Signing Time Instructors are your partners on the road to reading.

Listening to a child sound out a word or read a book for the first time is truly awe-inspiring.  As parents and teachers, we understand that learning to read just doesn’t happen overnight. There’s a lot of work involved! Signing Time Instructors are here to help you in the important work of raising a reader – and here’s how: Continue Reading »

By Gwen Cox

The Signing Time Academy is adding new people almost daily. Some of those new instructors are dads! We currently have three men teaching classes in their communities and loving what they are doing. Their classes are impacting families and changing lives in a positive way. Our three Academy dads each have a very different story to share. One dad even has over 740 children…and they are all 6 years old!

On Sunday we will celebrate fathers and how important they are to us. At the Signing Time Academy we recognize that dads play an important role not only in the home, but also in the world of teaching as they reach out to families and help them to discover the joy of signing with a child.

Read the three stories below and feel free to send them your feedback. If you are a dad and have considered doing something like this, contact them…they will be happy to share how you, too, can be a Signing Time Academy “DAD”. Enjoy!

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By Derek Brown – AKA Alex’s dad, Leah’s Uncle

I chose to run a half marathon because I am in fantastic shape, I knew it would be easy, and I thought it would be a pleasurable experience.  Well, not really.  Actually, I chose to do it because my 11-year-old, Alex, decided to do it and asked me if I was up to doing it   with him.  What would you do?

Now, just a bit of friendly advice here:  if you are going to run a half marathon, there is the way to do it, and then, of course, there is the way not to do it.  Alex did it the way it is supposed to be done.  And I, of course, chose the road less traveled (pun intended).

Here is how Alex prepared:  He trained for several months with a kids’ running group.  He ran three days a week with them, starting with just a few miles a day, and later worked up to the point where he was running 6-8 miles in a day, several times a week.  He trained, conditioned, and even did the obligatory “carb-load” the day before the marathon.  He was fit, rested, and ready to go the morning of the marathon.

Now for my pre-marathon training schedule.  It consisted of energy performance drinks (Diet Coke), finger exercises (returning hundreds of e-mails daily), regular stretching exercises (standing up occasionally at my desk), and the lifting heavy objects (like stacks of paper on and off the desk.)

Actually, Alex and I did have one thing in common:  when the race was about to begin we both felt great!  We started running with Team Coleman/Strong Enough, and I lost track of Alex after the first mile or so.  I started to look behind me, scanning the crowd to see if I could spot Alex someplace in the mass of people immediately behind me.  Several of our Team Coleman/Strong Enough teammates asked me who I was looking for.  I replied, “I’ve lost Alex. I don’t see him.”  They all started laughing and said, “If you want to see him, why don’t you quit looking behind you!”  Apparently, Alex was way ahead of me within the first mile or so, and that never changed.

Alex, of course, has a kind heart, and at one point he waited for me to catch up to him and then we ran together for a while.  Within a short period of time he was way ahead of me again, but he then waited up for me.  After the third time doing this, he said “Dad, do you mind if I just kinda keep on going?”  (Translation:  “Dad, you are a major drag here.  How am I supposed to run a serious half-marathon when I’m pulling an out-of-shape lawyer behind me?  Seriously, man, be sure to hydrate, call a cab if you pass out, and I’ll see you at the finish line.  That is, if you make it.”)

That was about mile three.  From that point on, as I was jogging, I saw a lot of people along the route that I recognized.  They all shouted, almost word-for-word, the same thing:  “Good job!  Did you know that Alex is waaaaaay up there ahead of you?  Did you know that?  Like, waaaaaaay ahead of you!”  My response was always “Yeah, isn’t he amazing?”  (Translation:  “Man, you’re slow.  Your 11-year-old son is completely dusting you.  Seriously, pick up the pace.”  Translation of my response:  “Thanks for telling me something I didn’t already know.  Wow, I feel so much better now.  Except that my ankles are still screaming at me, my knees are still pounding, and I would give anything if I could just do something so much more enjoyable, like have a cavity filled or get a root canal.”)

