Book Review - Baby Sign Language Basics
Name
Author
Amazon Link
Rating
4/5 stars
Why I Read It
I wanted to learn about the topic of baby sign language because I thought it would be really cool to be able to communicate with my son before he was able to talk. The first time I encountered this concept was in the movie Meet the Fockers, but I thought it was totally fake. Then I heard that a friend of my wife had used it successfully with her daughter, so I decided to give it a try.
Description
I think it’s a great book.
It starts by addressing the benefits, concerns and questions parents may have about signing, and then goes straight into explaining the technique: its methods, pitfalls, best practices and the reasoning behind all of those.
I was really surprised by how powerful signing with children can be. I learned that for a very long time (from 1 to 2 years) our kids can understand a lot that goes around them, but aren’t able to communicate it effectively. With books such as this, they now have a chance.
Chapters are succinct and easy to read, making the overall reading experience fun and effortless. The author draws on a lot of examples from her own interactions with her children, making them both illustrative and relatable.
I’m testing it with my son right now and haven’t got any signing from him at the time I’m writing this. Still, now that I’ve read the book I understand that it’s a slow process that requires a lot of patience. Kids are expected to sign back at some point after they’re 6 months old, but usually this happens a long time after that. Since my son is just turning 6 months old, there’s a good chance I’ll still have to wait at least a couple of months before he signs back anything that I can understand.
Favorite Lesson Learned
The best thing I learned from the book was that you should try to make a sing while your baby is experiencing the feeling associated with it. When he or she is cold, sing cold. When he or she wants or is drinking milk, sign milk. That will help your kid associate that particular feeling with the sign, and therefore be more aligned to use it in the future.
Who Is It For
This book is for any parent who has a kid that isn’t talking just yet and that wants to communicate better with him or her. As the book states, after kids start talking it’s really hard to teach them signing, since they won’t see the purpose of it anymore. Therefore, teaching your kids to sign only makes sense before this point.
Signing really has a lot of advantages. It enables you to:
- communicate better with your kids
- better understand their needs
- see the world through their eyes
- help them develop their language skills faster
There are so many benefits that I believe every new parent should give it a try.
Favorite Quote
“Signing won’t inhibit your baby’s language development any more than crawling will inhibit his learning to walk.”
Pages
122 pages of the main book.
320 pages of the appendix, which contains a sign vocabulary to be used for reference.
