The First Signs Are Always The Hardest ~ Chris

Posted on March 19, 2014 by chris

Once you have mastered the first few signs, your baby’s abilities will compound and each sign thereafter becomes that much easier to teach.  However, in the early stages you should expect signs to come slowly.  In fact, it might take a few weeks or even months to teach your first sign.  Then it might take two weeks for the next one to come, and then another week for the second, then a few days and so forth for each sign thereafter.  Eventually, you’ll reach what is called the “signing explosion” where signs are added daily or even instantly.

However, before you start, you should have the mental fortitude not to look too far forward.  You should know that things will get easier with time, but don’t detach yourself from the moment.  Reason being is that if you look too far ahead, you’ll get caught up doing signs for the wrong reasons.  You aren’t signing at 10 months or 11 months or whatever so that baby can sign faster when they’re older and you certainly shouldn’t be trying to grow your baby up as quickly as possible.  Signs are meant to connect with your baby right now, not tomorrow or the next day.

Having said this, know that the first sign are the hardest.  Know this before starting so as to have reasonable expectations.  There will be times when you think baby is never going to get it.  You might even think that your baby isn’t getting anywhere or making any progress at all.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Even if your baby isn’t signing, he is still learning.  His mind is making connections and more often than not, he is taking the information in receptively.  His expressive language is on the way, I assure you.  For all you know, he might start signing five minutes from now, or ten minutes or maybe he’ll sign the next day.  There’s really no way to tell so keep on task and keep signing.

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Take Your Camera With You! ~ Courtney

Posted on March 12, 2014 by chris

When your baby has caught on that there is a sign for everything, she will look to you to show her the sign for whatever interests her in her environment.  When our son was in the explosion phase of signing, I tried to be prepared for whatever new signs he might want to learn, especially if we were going out on an excursion.  Now that he’s a little older and knows almost 200 signs, he’s patient enough to wait for me to look it up when we get home.

In order to keep the object or action at the front of his mind, we talk about it while looking at it, then for awhile after, and again when I teach him the sign.  This becomes so much easier if I have my camera with me and can take a picture!  That way, when we get home, I can remind him of the new animal he saw on our trip to the pet store, for example, by showing him the picture and teaching him the sign.  We can then revisit the picture again and again as often as he likes and solidify the sign in his memory (as well as the word now that he is talking).

So many people (babies included) are visual learners, so take your camera with you all the time and take pictures of the things you will sign about with your baby.  She will love to look through them and show you that she remembers the signs for all of them!

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Just Sign – Baby Sign Language Is Nothing Like Learning A New Language ~ Chris

Posted on March 5, 2014 by chris

Signing requires no extra time – it’s just something you do.  You don’t set time aside to talk to your baby, and signing is the exact same thing.  Just whenever you say a word, sign along, it’s not much more complicated than that!  You can sign as you read books, sign as you sign, sign as you play and on and on.  Whenever you explore new places, meet new people, sign.  Signing can help reinforce new concepts and new routines and also ease a child into new habits.

Don’t worry that signing will be too much like learning a new language.  In fact, it’s not even close.  The signs you will do are so much like the things you are signing they’ll come naturally to you.  If you feel apprehensive then just learn one or two signs and add more as you feel comfortable.  In fact, our course recommends that you start with just one sign and then add another one after a week.  Surely, you can remember how to bring the fingertips of both hands together to sign MORE, right?

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When Will Baby Sign Back? ~ Chris

Posted on February 26, 2014 by chris

When will my baby sign back is probably the single most common question parents have when the first start teaching their baby to sign.  The easy answer is that baby will sign back just as soon as they are ready and not a moment sooner.  Babies just aren’t in a rush (unlike busy parents) so they work by nobodies timeline or schedule (oh the bliss!).  That might be why parents get a bit antsy when baby seems to understand exactly what’s going on, but just isn’t doing it the way we expect them to.

No sense in getting all worked up over this though.  I can promise with certainty that your baby isn’t delaying things on purpose and further to this can guarantee that they are doing the very best that they can.  This much is true, so don’t apply more pressure to your baby to sign or shows signs of frustration.  They’ll get plenty of pressure as they age so now’s really not the time.

Most babies reach their peek receptivity at about 11-12 month.  Some babies have been noted to sign back at 4 months, although rare, and some still will sign back pushing 15 months plus.  Like crawling, walking and eventually talking, signing is a milestone which happens when a baby has mastered coordination coupled with sufficient mental development.  Babies also need require long term memory for which to write their signs upon so they can be recalled later.  Some babies have all this pulled forward, while others play catch-up to the norms.  Whatever happens, never forget that your baby is on their way, but it’s you who’s defining success, not them.  All your baby knows is the moment.  Take a page from their book and look at things in the here and now.

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Most Common Technique To Teaching Sign – “Modeling” ~ Chris

Posted on February 19, 2014 by chris

While there are many intricate details to teaching baby sign language including many techniques that will help you avoid pitfalls (as described in our course), the main technique you will employ to teaching a baby to sign is what is called “modeling.”

In this simplest terms “modeling” means that you will do the sign yourself in such a way that your baby will see it.  Once your baby has made the connection between the sign and it’s meaning, he will repeat it back on his own.  That’s the idea anyway.

This is putting baby sign language on easy street because there is a lot that goes into teaching sign language and certainly other techniques to teaching sign that will help you be more efficient and proficient.  That’s why we recommend our course so strongly.  If you think you will tire easy and would like to take some shortcuts while making the entire affair more enjoyable, then the course is for you.  If you like to play “show and tell” and just sign hoping your baby will pick it up (like spoken language) you’ll still enjoy some basic success.  It’s not in all of our characters to be mediocre, so that’s why we put the course together, to excel at baby sign and get the most out of the signing experience.  Why struggle through when you can learn from our collective signing mistakes!

So when you consider signing with the help of Definitive Baby Sign, keep these thought in mind.  We can make signing a more pleasant experience for you and your baby and tackle all the issues before you’ve even experienced them!  Not to mention, we can get your baby signing within a few short weeks – that’s our guarantee!

Posted in Baby Sign Language Techniques | 1 Comment