4.10.08
Signing Safari review by Chris Wixtrom, Founder and President, ASL Access

Signing Safari: Teach Your Child to Sign!
Beginner Signs & Alphabet
(6 months and up), 2006, 38 minutes

Signing Safari is a lively DVD designed to teach "typically developing" hearing children American Sign Language (ASL). Before speech develops, babies and children can communicate with ASL. The signing presentations on this DVD buzz with energy, enthusiasm, and encouragement. Though the DVD only teaches 15 specific signs, the messages reach far beyond these simple concepts. The "Tutorial" section alone is worth the price of the video. Addressed to parents and caretakers, the tutorial offers a "Signing Timetable" based on the age ASL is introduced. Benefits for "typically developing" children who learn to sign include earlier communication skills, reduced frustration, greater intellectual development and enhanced bonds between parents and children. "Tips for Signing Success" – also part of the tutorial – cheerfully presents practical language instruction methods (supported by current research) and recommends teaching babies and young children ASL rather than non-standard gestures. Whether it's Baby watching with rapt attention, or parents curious about encouraging language development, this video will prove fun and informative.

Images presented on the video are charming and likely to warm watchers' hearts. To show the concept, "Daddy", viewers see a father carrying his child in a backpack, then a dad playing with his son on the slide and giving his son kisses. Next, a father is shown pushing his child in a swing, and another pulls his child on a sled. The word and sign, "help" is seen in many contexts. Someone helps a child up the stairs, a father helps his son learn to ride a tricycle, a child gets across the street safely with Dad's assistance, Grandma teaches a child to cook, and Mom helps a boy on with his coat. Sometimes puppets are brought into the picture, as when a puppet artist with a brush in its mouth has just completed an artwork, conveying the concept, "finished". Signs are introduced as words, first, appearing as dancing letters that parade on and off screen while various children's voices speak the English word. Following this are images representing the meaning of the word, and sign models demonstrating the sign. Numerous creative scenes amplify the idea, while a simple rhyming "poem" is spoken in a singsong voice. Adults serve as sign models, but it's the signing children who catch our attention. These little communicators are clearly glad they can sign!

ASL Access highly recommends this video for all children, whether hearing or deaf.