Linda AcredoloRecensioni

This is a very interesting book for me because I have never learned or seen baby sign language. It is a great beginner book as it is for babies. I am definitely more interested in baby sign language now.

a great book for very young children. Introduces ways to use sign language to help communicate between adults and babies.
1 book

In my honest opinion, I really didn’t like this book or find it amusing. To begin with, I don’t think that the signs it is identifying or teaching is essential items. For example, the book identifies objects such as a book or a hat, but leaves out things like hungry or tired. It also leaves out hello and goodbye which are a few of the first things that a baby/infant should be taught. Next, I didn’t really like this book because there wasn’t much to it. I don’t think that it is a book that children would like to read. It is more useful for a parent in order to teach their infants how to use signals and/or sign. The main idea that this book is trying to get across is to offer and teach young children learning signs when they are not yet able to talk or use their words to say or ask for something.

One of my all-time favorite parenting/child development books. The authors summarize major child development research in a fun, easy to read, easy to understand manner. Then they offer practical suggestions for related games and activities for babies and toddlers that correspond to each developmental phase. This books is hands-on fun! It doesn't have the pretension of other baby brain development books that promise earlier reading and higher IQs. Instead, this book promotes strategies and activities that engage a child's natural interests and curiousities as they grow, giving them developmentally appropriate mental input and nourishment. I liked the fact that nearly all activities involve interaction with a parent or caregiver, which is, hands-down, the most important brain-booster of all!

The authors in this book encourage parents to work with their children and make up their own signs. This might be an effective approach for some families, but it wasn't for us. For one, I could never remember the signs we made up. Having set ASL signs helped give me a reference to remind me what I was teaching my daughter so I could be consistent. Also, my daughter has signing cousins and it was important to me that she learn actual ASL signs so she could communicate with them (in baby talk, of course). I loved signing with my daughter, but this book wasn't the right approach for my family. I preferred [book: Sign with Your Baby], by Joseph Garcia.

I learned a lot from this book. It goes into detail about the development of a baby's mind and why certain "games" are useful to play at certain ages. Very informative!

This early reader book shows parents and babies how to create important first signs for babies to express their needs and wants. It uses actual children to show the signs and simple font to make learning easier.

This book provides a more robust introduction to baby sign language than a book I previously reviewed on this topic, Sign with Your Baby: How to Communicate with Infants before They Can Speak.

I especially appreciated the easy-to-digest "Ten Steps to Success" in this book:

1. Start with just a few signs

2. Always use the baby sign and word together

3. Repeat the sign and word several times

4. Point to the object when possible

5. When necessary, gently guide your child's hands in making the sign

6. Make baby signing a regular part of your day

7. Watch for opportunities to model the signs

8. Be flexible and watch for your baby's own sign creations

9. Be patient!

10. Remember, make learning fun

However, the sign illustrations were much clearer and more detailed in Sign with Your Baby. But I'm finding the Baby Hands Productions video dictionary of signs more helpful than illustrations anyway.

One part of Baby Signs did not sit well with me, but it's just one paragraph out of the whole book. The authors recommend the "Baby Signs Video for Babies" as a way to teach babies more signs, then go on to say:

"Of course, extensive video watching by very young children is not a good idea. However, chosen carefully, videos produced specifically for babies and toddlers can be beneficial."

But they don't reference any research to support this claim. I've never come across any research indicating that TV watching by babies and toddlers has any lasting positive effects. In fact, I read the opposite in Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think And What We Can Do About It—research quoted there suggests TV watching before a child learns to read teaches them passive learning habits that can be detrimental in all their future learning experiences.

The authors are generally diligent about referencing research to support their claims, but here I think they could have done a much better job. (The cynical side of me thinks they might have vagued up the supporting arguments because they have a video they're trying to sell.)

But that is just one paragraph out of the whole book, so I probably just need to let it go! This book is clear and well-written, and I just ordered a copy to own from PaperBackSwap.½

This book is similar to another book I read this year: What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life.

Although I enjoyed What's Going on in There?, I *loved* Baby Minds because it focused more on what you can do to help your baby's brain grow. And not in a baby-flashcards sort of way, either. The games they suggest are fun and easy to incorporate into your routine. For example, they recommend modeling some pretend play starting at around 6 months to foster creativity. So we've instituted a 3:00 Puppet Show in our house. My 8-month-old daughter loves it of course, but so do I! 3:00 is about the time I start counting down the minutes til my partner gets home from work so it takes my mind off the clock for a bit.

I also preferred how this book summarized the relevant research studies in an accessible way. The research they highlighted made me that much more motivated to try the corresponding games. And this book was much lighter on the biological details of development, which I didn't mind at all considering those were the parts of What's Going on in There? I found myself skimming.

Both books had needed reminders to parents that there's no way to be a "perfect parent." The message in Baby Minds is: Just do what works for you, and don't stress out if you're not doing every single game they recommend because every single game won't work for everyone.

This book also has a handy list of all the games at the back, which I find myself using a lot lately. On the weekdays when I'm at home with my daughter all day, I use up all my tricks by the early afternoon—we read books, we take a walk, we have a tickle fest, I feed her solid food. Then I'm bored and she's bored, and that's not good. So the list at the back is helpful for jogging my memory about other things we can do together that will be fun for both of us. In fact, that's exactly how the 3:00 Puppet Show came into existence!

The factual information was accurate and useful, but there seemed to be a whole lot of cute little anecdotes that weren't really necessary in the understanding of said information. There was maybe a grand total of 20 pages of useful information and the rest was filler.½

This is a useful resource for anyone interested in teaching infants sign language. Chapter 6 provides several short stories that can be told with accompanying signs. Chapter 9 provides a list of signs, including pictures, descriptions, memory aids and possible situations. Chapter 10 has familiar rhymes with accompanying signs.