Teaching little ones the joy of reading

The sign language of infancy

Twenty-five years ago at UC Davis, Linda Acredolo, Ph.D., (left) and Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D., discovered that babies were spontaneously using simple gestures for words they were not yet able to say. They might sniff for “flower,” pant for “dog” or flap their arms for “bird.” Acredolo and Goodwyn wondered what would happen if parents helped this process along. So began a major breakthrough in infant-parent communication called the Baby Signs Program (babysigns.com). This natural baby sign language allows babies and their parents to use simple signs to communicate about things, such as being hungry or thirsty, hot or cold, afraid or sad. Using signs gives hearing babies a way to “talk” with their parents, before they can verbalize.
    “We were in South Davis interviewing a mom,” says Acredolo, “and she said that her 18-month-old daughter was signing. The little girl tugged on her mom’s trousers and panted, and then made a knob-twisting motion with her hand. Mom said, ‘Excuse me, I have to let the dog out.’ Susan and I said, ‘Yep, that’s it.’”
    Acredolo says babies are desperate to communicate. “They make up signs. So we thought, ‘What would happen if you purposely encouraged them to do that?’” First, they studied spontaneous signing. Then, in 1989, a National Institutes of Health grant launched their major study with a group of babies whose parents encouraged them to sign. “That two-year study tracked the language development of babies 11 months old to 36 months old. We wanted to know for certain if there were any downsides to babies signing. There were none. There’s magic in that. Until you see it, you don’t understand the power of it.”
    Through two decades of research, Baby Signs researchers proved that using signs actually enhance a baby’s language, cognitive and social-emotional development. Acredolo and Goodwyn’s groundbreaking book, Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, published in 1996, quickly became a best-seller. Baby Signs garnered all manners of national media attention from Oprah to Newsweek. It recently launched a potty-training program that promises to help parents with that tough task. Today, the Baby Signs Institute offers parent workshops and classes on how to use the Baby Signs Program at home.
    Acredolo shares a few of her favorite children’s books.

Baby-preschool

Acredolo says everybody in her family loves Dog (Simon & Schuster, $14.99) by Matthew Van Fleet and Brian Stanton. “It’s very interactive with tabs to pull and flaps to lift and fur to feel—lots of tactile stuff with beautiful photos of dogs doing wonderful things. It’s great for signing because babies love dogs. There is a lot to be learned from this beautiful, oversized book.” Dog showcases 20 breeds of canines demonstrating action words, opposites, synonyms and more. Your toddler will be “arfing” from beginning to end.

Ages 4-8

“We routinely use Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Hyperion, $15.99) by Mo Willems in our classes,” says Acredolo. “It’s a Caldecott Medal winner about a little girl and her dad going to the laundromat. She has her knuffle bunny [pronounced k-nuffle, a Dutch term for “snuggle,” according to the author’s website] and puts it in the washer. They leave it behind by mistake, and she ends up screaming all the way home. If she knew how to sign, she’d have been able to communicate.” Acredolo says the book is a wonderful illustration of the frustration children feel before they can talk. Willems used sepia-toned photographs of a Brooklyn neighborhood as backdrops for his hand-drawn artwork. Stylized characters—especially Trixie, who can communicate all the universal signs of toddler distress—ratchet up the humor. Everyone in the lap-sit crowd, parents and children alike, will love this book.

Acredolo says she read Love You Forever (Red Fox Books, $5.95) by Robert N. Munsch and Sheila McGraw to her son when he was young. “My 21-year-old son and I still recite the chorus to each other: ‘I’ll love you forever, like ’til always. As long as you’re living, my baby/mommy you’ll be.’ I read this book to him every night and we’d recite the refrain. I still sign my cards to him that way.” The book chronicles the relationship between a mother and her son from baby to toddler and beyond. He goes to school, then college, then has children of his own. Then she gets older and he has to take care of her. This tender ode to the life cycle of a family is a best-selling classic.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to Solano Magazine »