Tiny Talkers Baby Sign Language Classes

Way back when Sunshine was about one, I remember visiting a friend of mine who signed with her young son.  She said signing had made a huge difference for him because he could now communicate with her non-verbally and was much less frustrated and prone to temper tantrums.  I liked the idea of signing and later picked up a book about baby signs, but never really applied it with either Sunshine or Lily.

Recently, Jade learned to wave bye-bye—the first “sign” that any of our girls ever learned, and the one that always gets me excited about teaching them more signs.  So when Shira Fogel of Tiny Talkers Baby Sign Language Classes approached me about trying out her new video program, I was interested.

Shira began using baby sign language with her daughter and son, then was trained and became certified to teach baby sign language by a speech and language pathologist.  Her vision is to teach American Sign Language (ASL) to parents who want to communicate more with their pre-verbal children.  She offers a variety of in-person classes in Portland, Oregon and has now developed a 2.5-hour webcast filled with all the information you need to start signing with your baby.

I liked the fact that the Tiny Talkers Baby Sign Language webcast was broken into shorter segments (about fifteen minutes each), so that I could watch them as I had time rather than trying to carve out a huge chunk of time in order to learn everything at once.  Shira immediately impressed me with her knowledge of signing and her enthusiasm for it.  She explained how to start signing, why signing is useful, when to know that your baby is ready to start signing, things to watch for while signing, and so much more.

I found it much easier to learn the signs by watching Shira do them in the video than by trying to learn them myself from a little book.  Along with the webcast, Shira offers a package of printable downloads.  The handout goes over some of the information she shared in the video (in case you want to review or are a visual learner like me).  It includes activities and games to promote baby signing, a list of books to encourage signing and language development, links for more information, and a description of the signs.

Shira also includes a Dictionary for Baby Sign Language, with pictures of each of the signs, and a Journal for Baby Sign Language, so you can keep track of what signs your baby has learned.

I’m looking forward to learning more signs with Jade this year.  Shira offers free email follow-up for those who purchases the webcast.  And if you know someone who is having a baby, you can get them a gift certificate for Tiny Talkers Baby Sign Language.

I received a free Tiny Talkers sign language class for the purpose of this review; all opinions expressed are my own.