Zoo-phonics & ASL

[JanaMosher]

Is anyone familiar with Zoo-Phonics? I teach preschool and loved the fact that they used "signs" when teaching the alphabet. Such as "b" "b" bubba the bear - sign bear. HOWEVER... the signs they use are not ASL. I am just wondering if anyone has used this program and has any ideas??

Jana

[janinek]

I'm so glad you brought this up. I've thought of this recently because I was just introduced to zoo-phonics and the movements for each letter and sound. I thought that simply using the ASL alphabet would be just as beneficial (if not more beneficial) than the movements. I'd love to hear other opinions about this!

[teddi]

Well, I learned some Zoo-phonics as a second grade teacher many years ago. The purpose of the sound-action connection is to tie in the auditory with kinesthetic styles of learning. Our kindergarten and first grade teachers used zoo-phonics, and I can't tell you how many second-graders still relied on it and the actions, especially in the beginning of the year.

My thoughts are 1) if you are using Zoo-phonics and others in your school are (or if you're teaching preschool, but the schools you feed into are using it), you really need to use the actions that go with the program for the sake of continuity. 2) Zoo-phonics also uses the animals and their shapes to help kids remember how to form the letters. Simply teaching children the manual alphabet would not do that. 3) As children use the Zoo-phonics to learn to read, they use the sounds and actions together to sound out words. Eg, a child reading "sit" would do the action and sound together for each letter. The actions are very simple. The program has been tested and used for years with a lot of success.

Overall, I think that the signs in zoo-phonics are signs for the sounds of the letters, not signs for the animals. If you're teaching kids ASL as well as zoo-phonics, I think they're smart enough to distinguish the difference. And you could always tell them, these are just special signs we're learning as we're learning our alphabet.

Is Zoo-phonics the absolute best program out there for kids? I don't know. It ties in all the learning styles and a lot of kids use the program successfully to learn the letters and sounds up through learning to read. I think if you're going to use zoo-phonics, you might as well use it the way the designers intended. If you don't like some of the aspects, then maybe finding a different way of teaching the same concepts that fits your needs and wants better will work best.

[JanaMosher]

Teddi, thank you so much for your reply. You have a lot of great points. I think I will just teach both. It's too much work to "alter" someone else's program. I am anxious to see the results.
Jana

[teddi]

Hi, Jana,

You're welcome. You'll have to keep us updated on how everything goes!

Best of luck :)

[dmmetler]

My one concern would be this-are there ANY Zoo-phonics gestures which match the ASL ones coincidentally (I'd be especially concered about Alligator or Crocodile if either is used). My signing child handles gestures fine or signs fine, but is very, very upset when they're mixed, even if it's accidental. The Starfall ABC song, which uses gestures for each letter really upsets her for that reason.

[JanaMosher]

Actually there are a few signs that are the same. I think Teddi had some great points but I still feel torn. It bothers ME that some of the signs are the same and some are different. I'm finding it difficult to retrain my own brain. I just feel if your going to teach them a sign why not make it one they could use again. The problem is that it is a little hard to alter someone else's program with all of their products.: :confused:

[TLit]

We use zoo-phonics @ our pre-school, the children love it!
When I teach ASL to the children they understand that zoo-phonics and ASL are two different things.
This is the sign for bear (show sign) and bubba bear moves like this when he makes the B sound.
That is how I have added to zoo-phonics.