I have always loved to read. My husband and I read a lot at home, and from very early on, we read to our kids while incorporating sign language. They began “reading” to themselves at a very young age by taking a book off the shelf and signing something that they saw on each page.
A favorite memory of mine: my younger son, at 13 or 14 months, was sitting on the living room floor “reading” an Elmo book. I was watching from the kitchen as he turned the pages and signed “elmo,” “apple,” “eat,” “elmo eat apple”—then he jumped up and toddled over to the kitchen where he knocked on the fridge. When I asked what he wanted, he signed “apple.” He took the apple I gave him back to his book in the living room and signed “I eat apple”… then continued reading his book. 🙂
Anyone can incoporate sign language while reading…. ASL story telling is really wonderful to watch, but even just signing a word here and there throughout a book makes it more interactive and engaging. Try it!
