Here are 10 simple signs to learn so that you can teach your baby sign language with confidence.
With signing, your baby learns to communicate her needs and observations long before she can speak, so you can easily respond to her.
‘When we sign, we connect the spoken word to a visual sign, which helps your baby to remember and learn the word more quickly,’ Katja explains. ‘Children who sign have also been found to have a larger “word bank” than non-signing children. The more words a child knows and uses by the age of five, the better they are thought to do academically, too.
Baby signing appealed to me as I heard it could help me communicate better with my daughter, Alannah, 11 months, and understand her needs more. We started the class with a welcome song, sitting on chairs in a circle, using signs to sing ‘hello’ and the first letter of each baby’s name. We then moved onto the floor to learn a collection of signs for the day’s theme, ‘In The Garden’. Quite a few babies recognised the hand gestures for bird, butterfly and caterpillar. I learned signs for garden, sunshine and hedgehog.
The lesson finished after 40 minutes and I was offered tea and cakes – always a bonus! The mums sat around chatting about the progress since last week, to a chorus of ‘well done’ and ‘how exciting’ as they proudly revealed what their children had signed for the first time. Some babies who’d been attending for months knew 15 to 20 signs. Newbies were just grasping the basic signs for milk, food and dog.
Baby signing is a fun activity that also helps you communicate better with your baby. Just be prepared to spend time practising at home!Watch a few YouTube videos before your first class to familiarise yourself with basic signs.
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