When I hobbled across the finish line, Alex was there waiting to greet me, with a big smile on his face.  “Good job, Dad!” he said.  In the end, he finished about ten minutes ahead of me, and got a bronze medal for his age group.    It was so rewarding, however, to see so many Signing Time fans and friends at the finish line.  Leah looked fantastic, Lucy had just been on her first half-marathon, and Rachel and Aaron looked like they had just warmed up and were ready for a real run.  Alex then proceeded to spend the rest of his day playing with Leah, running around, and doing what kids do (as I tried to recover on the sofa).

The next morning as I got out of bed, my ankles and knees refused to work, and notwithstanding my Advil, I could hardly walk straight.  And stairs?  Forget about it.  There was no going up or down stairs.  For the next few days I walked as though I had just added about 50 years onto my body.  Seeing my condition, Alex assured me that he, too, was sore.  (I didn’t buy it, of course.)  In the end, it took several days for people to stop asking “Hey, what happened?  Why are you walking funny?”

So, the real question:  would I be crazy enough to do it all over again?  Absolutely!  (Next time, however, I will follow Alex’s training schedule to prepare.)

Have you ever wished Rachel Coleman would come perform in your town? I certainly did. I remember reading the newsletters and blog posts about fantastic Signing Time events in many different places, and wondering when it would be it would be our turn. Well, as I later found out, those events are hosted by organizations, schools, libraries, or individuals in that area who partner with the Signing Time Foundation and simply pay the expense of bringing Rachel (or the whole Signing Time group) to perform or speak.

I decided that we needed a Signing Time “Sing and Sign” concert in my hometown:  Maple Grove, Minnesota. Signing Time did not air on our PBS station, and I knew that there were many families in my community that would benefit tremendously from Signing Time. The big challenge was that between the time we found out that Rachel would be available to perform, and the date that the event was scheduled to take place, there were only 30 days. It wasn’t very much time to pull everything together, but I decided to take it on!

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This news release was sent out December 8, 2009, from Nickelodeon:

NICK JR. TEACHES PRESCHOOLERS SIGN LANGUAGE WITH

NEW INTERSTITIAL MUSIC SERIES,

SIGNING TIME, BEGINNING WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9

NEW YORK, Dec. 8, 2009 – Nick Jr., Nickelodeon’s 24-hour commercial-free, educational network, will premiere Signing Time, the network’s first interstitial music series dedicated to teaching sign language to preschoolers, on Wednesday, Dec. 9.  Three videos, starring Emmy-nominated Rachel Coleman, will be in regular rotation on Nick Jr. airing 1-2 times per day.  Two additional videos will air exclusively on Nickelodeon’s award-winning website, www.nickjr.com.

Signing Time reaches children with diverse learning styles and abilities by encouraging interaction through signing, singing, speaking and dancing.  The Signing Time series teaches American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary-building signs that are useful in daily life.

The videos airing on Nick Jr. include: “In a House,” which introduces the signs for different family members; “Feelings,” which teaches signs for feelings such as excited or scared and “Groove with Me,” which offers signs for activities such as jumping, swimming, dancing and running. NickJr.com will air these three videos in addition to two more exclusive music videos: “Leah’s Farm,” which presents the signs for animals and “A is for Alex and Alligator,” which teaches kids how to sign the entire alphabet.

Coleman co-created Signing Time as a means to teach children to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL).  As the mother of a daughter who is deaf, and another daughter with both cerebral palsy and spina bifida, sign language has played a central role in their family. Coleman has spent the last seven years making sign language fun and accessible for all children through the Signing Time series, which includes award-winning DVDs, music CDs, books, flashcards and a former public television show. Coleman, who is also a singer and songwriter, has written all the original songs featured in the series.  In 2008, Coleman was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series.

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