| Signing Songs is a Powerful Language and Literacy Strategy Excerpts from The Magic of Signing Songs: Enhancing All Children's Literacy Skills and Love of Language by Nellie Edge Signing Songs and Finger Spelling Builds Early Literacy Skills.
Singing and signing accelerates language acquisition for all young children. In over 30 years of teaching kindergartners and training kindergarten teachers, this is the single most powerful literacy activity I have experienced. Signing songs and manually finger spelling engages the child’s multiple intelligences in learning. It adds a kinesthetic memory connection for acquiring new skills and develops the small muscles necessary for writing. Singing and signing is multisensory—it combines "saying and doing," which increases retention of new information and understanding of language concepts up to 90 percent1. Research shows that learning sign language builds confidence and enthusiasm for learning. Reading the 3-dimensional language of sign also develops visual skills for reading printed language. No wonder children love it, teachers love it, and parents love it. Enriching children’s literacy experiences by signing familiar songs encourages teachers and parents to become learners right along with their children. As an added bonus, children usually learn to sign songs more easily than adults—much to their delight! Learning Sign Language is a Life Skill.
Learning American Sign Language (ASL) not only gives children enhanced literacy skills, but an important life skill. Liz Blek shared the story of one young boy from her kindergarten class. He was at Dunkin Donuts with his mom when he noticed two adults speaking in sign language at the checkout stand. He went up to them and sang and signed the song he knew best from school—The More We Get Together2. His mother noted that the adults were visibly moved and her son was just beaming. He had used a real life skill. ASL is the third most commonly used language in the United States. Proficiency in a second language is a requirement for high school and college graduation, and the optimum age to acquire a new language is during early childhood. Additional language acquired while the child is young enhances their communication skills throughout their life. This is especially true of learning the emotionally rich American Sign Language. It develops new language connections in their brain. All language learning is accelerated through song and connected movement."Our job is not to help kids do well in school. It’s to help them do well in life."
—Elliot Eisner Parents Love Having Their Children Learn American Sign Language.
Parents are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about their children’s experience learning to sign songs. One parent explained, "He just lights up when he sings and signs—it is such a joyful experience for him." For most teachers, learning sign language requires a willingness to try something new. Yet it takes little extra time and effort during the school day because it is integrated with other language arts activities—singing, storytelling and learning the alphabetic principle. There are training videos and ASL books available that the teacher and children can use in the classroom. Marilyn Daniel's research indicated that teachers need not be skilled users of American Sign Language before their students can reap the benefits; they just need to keep learning along with the children. "It seems to provide the greatest literacy gains for children who have the greatest need."3 Yet it satisfies diverse learning needs—as a kindergarten teacher so accurately affirmed—"It provides Talented and Gifted (TAG) students a challenge—one that parents love!"Singing and Signing Enhances Speaking Skills.
Learning sign language teaches children that we can use our whole bodies—not just words—when we communicate. We convey emotion and meaning through our facial expression and the movement of hands and arms. For effective communication we must present congruent messages between the verbal and nonverbal and we must be expressive. Young children who are fortunate enough to learn ASL through the accelerated language medium of songs in preschool and kindergarten have an early advantage in developing expressive, dynamic speaking skills. They gain valuable experience and confidence in oral presentation and performance. One kindergarten class won first prize and a standing ovation at an oratory contest in Oakland, CA. When they sang and signed See Me Beautiful4 by Red Grammer, they had the audience in tears. That’s a very powerful experience for young children. Opportunities to practice and perform signing songs are abundant because it is such an emotionally satisfying, aesthetic experience for participants and audience. "It should be remembered that we speak more than we write. Throughout our lives we judge others, and we ourselves are judged, by what we say and how we speak."
—Ernest Boyer Singing and Signing Makes Learning to Spell Easier.
Early literacy teachers have learned that singing and signing creates spelling success for all young children—by making it auditory, kinesthetic, social and fun! Most young children are first auditory spellers; they become visual spellers later. Children, by nature, love to move their bodies. Children's memory for the spelling sequence of words is dramatically improved through singing, signing and finger spelling. They can use fingerspelling easier and quicker than they can print letters. Kinesthetically forming letters with their fingers dramatically improves recall of the letter—especially for the hardest-to-reach children. When children sing, sign and finger spell the M-O-M Spells Mom song5—M-O-M spells Mom and D-A-D spells Dad, Y-O-U spells You and M-E spells Me—they easily learn important site words that they will use daily in their writing. They love to sing, sign and read the I Can Spell Cat Big Book song6. As they finger spell cat, rat, and hat they can feel the difference in the beginning sounds and that the ending sounds remain the same. Finger spelling and signing utilizes a kinesthetic connection to provide all children additional scaffolding in learning to spell high-frequency words and to understand word families. This connection is vital for children who do not have a well-developed visual learning pathway. It is a developmentally sensitive way to teach high-frequency words successfully to all young children. Signing Songs Accelerates ABC and Phonics Skills.
We must choose the most powerfully effective literacy strategies available to develop the essential reading skills if we are to meet the national commitment to "Put Reading First" and ensure that all children are confident readers by the end of 3rd grade. ABC and phonics immersion through sign language and song has been shown to greatly accelerate learning the alphabetic principal, especially for the hardest-to-reach children. (See the article Sing and Sign for Powerful ABC and Phonics Immersion: Take Advantage of How the Brain Learns Best7) Singing and signing allows us to provide multisensory instruction that is simply more memorable and joyful for young learners—it is "kid friendly." The kinesthetic motion of finger spelling a letter and then signing the key word triggers a response that helps children recall the corresponding sound. It places explicit, systematic phonics instruction within a rich language learning experience that simultaneously enhances fluency, comprehension skills, and vocabulary. "Systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension strategies to create a complete reading program."
