That is great here are some web sites to look into: lifeprint.com (asl university) lesson tutor These have free lessons for ASL. also I would reccomond The Joys of Signing. It is a great book to Teach your self ASL (you have hit one of my passions, I love signning! maybe one day I might finish school and get my cert in ASL interptering.) There is an online ASL dictionary, but I don't remember the site. sorry .
Make sure it's ASL (American Sign Language) and NOT Signed English. Also, make sure you have a VIDEO that actually shows the signs MOVING! ASL is difficult to impossible to learn from a book only.
My older children were younger when we did it so we did Signing Times. That won't take you all the way through, but will give a basis and a start. But it might not help much if your children are older. My daughter was 8 yrs old. It was not boring for me to watch with her and my 5 yr old watches it now and gets excited and does the signs.
http://aslbrowser.commtechlab.msu.edu/browser.htm This is a great thing that I used to teach my kiddo's when they were little. They are a lady who actually does the signs in short video's and its FREEEEE
Thanks for all this I was going to post a similar post myself! I have been trying to decide which language to start with my 7 year old this school year and he actually suggested sign language so I think we are going to do it and see how it goes! Thanks everyone for all the great websites
A great book is "Talking with your hands Listening with your eyes" It is fun to make flash cards and play games with them. Like hide them and sign the card you find, matching games and make them sign the card they pick up etc. Sign Language is a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to the rest of you for the links!
Dictionary for signing http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi This Site was mentioned above but be sure to check out Dr Bill's Fingerspelling Tool on http://www.lifeprint.com/
We have a conglommeration (sp?) of several resources, but our favorite so far has been the Signing At School series. Its pictures are easily understood, and moves them directly into conversational phrases - the things they're going to need to know in a first-time signing experience in real life. My sister took ASL in college for her foreign language, and helped us brush up this summer. My cousin specialized in ASL /special education and is fluent in ASL. (My sister and my cousin both graduated from Texas Tech in May, and will begin teaching in the fall. My cousin took 4 years of ASL in high school in addition to her college courses. You should have seen all of us communicating during the graduation - graduates on the floor, family up in the stands. It was pretty cool.) Anyway, I plan to find Signing Time this fall, whether through our library, or Netflix, or I'm not sure where - but I'll find it! Also, we happen to live near the state School for the Deaf, and toured there this past spring. I think that we shall make it a regular field trip. (The School for the Blind is also in Austin.) I think knowing ASL is a useful tool in life even amongst those of us who are not hearing impaired (take the graduation example!) but also if there is an emergency - and my boys are scouts - and no one can communicate with the injured person, or if the only witness to what has happened is hearing impaired, then my kids knowing ASL might save a life. And yes, I think that's true for any language. Around here, we plan to learn ASL, Spanish (those two are the most frequently used in this area)... and Latin and Greek roots at minimum. I plan to allow the kids to pick whatever foreign language they desire when in high school, though admittedly I'll steer them towards Greek and Hebrew. German is also in the realm of possibility, as it's hubby's heritage. Sorry, tangent.
I have actually used it at the grocery store on occasion. One time, someone had bought a birthday cake, and it wasn't there when she checked out, and she pretty much accused the Deaf employee of not giving it to her. The employee had no idea what she had done wrong, and it turned out that another customer had picked it up (knowing full well, imo, that it wasn't theirs!!!) Another time, a person ahead of me in line was confused over the price of an item.
Thanks! You all have given me so much to look over. My kids are 16, 12, and 6 and of course my husband and I want to learn as well. Our son has some speech delays and we think it would be wonderful communication tool for him as well as something both our girls can use in their future careers.
You're talking two different things. To talk with DEAF, you will want to learn American Sign Language. It is a LANGUAGE, complete with its own grammar structure. It is NOT ENGLISH!!! IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SIGN AND TALK ENGLISH SIMULTANIOUSLY!!! However, when dealing with non-verbal (or delayed) HEARING children, you want to learn a form of SIGNED ENGLISH (check out Total Communication!). Signed Exact English (SEE) is one option (one I personally don't like AT ALL), and SIGLISH is another. And there are more. This is allows you to sign and speak English at the same time. You are signing English, using English words and grammar. Let me try to illustrate what I mean. When I was in the classroom, my class (four physically handicapped kids) wrote a school newspaper each month. I would sit at the computer (an Apple 2e, with an Imagewriter I printer, lol!!!) with my class around me, typing and speaking at the same time. (The kids were fascinated by the fact that I didn't have to look at my fingers to type, lol!) But I was typing and speaking BOTH in English. Now imagine how difficult it would be if I were typing in English and talking French at the same time. Yes, it CAN be done, but it would be VERY difficult. You're dealing with two totally different languages. The only difference is that people who use Signed English systems have borrowed signs from ASL, so most people don't really understand the difference.
