood them. ( )

This book provides an overview to children getting ready to learn sign language. The book first teaches the children the basic alphabet. It then moves on to nouns and words that are normally used for sentence construction. Other things taught in the book are numbers, days of the week, today, tomorrow, yesterday, and emotions. Everyday sayings are also included in this book.

I think this is a great book for teachers and students who are just beginning to learn sign language. The illustrations in the book are bold and colorful, and help keep the kids interested and focused. The book also provides examples so students can associate the hand movement with a word. Providing the gestures for family members and emotions will help children have another means of communicating.

An activity that could be done in the classroom is that all of the students could sing and sign the alphabet. The teacher could use simple gestures during a lesson which would force children to pay attention since they miss something. Learning different signs would also allow children to communicate with each other during times when they aren’t suppose to be talking.

REVIEW: Featuring cool computer-generated illustrations and a simple kid-friendly design, this reference book for the youngest readers makes learning sign language fun and easy! Learn 100 basic signs for everyday use in helpful categories, such as Food, Colors, Animals, In the Classroom, and more! Also included are instructions on how to fingerspell the entire alphabet and numbers.
SOURCE: Lakewood Library
AGE: 3-5