Benefits

Baby and preschool signing is a very special way for you and your little one to bond. Through sharing the play and learning experiences at a Sign and Smile class, you can enhance your little one’s social, emotional and physical skills and capabilities. Signing develops and enhances your little one's communication skills and more often than not, will help your little one to talk earlier than other non signing children. It lessens frustrations on both sides of the parent/child relationship, enhances memory skills and increases your little one’s IQ.  

Baby sign is a proven method throughout the UK and from my own personal experience, our Baby Sign Teacher's son's speech and language group actually advocated the use of signing. The effect that this has had on her little boy’s speech was amazing. Not only did it widen his vocabulary and sentence forming, but it lessened his frustrations and tantrums, as he was able to tell Mummy exactly what he wanted or how he was feeling. Obviously his speech and language therapist used other methods to help his delayed speech and not just signing alone, but this gives a clear indication that the professionals find this an effective way of encouraging the development of speech, language and communication.  

Often parents are concerned that signing will hinder their child’s speech and language development and that their little one with favour signing over speaking, but this is not the case. Signing initially introduces your little one to language and communication.  When you sign to your child you always say the word as you are signing so that they can always hear the word as well as visually see the sign. As your baby develops their language and communication skills, the sign actions will drop off and spoken language will naturally take over. 

Sign and Smile classes, and baby signing as a whole, is not about sitting down and teaching your little one sign after sign, in fact it is very far from it. Children's attention spans are limited, so they need to be engaged in activities that are both stimulating and fun. This doesn’t mean you have to do just signing activities either, you can bring signing in to your every day routines. Baby sign can turn food shopping in to a fun day out! I know what your thinking, but it really can be done. By signing what you see to your little one whilst you are out, you are engaging and interesting your child in their surroundings. By using simple signs you won’t believe how speedily you get round the supermarket without any tears and tantrums. Just imagine how fun a visit to the zoo could be then.  

It is never to late to start signing either. I didn’t start signing with my son until he was nearly 3 years old, and that’s why Sign and Smile caters for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. However it is worth bearing in mind, that children of 4/5 months probably won’t start signing until they are around 6-8 months old. Whilst this may seem like a long time to wait until your baby starts to sign, the play and learning experiences you and your little one can share and enjoy at Sign and Smile classes are worth their weight in gold. 

We understand that is not always easy to set specific time aside for specific activities. That’s why our Baby Sign Teacher  will not only cover the theory behind signing, provide play opportunities for you and your little one in class and supply you with your little one’s very own Sign and Smile class folder packed full of the signs you have learnt in your class each week, we will also provide you with tips and advice on how to incorporate the signs in to every day life. This means not only you and your little one can share the benefits of signing, but the whole family can too.