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Sign language offers lessons for children who can hear | StarTribune.com
Lydia Zabar begins her weekly visits to the day-care home with a song familiar to the enthusiastic toddlers and preschoolers clustered around her.
They join in not only with their voices, but also with their hands, signing the words right along with her.
The children at Apple Tree Family Childcare in Burnsville also sign a variety of other words during the 30-minute sing-and-sign session that Zabar tailors specifically for home day-care sites, including signs that might be particularly helpful to younger children in the bunch, such as “diaper, dry and wet, off and on.”
One of the goals of My Smart Hands, the American Sign Language (ASL) program taught by Zabar, is to give hearing children as young as
7 months old the ability to communicate with parents and caregivers before they learn to speak, which typically occurs around age 2.
My Smart Hands was developed in 2005 by a Canadian middle-school teacher who taught ASL to improve her students’ literacy. Zabar is the program’s first certified instructor in Minnesota. (Baby Signs offers a similar program in the area for babies and toddlers.)
“It’s so frustrating for children when they can’t communicate what it is they want or need to their parents, so that’s why teaching them sign language offers them a way to get their point across,” said Zabar, who lives with her husband, Trevor, and their 11-month-old daughter, Jiselle, in Burnsville. She first learned sign language from a hearing-impaired relative.
“Milk” was the first sign Zabar taught Jiselle. By the time she was 6 months old, Jiselle began to sign “milk” back to her mom and now uses the sign regularly. Jiselle is starting to learn other signs, as well. “She has already figured out that I have to be looking at her so that I’ll know what she wants,” said Zabar.
Nicole Ross, who owns Apple Tree with her husband, Will, said she’s noticed the kids using sign language more and more frequently with her and with each other, which has been particularly helpful for two youngsters who do not speak English as their first language.
Ross also believes the introduction to ASL will be helpful for those children in her care who eventually will attend nearby Gideon Pond Elementary, the school attended by Burnsville-Eagan-Savage students who are deaf or hearing-impaired.
“I’m hoping this will help our kids be able to communicate with new students they will meet at the school,” she said.
Jimmy Beldon, associate professor for the ASL/Interpreting Program at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, said he is encouraged by the prospect of sign language being learned by hearing children.
“The benefits are numerous because it will help them further their communication skills with both deaf and hearing people on a long-term basis,” said Beldon, who is deaf.
By developing a positive relationship with ASL at a young age, Beldon believes, hearing children will develop cultural sensitivity to the deaf community and perhaps study ASL further.
“They will learn another language, just like they might learn Chinese or Spanish,” he said. “We in the deaf community will gain an ally.”
Lydia Zabar begins her weekly visits to the day-care home with a song familiar to the enthusiastic toddlers and preschoolers clustered around her.
They join in not only with their voices, but also with their hands, signing the words right along with her.
The children at Apple Tree Family Childcare in Burnsville also sign a variety of other words during the 30-minute sing-and-sign session that Zabar tailors specifically for home day-care sites, including signs that might be particularly helpful to younger children in the bunch, such as “diaper, dry and wet, off and on.”
One of the goals of My Smart Hands, the American Sign Language (ASL) program taught by Zabar, is to give hearing children as young as
7 months old the ability to communicate with parents and caregivers before they learn to speak, which typically occurs around age 2.
My Smart Hands was developed in 2005 by a Canadian middle-school teacher who taught ASL to improve her students’ literacy. Zabar is the program’s first certified instructor in Minnesota. (Baby Signs offers a similar program in the area for babies and toddlers.)
“It’s so frustrating for children when they can’t communicate what it is they want or need to their parents, so that’s why teaching them sign language offers them a way to get their point across,” said Zabar, who lives with her husband, Trevor, and their 11-month-old daughter, Jiselle, in Burnsville. She first learned sign language from a hearing-impaired relative.
“Milk” was the first sign Zabar taught Jiselle. By the time she was 6 months old, Jiselle began to sign “milk” back to her mom and now uses the sign regularly. Jiselle is starting to learn other signs, as well. “She has already figured out that I have to be looking at her so that I’ll know what she wants,” said Zabar.
Nicole Ross, who owns Apple Tree with her husband, Will, said she’s noticed the kids using sign language more and more frequently with her and with each other, which has been particularly helpful for two youngsters who do not speak English as their first language.
Ross also believes the introduction to ASL will be helpful for those children in her care who eventually will attend nearby Gideon Pond Elementary, the school attended by Burnsville-Eagan-Savage students who are deaf or hearing-impaired.
“I’m hoping this will help our kids be able to communicate with new students they will meet at the school,” she said.
Jimmy Beldon, associate professor for the ASL/Interpreting Program at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, said he is encouraged by the prospect of sign language being learned by hearing children.
“The benefits are numerous because it will help them further their communication skills with both deaf and hearing people on a long-term basis,” said Beldon, who is deaf.
By developing a positive relationship with ASL at a young age, Beldon believes, hearing children will develop cultural sensitivity to the deaf community and perhaps study ASL further.
“They will learn another language, just like they might learn Chinese or Spanish,” he said. “We in the deaf community will gain an ally.”