Signing Savvy, Your Sign Language Resource

In all my years of signing, I have never had anyone say to me, "I can't believe how easy fingerspelling is!" or "Man, I really LOVE fingerspelling all these odd words that don't have signs for them." It just isn't a favorite part of the job! It is the thing that makes even seasoned interpreters break into a sweat when they have to start signing for a calculus class or in a court of law with a bunch ...

One thing that many new signers struggle with is how to show tense (past, present and future) while signing. In ASL, you don't sign words like went or going or suffixes like "ing", "ed" or "s". By including the sign NOW at the beginning of a sentence, you can clarify the sentence is in the present tense. English Version: I am going to the store. ASL Version: NOW + STORE + I + GO. By including the sign PAST or BEFORE ...

One of the most common questions I get from people who are first learning sign language is, "How do you remember so many new words? It's overwhelming!" It is; and unless you plan on incorporating it into your everyday life, it won't stick with you. Often sign language instructors will divide sign vocabulary up into categories like household items, food, family, colors, shapes etc... Doing this helps you to categorize the words and file them into your memory bank that way. ...

Learning signing language as a foreign language is a very good option for hearing students. It greatly enhances their understanding of languages. It increases their ability to communicate in a variety of situations when a spoken language is not an option. And American Sign Language is the fourth most used language in the United States. We love the idea of a world where more and more people are able to more effectively communicate with our vibrant Deaf and Hard ...

Challenge: Often times when a Deaf student is at the high school level, they have been using the language for so long that they are very fluent in it and great storytellers using their language, sign language, yet they still struggle with putting that great ability into a written form. This is where this next lesson idea can be a helpful tool. Activity: Research a topic, present findings in a video, then write a report Most students have times where they have ...

This blog is part of a series of Teaching Tips for teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students. However, many of the ideas would work well in ANY teaching situation where you are working with children and parents (families). The last article in this series was aimed at elementary education, now it is time to move on to the Middle School age students and continue our work on literacy skills. (Remember our goal is to improve reading, writing and ...

This blog is part of a series of Teaching Tips for teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students. However, many of the ideas would work well in ANY teaching situation where you are working with children and parents (families). We will begin at the ground level with an elementary level suggestion for improving literacy and work our way up to other grade levels in later blogs. This suggestion works on the basis that children learn better when they are involved in ...

Many people who have worked in the field of Deaf Education have had to deal with an alarming statistic that has plagued the field for a long time. The average reading level of the exiting or graduating deaf senior is that of a 4th grader. It has fluctuated over the years but for the most part it is still much lower than any of us would care to accept. I have heard many different explanations as to why this ...

Children's books are often great learning tools because they are visual, help build a child's vocabulary, and kids love them! I use them all the time in my teaching to young students. Now, with Signing Savvy and a bit of creativity, you can create a sign language version of your favorite children's books to further enhance their learning potential. Below is an example of a very well known children's classic that has been modified to show the signs. To create this book, ...

Teachers, I know you are all enjoying your summers and don\'t really want to think about \"Back to School\" just yet, but I thought I would take the time, over the next few blog posts, to highlight some of the cool things you can do with the Signing Savvy features to add a little creativity to your ...