Teaching a Song in Sign Language

Singing and Signing the Owl Song

Teaching a new song to a group of preschoolers is always an interesting challenge, because their attention span is so short.  The teacher needs to be creative and expressive in her delivery of the new song.  One of the easiest ways to capture the interest of the students is with pictures, music and with sign language.  If the children are moving with their hands and they see a visual picture of what they are singing about, it helps with their memory when learning the song.

This week, I have been teaching the children a new song about the Owl.  I showed them a picture of an owl, an owl puppet with a head that moves around and I showed them the sign for owl.  I continued singing the song and showed the additional signs for the words.  I then sang the song, dropping some of the words but continued to do the sign for the dropped word.  The children could remember the word, which had been dropped, just from watching and imitating me doing the sign language. 

Signing the bunny ate the carrot! Nibble, Nibble, Crunch!

This behavior is discussed in an article titled “Seeing Language: The Effect Over Time Of Sign Language On Vocabulary Development In Early Childhood Education” (Daniels, 1996).   Thomas Gallaudet, a famous educator of the deaf, found through research, that children have to pay attention to the teacher to watch her facial expression, her hands and to listen to her voice, to understand what the teacher is trying to convey.  One of the most positive aspects of sign language is that the two individuals that are communicating must have eye contact throughout the conversation, so that they will be able to understand each other.  You cannot sign someone with your back to the individual.  What a wonderful way to show a child that they mean something when you are looking at them when you are talking to them and giving them one hundred percent of your attention.

            The child is using and developing both hemisphere of the brain when they learn the different animals by verbally stating the name, hearing it, visually watching the teacher sign the animal and physically sign the animals themselves.  Using all of these tools in learning new language leaves a definite mark in the child’s memory.   Sign language like any other language is stored in the brain in it’s own separate area or bank.  When children have to retrieve information the brain will go to these little information banks, which will give the children a stronger chance of retaining the new language.

Gallaudet believed that when teachers use sign language as an additional tool in teaching, the children retain the knowledge and the language longer.  This theory was recently tested in a school system in Maryland with two sets of classes, one learned new vocabulary verbally and the other class was taught the new vocabulary verbally and with sign language.  The children were tracked through their prekindergarten class and then were tested at the end of their kindergarten year.  The class that had been taught using the sign language as well has learning it verbally, scored significantly higher in posttests. 

Signing bird

In my music class, the children are exposed to the English language, Spanish and to American Sign Language.  When signing a song a song about an animal, the children have to retrieve one or all of those three different languages.  The children are amazing in what they retain and sometimes the classroom teachers have a hard time keeping up with them!  It is rewarding to see the older children return to music the next year and when reviewing colors, animals or the song, “God Bless America”  they remember the signs and the vocabulary!

Daniels, M. (1996) Seeing language: the effect over time of sign language on vocabulary development in early childhood education. Child Study Journal, Retrieved January 26,2011, from the  Academic Search Database.