(Report of the National Reading Panel, p.22.) Emotion and Cognition are Tightly Linked.
Belief and mental rehearsal are powerful forces in learning; they actually change the biochemistry of the brain. Children can begin to develop the neural pathways for successful reading long before they are independent readers. Shared singing, signing and reading builds oral language and develops an affect for reading while enhancing concepts about print, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Emotion and cognition are so tightly connected in the brain—the learning to read experience must be linked with joy, success and the belief "I can read!" After many shared singing and signing experiences, children build a memorable sense of the oral language pattern that will help them self-correct as they connect oral language to meaningful print. When words are presented visually, kinesthetically and orally, children stay more focused and reading becomes easier.Group Singing and Signing is a Satisfying Social Experience.
Choral singing, signing and reading are satisfying social experiences where every child belongs and perceives themselves as successful. When children are singing and signing, they are joyful, focused and engaged—the optimum state for language learning. They acquire language fluency while having the magical "I can read" experience. Skill instruction is accelerated because it is multisensory and placed in a meaningful context. Singing and finger spelling the ABCs with the corresponding sound and key object is a powerful strategy for developing phonics skills and letter recognition, thus preventing many early reading difficulties. We cannot overemphasize the value of this teaching strategy. Group singing, signing and reading builds a sense of community, where every child feels the support of their peers. Children love to sing and sign patriotic songs like America the Beautiful8 and This Land is Your Land9 and then read the lovely song picture books. Comprehension is enhanced and meaning is deepened within a non-threatening social context. When children are singing and signing in unison, even the least-able language user perceives him or herself as successful. They are participating at their own developmental language level. The strength of the shared literacy experience provides the scaffolding and motivation to raise the less-experienced students to a higher level of learning and comprehension. Often, children who might not have the most developed early reading skills are the ones who become the class experts at signing songs. As they teach other children to sign, their confidence grows. Thus we build a classroom that honors and celebrates diverse learners and their gifts. Motivation is Important for Teachers and Children.
There is little written about the contribution of motivation in learning to read. However, it can logically be assumed that when a child is feeling successful, experiencing joy and belonging, and engaged in a satisfying social and aesthetic experience, their internal motivation for learning will be enhanced. Likewise for teachers, to experience a learning strategy that builds success for even the hardest-to-reach children is a deeply satisfying, energy-renewing experience. Joyful learning through signing songs creates its own internal motivation that makes teaching and learning more effective. We have received many phone calls and letters from enthusiastic teachers who have incorporated signing songs into the life of their classrooms. The thing I most often hear is, "It’s the best thing I do!" Classroom Management is Simplified through Using Sign Language.
As children and their teachers engage in learning sign language, they discover how nonverbal communication enhances classroom management in building an effective learning environment. Children quickly learn to rely on eye contact and to visually pay attention to the teacher. Children can ask to use the bathroom through a simple hand motion. Common classroom requests and responses are often more effectively signed than spoken—"yes," "no," "please stop," "quiet," "line up." It creates quieter classrooms when children can communicate in sign. We have even seen children monitor each other’s behavior during story time by signing to a disruptive child, “Please be quiet.” And it works! After singing and signing a song like "L-O-V-E Spells Love"10 with a dynamic voice and a soft voice children are invited to follow the teacher and use only sign language and "no voice at all." They hear the language and rhythm internally while they sign the letters and mouth the words, but no sound comes out. This helps calm and focus children for a quiet transition time.Children’s Experiences in Learning to Read Generalizes to Their Whole Self-Concept.
Bruno Bettleheim's research reminds us that how children perceive themselves in the act of learning to read generalizes to their whole self-concept. When teachers engage their students in multisensory literacy learning through signing familiar songs, the pleasure and success they feel will support them in not only learning to read, but in seeing themselves as successful individuals who can learn and care about learning.Signing Songs is a Magical Experience for Young Children.
One definition of "magic" is when something happens without apparent effort. As teachers engage their children in signing songs to learn the ABCs, build phonics skills, accelerate language and literacy skills, create enthusiasm for learning, provide memorable parent performances, and utilize children’s multiple intelligences in building and expressing language, they discover why we call this method the "The Magic of Signing Songs." Teachers are amazed and delighted at the power that singing and signing songs adds to their classroom. Saying and signing "The Pledge of Allegiance" builds patriotism. Singing, signing and reading What a Wonderful World11 gives children beautiful, affirming language that they will carry with them forever. Teachers are also amazed at how many signs children learn within the context of familiar songs that are already embedded in long-term memory. Combining a familiar song melody with the power of "total emotional body response" strategies allows children and adults to experience accelerated language learning. And in the case of some favorite, well-loved, traditional children’s songs, the new learning can be rehearsed over and over simply by bringing teaching videos into the classroom. Signing songs is a proven strategy that helps build the oral language foundation, internal motivation, and scaffolding needed to enhance essential literacy skills and support belief systems of confident, engaged readers, writers and speakers. Language immersion through "The Magic of Signing Songs" is an amazingly effective and often neglected component of a comprehensive and balanced early literacy program. Language acquisition and brain research supports it, caring parents value it and young children love it. We encourage all early childhood educators to discover the power and delight of developing essential language and reading skills through singing and signing. It may very well become one of the best things you do! The author’s work is elaborated on in the seminar "Magic of Signing Songs" and accompanying resource book and instruction video. References:
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