Your Baby Can Read?

There's a discussion going on over at www.babycenter.com regarding reading program for babies. What a great discussion! I’m all for anything that encourages parents to spend time with their children and that encourages positive interaction. Get down on your child’s level, read books, look at flashcards, use gestures, use sign language, sing and laugh. Do all of these things together as long as both parties are interested.

Language Development

Imitate your baby’s sounds and gestures while labeling the things she feels, hears and sees using both speech and any signs you know. Signing won’t delay speech but it will let your baby play with language using a motor ability, their hands, that develops earlier than the motor ability for spoken words.

Reading Development

Read to your baby! Use boardbooks that have bright colours and one or two big concepts per page. Watch your baby when you look at books together and talk about where her interests seem to be. It’s okay to go beyond the text in the book. If your baby or toddler is interested in flashcards and DVDs, watch them together and talk about them again when you are outside or elsewhere in the house. Make learning meaningful to your baby, but also make it fun!

Sign the ABC’s with your little one. When you are reading to them show them different letters in your books. Point to words as you read them. Make reading enjoyable and fun!

POPCORN: American Sign Language for POPCORN

This is the American Sign Language sign for POPCORN. It uses the 1 shapes popping up and down, alternately.



Show this sign to your toddler when you see popcorn in books or in magazines, even if you see it in videos. When you pop popcorn, show the sign before the popping starts, e.g., "We're going to make POPCORN!". Show the sign while the corn is popping, e.g., "Look/listen, we're making POPCORN!". Then, the best part, show the sign for POPCORN when are a eating popcorn! Always say the word as you sign it and offer small bites.

My son at 2 years would stand in front of the microwave and dance and sign for 2 1/2 minutes while our popcorn popped! I definitely knew what he wanted!

What Inspires WeeHands

When I started WeeHands, I had a group of moms to 6 month old babies  sitting with me in my living room, three of the babies were typically developing, one of them, his name is Weldon, has Down syndrome.  His parents knew he had Down syndrome before he was born and after he was born they travelled to Toronto's Sick Kids 2-3 days a week from thier farm in north Durham Region each week since Weldon's birth. They also had a 6 year old little girl who came to class with Weldon so she could learn to sign with her brother. 


Yes, when I met Weldon's family, they had two children, one a baby with special needs, lived on and ran a farm on north Durham Region and commuted for hours a week into Toronto for months. 

Weldon's mom sat through our 8 week baby sign language class watching as the other babies sat up on their own for the first time and starting to crawl.  She knew Weldon would be slow to all these milestones.  After our two month class, we had a little graduate ceremony and she hung back at my front door as the other moms left.  She teared up and said, "Sara, I just wanted to thank you.  This was the first normal thing I've done with my baby".  Weldon's mom inspires me to this day, everyday.

Sign language, is for all children, of all abilities, everywhere.