Signing with Little Ones

​Kids are amazing!  Right from when they are born, they are instinctively trying to communicate with us.  

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If we look at the typical development stages, children can use gestures before they can clearly speak and it's this phase that creates a wonderful opportunity.  Common gestures include waving, clapping, blowing kisses, pointing, raised arms - we can add to this heartwarming list and build in some practical and fun actions too.

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Instead of making up your own gestures, families can use already established 'signs' from an official sign language and in our case, New Zealand Sign Language is New Zealand's third official language and what we use in our classes.

Parents choose a few important words to sign whilst talking to their little one, this then helps their child identify and understand the key words sooner. 

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When the child is developmentally able to, they can then communicate using these signs.  It provides the child a way of letting caregivers know what they want, how they are feeling or things they have observed. 

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As the child begins to talk, it helps support those early words and phrases (you know the ones... when you have no idea what they are saying!).  Once their words are clear and understood, the signs just tend to drop away naturally.