LET'S SIGN: Early years BSL building blocks child and carer guide. By Cath Smith and Sandra Teesdale. (Deafsign, 7.99 plus 2 p&p, tel: 01594 833858).
Reviewed by Colette Merritt, classroom assistant at Bishop Alexander School, Newark 'Let's sign' offers a great way of introducing sign language to young children, parents and practitioners. It includes many basic signs that are useful when communicating with children in the nursery, school and home environment.
This book provides simple explanations and examples of basic hand shapes, and stresses the importance of facial expressions. There is also advice on how to finger-spell and illustrations of the finger spelling alphabet.
Anyone who is beginning to sign will find the everyday phrases included, such as 'let's play' and 'time for dinner', useful for starters.
For each sign there is a clear written explanation of how to do the sign correctly, accompanied by an illustration. I liked the way characters are introduced at the beginning of the book and used in the illustrations. They clearly show how to sign a word and the facial expression that goes with it.
I enjoyed reading about the authors, in particular Sandra Teesdale, who is profoundly deaf. In the book's introduction readers are given an insight into the life of a deaf person.
When I was learning to sign I would have found this book very helpful for working not only with deaf children but also children who have communication difficulties.
