Has anyone used American Sign Language for Kids DVD?

[Aludlam]

Has anyone used this DVD? If so, opinions????

 

http://www.amazon.com/American-Sign-Language-Kids-Beginner/dp/B002NVY91U/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1280339631&sr=8-3

 

Thanks!

[Doodle]

I've never seen this DVD series before, but from the preview available, I really like it! I like that the manual alphabet is also shown from the perspective of the person signing. I love that they show signing conversation. And I love, love, love that it is closed captioned!

http://www.language-tree.com/ASL.html

[Julie in AZ]

I've never seen this DVD series before, but from the preview available, I really like it! I like that the manual alphabet is also shown from the perspective of the person signing. I love that they show signing conversation. And I love, love, love that it is closed captioned!

http://www.language-tree.com/ASL.html

 

Oh, I like the preview too. :) It looks like a nice program.

[Aludlam]

I've never seen this DVD series before, but from the preview available, I really like it! I like that the manual alphabet is also shown from the perspective of the person signing. I love that they show signing conversation. And I love, love, love that it is closed captioned!

http://www.language-tree.com/ASL.html

 

I never thought about needing to see the other view of the hands, but that makes a lot of sense! My dd8 is showing some interest in sign language, but I've already got way tooooo much planned for this year. So, I'm looking for some videos that she can watch on her own. I'm also looking into the Signing Time videos and Sign-a-lot videos.

 

thanks for responding

 

Angela

[BatmansWife]

It looks ok. I guess I'm a little partial to Signing Time and can't help but compare the two. We've been using Signing Time since dd was 9 months old (she's almost 7 now). By now you'd think she'd be very fluent in signing, but she isn't. She watched it a lot more when she was younger. This is a good reminder that I need to make sure I schedule her Signing Time DVD's into her school schedule so she keeps up with it. But, we really do LOVE Signing Time.

 

http://www.signingtime.com/

 

Your library might have Signing Time, or can get it for you to borrow on interlibrary loan, so you can try it out. :001_smile:

[fhjmom]

I am not familiar with this series and the fact I haven't heard of it makes me wonder about it, since I spend a lot of time on message boards that are deaf/hard-of-hearing related and for families of children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing.

 

Just from my gut, things I wasn't too impressed with - the adult in the intro bounced his letters when fingerspelling, which is a big no-no in ASL and not something you should see in an experienced signer. The signing was way over the top exaggerated, which I am sure was on purpose to clearly show it to the viewer, but I don't get the same feel from from "Signing Time" and my kids pick up the signs from those videos very quickly. Since it was such a short clip, it may have been cut out, but when the children were introducing themselves and fingerspelling their names, they included their sign name. No mention or explaination was included of what that sign was that they did after fingerspelling their names.

 

Things I did like were showing the fingerspelling from the POV of the signer. One thing that that is often encouraged for a young child learning to sign is to have the child sit in the parent's/teacher's lap and have the teacher sign in front of the child so he/she can see the signs from the signer's POV. It was also nice to see inclusion of things related to Deaf culture.

 

I have seen some things out there from language sources that are written from the outside looking in and they just tend to have a different feel than those that are written by someone who is a native user of the language and/or part of Deaf culture. It may be a great resource, it's hard to tell from a limited clip. I just tend to trust things that come highly recommended from those inside Deaf cultue and this is one I haven't heard of. "Signing Time" tend to be highly recommended and the creator has a Deaf daughter and is highly involved in the Deaf community. I meet her at the American Society for Deaf Children's conference last summer and she is wonderful!

 

BTW, I also did a quick search of our on-line lending library through our state school for the Deaf and this resource was not listed. They do have several "Signing Time" videos, though.

[vonfirmath]

Which Signing Time Video do you recommend starting with? There seems to be a lot of difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

[fhjmom]

Which Signing Time Video do you recommend starting with? There seems to be a lot of difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

 

We own Volumes 1-6 and check others out from the library. I am not sure what differences you are asking about. Each video has different vocabulary and songs but they are pretty similar as far as the format goes. I would probably start with Volume 1 because it has some good basic vocabulary, but really all of them are good.

[BatmansWife]

Which Signing Time Video do you recommend starting with? There seems to be a lot of difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

 

I'm not really sure what you mean about a lot of differences between Vol 1 and Vol 2. Do you, perhaps, mean between Series 1 and Series 2? Then there's also Baby Signing Time, which is different than either Series 1 or Series 2. The very first 3 Signing Times have the "older" looking Rachel (although, technically she's younger because, they were the first ones they made :001_smile:), with her long hair, different outfits, and no colored tape on her fingers. Perhaps you saw an older ST and then a newer one, I don't know. At their website, they only have the newer versions of 1 - 3 with the newer looking Rachel (shorter hair, orange sweater, colored tape on fingers). I realize this is starting to get confusing if you don't understand what I'm talking about.

 

Maybe you can just explain more what you mean by a lot of differences. Which ones did you see?

 

We have 33 of the 34 DVD's. :blush: But, like I've said before, we've been collecting for 6 years. When we first started, ST was just new and only had 3 DVD's (with the "older" Rachel). Now they have 34, plus flash cards, books, etc. I think my favorites are 4, 5 an 6 from Series 1. Only because I remember we watched those over and over and over again. I can sing every song. :001_smile:

 

fhjmom, that's really cool that you got to meet Rachel!

[fhjmom]

I'm not really sure what you mean about a lot of differences between Vol 1 and Vol 2. Do you, perhaps, mean between Series 1 and Series 2? Then there's also Baby Signing Time, which is different than either Series 1 or Series 2. The very first 3 Signing Times have the "older" looking Rachel (although, technically she's younger because, they were the first ones they made :001_smile:), with her long hair, different outfits, and no colored tape on her fingers. Perhaps you saw an older ST and then a newer one, I don't know. At their website, they only have the newer versions of 1 - 3 with the newer looking Rachel (shorter hair, orange sweater, colored tape on fingers). I realize this is starting to get confusing if you don't understand what I'm talking about.

 

Maybe you can just explain more what you mean by a lot of differences. Which ones did you see?

 

We have 33 of the 34 DVD's. :blush: But, like I've said before, we've been collecting for 6 years. When we first started, ST was just new and only had 3 DVD's (with the "older" Rachel). Now they have 34, plus flash cards, books, etc. I think my favorites are 4, 5 an 6 from Series 1. Only because I remember we watched those over and over and over again. I can sing every song. :001_smile:

 

fhjmom, that's really cool that you got to meet Rachel!

 

Oh, wow! I am jealous that you have that many ST videos! I wish I could afford to just buy the whole series right now!

 

I didn't think that may be the question was refering to "series" instead of volume, but there is an explaination of the differences here:

 

http://www.signingtime.com/faqs/products#differ

 

It was so very cool to meet Rachel in person. She shared her family's story and it was so awesome to hear her own personal journey after Leah's deafness was discovered. What was kind of funny is that the organizers apparently didn't tell Rachel that the session she would be doing was for parents only and the kids would be in childcare. She did a lot of the signing and had on her trademark orange track suit with colors on her fingers. Mom's in the audience were jumping up and running to pull their kids out of the children's program so they could see Rachel and Hopkins (he was there too). I loved it and she is so real and genuine. After the presentation, she stayed and talked with every family that wanted a bit of her time and she *really talked* to them, not just "Hi, glad you came", pose for picture, sign something, move you along. I loved the videos before, but after meeting her, I was so impressed with the whole package. We will always be Signing Time fans!