I asked a parent, "Do you sign with her at home? Does she sign much at home?"
She replied, "Yes, she signs all of the time! She loves signing."
I asked her to provide me some examples of how they sign at home.
She responded, "She likes to use the sign "more" and I'll use a lot of "stop" and "no" (laughing). She is teaching her brother the sign "more"."
Her signing extraordinaire of a daughter is ten years years old. She had a classroom interpreter for several years. Yet she does not sign fluently, and she never uses signs on her own at school. You have to really make her do it, if you wanted her to sign. Might I add that she has a slight-mild hearing loss. She prefers to talk and listen. Yet, mom wants her to sign fluently.
It is ridiculous.
She clearly does not sign "all of the time" at home if she is only using one or two signs at a time. That would be like saying, "Yes, my daughter speaks English all of the time at home! She loves talking. She likes to say "more" and I will often tell her "Stop!" and "No" (laughing)."
If you want your daughter to sign fluently, you need to sign fluently yourself.
She replied, "Yes, she signs all of the time! She loves signing."
I asked her to provide me some examples of how they sign at home.
She responded, "She likes to use the sign "more" and I'll use a lot of "stop" and "no" (laughing). She is teaching her brother the sign "more"."
Her signing extraordinaire of a daughter is ten years years old. She had a classroom interpreter for several years. Yet she does not sign fluently, and she never uses signs on her own at school. You have to really make her do it, if you wanted her to sign. Might I add that she has a slight-mild hearing loss. She prefers to talk and listen. Yet, mom wants her to sign fluently.
It is ridiculous.
She clearly does not sign "all of the time" at home if she is only using one or two signs at a time. That would be like saying, "Yes, my daughter speaks English all of the time at home! She loves talking. She likes to say "more" and I will often tell her "Stop!" and "No" (laughing)."
If you want your daughter to sign fluently, you need to sign fluently yourself.
AMEN, SISTER!
ReplyDeletewhere is her common sense? :/
ReplyDeletemishkazena
Parents have no clue what it takes to get their child to any level of fluency at all! (Neither do regular...or even SPED...classroom teachers.) I am an itinerant D/HoH teacher as well, and I always say that working with the kids I have is only about 20% of my job...the other 80% is education of the adults in the kids' lives about hearing loss and language acquisition.
ReplyDeleteI really like the analogy of fluency in any other language. I can say, "the man is at the door," in Spanish. Does this mean I am fluent? Hardly! I worked with a student on "ASL skills" for 2 years - constantly arguing with the Mom re: the student's actual signing abilities. This was a complex student; she did not even have the gross or fine motor ability to do anything but move her arms in circles. Every sign was giant pinwheel arms. How do you differentiate what that child is communicating? ASL is just supposed to "fix" these kids or provide that "much needed bridge for communication." Not in all cases! :/
ReplyDelete