ABC Playgroup Report
We hold daily morning sessions for children aged 2 - 3 years. There are 21 children on roll.I am the registered provider and manager of the setting and the Signing Fun Programme co-ordinator. Here is the promised progress report.I was already hooked to the power of sign as a tool for communication and language development of the very young after attending Kathy's workshops.
I had started using sign in an unstructured way and by the time of David's presentation, was already signing hello, goodbye, the days of the week, apple, drink, milk, water, biscuit, please, thank you and switching off voice. It is remarkable how quickly the children learnt the signs and were using them. I just hoped that the grown ups could lose their inhibitions and join the fun. That is why I was pleased to invite David to the setting to present the programme and maybe motivate my team. The presentation was good fun and was enjoyed by the ladies and the children. Thank you David.
We decided to start the programme after half term to give everyone a chance to watch the DVDs. Well, we started off with good intentions.
Unfortunately Step 1 of the programme (5 signs a week) has not really taken off. The main reason for this is that we are an "organic" playgroup and everything has to evolve naturally. A structured programme just felt very unnatural to us. However we have not abandoned our resolve to embed sign into practice and we use sign whenever it feels natural. One or other of us introduce a new sign ad hoc and we have a nice repertoire of signs. See list above as well as, happy, sad, sit down, good boy/girl, quiet, play, clever, hungry, no shouting.
We use these signs at arrival/departures times, snack time and during play. At circle time we have introduced signs for the days of the week, we have a repertoire of signed songs with signs for doctor, dolly, teddy, hat, bag, look, sick, pill, lion, tiger, cat, dog, mouse, horse, sheep, elephant, crocodile (we like that one) zebra and monkey. We also know star, sky, colours, blue, red and have introduced the children to finger spelling the initial letter of their names. I have to say that "switching off the voice" is nothing short of MAGIC!
The power of sign is amazing, our children are very young and many do not use their voice. Sign somehow unlocks their speech, they recognise the signs almost instantly and somehow are able to say the word.One child, who has been attending since the start of term and has been very silent, now knows all the signs and relates them. I was signing "happy" and she showed me the sign for "sad" and said the word. Now that she has found her voice, I have discovered her well-developed use of language and a huge pool of knowledge. Today we had a lengthy conversation about animals that live in trees (this started from me signing "tree") and went on to talk about creatures that live in shells, she informed me that turtles live in the sea. This conversation was instigated by her and she is just 3 years old. WOW!
One of our twin boys (30 months) who is not at all speech dependent, does not join in at circle time and generally does his own thing, completely amazed us at circle time … I asked the children to tell me what day it was, he signed "Tuesday and then said it. This was the first time I had heard him speak and indeed, it was Tuesday. WOW! Yesterday, one of our more vocal chaps, when asked what day it was said "Monday". I silently prompted by signing "Tuesday" and he immediately said "Tuesday". I silently signed the rest of the days just to check that this was not a fluke, guess what? It wasn't. Today, this same chap had to correct me when I was saying Wednesday and signing Monday. WOW! Some of the children already know the fingerspelling initial letter of their name and this is after being shown maybe 2 or 3 times. WOW!
These are some of the memorable instances. I could go on to give examples of when children either recognise or use the signs and even make up their own! It really is a way of "getting into" the children.
The next stage for the programme will be;
- SPRING TERM - involve parents and increase repertoire of songs and rhymes.
- SUMMER TERM - expand on phonics and fingerspelling.
WATCH THIS SPACE!
