Spell It Out!
Give your child lots of fingerspelled words to connect what she is seeing, doing and feeling.
Think about it
What is fingerspelling ?
Why is fingerspelling important?
Isn’t my baby too young for fingerspelling?
little fingers can spell too!
In American Sign Language (ASL), each letter of the alphabet is shown by a unique handshape. Words can be spelled by making the handshape for each letter. This is called fingerspelling.
Fingerspelling is an important literacy skill, and young children who use ASL should be exposed to fingerspelling early and often!
Here is what you can do
One way to learn to fingerspell it to watch other’s fingerspell. Find videos on the web for examples of fingerspelling.
You can help your baby learn to fingerspell by “sandwiching” the fingerspelled word between signs. Here are a few examples…
Baby brings you a truck. What do you do? Tune in to his interest and sign about the truck! “You have a yellow dump truck!” Fingerspell T-R-U-C-K. “Look, the back moves up and down!”
Think about where your baby plays. Get down on the floor with your baby and get close. When your baby touches your hair, sign about it. “You feel my hair.” Sign HAIR, fingerspell H-A-I-R, and sign HAIR again. “I have long brown hair and you have short red hair.”
Your baby is in the stroller and looking at some children kicking a soccer ball. What do you do? - Share your baby’s focus and give signs for what you’re both seeing. Sign something like, “The children are kicking a ball.” Point to the ball and sign BALL, fingerspell B-A-L-L, then sign BALL again.
Babies learn by seeing signs and fingerspelled words over and over in meaningful conversations. Think about fingerspelling simple words for your child that are key words in your daily life such as baby, eat, toy, mom, dad, milk, cat, dog, etc.
Remember you can fingerspell any word until you learn the sign.
Communicate often with your child’s early interventionist, teachers, audiologists, speech pathologists, and other professionals to make sure your child is communicating and learning at the same rate as other children.
If your child is not learning and communicating at the same rate as other children, contact Babies Can’t Wait, Ga. PINES, your local school system for children over 3 years old, or Georgia Mobile Audiology for resources.