All Day Long is one of our Baby Fingers board books. You can see all our books on our website at www.mybabyfingers.com/products (also available on amazon.com and b&n.com)- along with our webinars and DVDs, the books provide a wonderful resource for home study, either to get started on your own or to support what you’re learning in a Baby Fingers class. The signs below from Hands4Learning can help get you through some of your day with your baby or toddler. It almost doesn’t matter what you sign first – as long as you are signing consistently, you’ll likely get a response from your little one. It may start with increased eye contact, smiles, and then some exploration of her hands, called manual babbling. Soon enough she’ll begin to understand your signs, try to imitate them, and eventually sign to you spontaneously. Once she speaks, you’ll likely notice a large vocabulary, and the signs will gradually be dropped. New words and concepts will still be clearer to her if you can introduce them with signs, and you may have a long-term 2nd language in your family! Your baby is prone to pointing and gesturing, and can manipulate toys at a much early age than she can speak – but she knows what she wants and needs, even though she can’t yet tell you. With sign language, she can express herself using a real language. Visit our Articles and Press pages to see some of the literature and research supporting the benefits of sign language in early childhood.
