For people who signed with their kids: Are the videos really worth it?

[mckittre]

My 14 month old loves signing. He knows close to 50 signs, and is learning them quickly. So far, everything he knows is from me looking up signs on the internet and teaching him. I'm a cheapskate, but everyone I've ever talked to who signed with their kid raves about the Signing Time videos. Are they really worth it? Part of me thinks that he's doing fine picking it up from me, and the other part of me thinks that he would probably love the videos and maybe learn faster.

[briome]

If he knows that many already I would skip buying them......I know people who rent them out from a rental company or the libaray, you should try that. We recorded ours off of a late night showing on PBS to our DVR.
I honestly learned the most from them and that helped me later in working them into our life.
Don't buy, look around, maybe used from a site or something.

I do like them, but would NEVER buy them!

[tbone_kneegrabber]

I am an ASL student (was before ds too), I started mostly with me signing to ds, and we have several children's books with signing in them.

We did end up getting some Signing Time (you can usually get them from the library) and they were very motivating for ds. He definitely picked up a lot of signs from them, he found the music and the kids signing to be very engaging.

One thing that I think it helps adults with is that if you have never been around signing kids you might not recognize what they are doing. For instance with talking kids almost every little kid I know says "nana" for banana (at least initially), because I am familiar with "nana" I recognize it when a kid says it and I know they mean banana. Signing is similar, many kids "mispronounce" signs in similar ways. So when you see all these kids signing on the video, some of them are doing it "wrong" or "childish" and seeing the way they do it might help recognize the same mispronunciation in your kid. (does that make sense?)

Anyway, I wouldn't go drop hundreds of dollars on them, but if you allow tv or are going to allow tv then I think signing time is a great choice. You can youtube some of the songs to get an idea of what they are like and see if your lo would like them.

[Everrgreen]

I have 2 baby signing time dvds and DS isn't really too into them. I've also been signing to him for almost 3 months and he still doesn't sign back. So maybe he's just not into signing But I find the dvds I have cover the basics, so if your DS already has 50 signs he probably already knows the ones from the dvds. Although, if he enjoys signing, he may like signing along with the songs. You should be able to find dvds at the library, that way you can see if he likes them

[weliveintheforest]

I watched one of the videos at a prenatal group I was volunteering at, and it seemed worthwhile. I wouldn't buy it, but you can usually get them at your library.

[kcstar]

We checked out some of the We Sign videos from the library. Rhymes was good, as was Animals. Numbers and Colors were so bad we couldn't watch them all the way through.

DS was sort of interested in the We Sign videos at 10-12 months. We got the first Baby Signing Time video when he was about 18 months old, and there was instant interest and vocabulary explosion. So we have all four Baby Signing Times.

I am concerned about the expense of the Signing Time seasons. I found Season 2 DVD 1 at Barnes & Noble and bought it, we're quite happy with that purchase. If I buy the rest it probably will be one or two at a time, give us all a bit of time to digest the videos.

We would also like to work on speaking Spanish around the house. We Sign comes with Spanish dubs, but Signing Time hasn't yet. Season 1 videos 1-3 are just coming out with Spanish about now. So I'm also thinking I'll wait for those releases.

[anricat]

My DD really likes them, but I agree with others, they are worth checking out from the library, but not really buying. Once my DD knows the signs, she's pretty much ready to move on to the next video.

[sapphire_chan]

if he's picking them up already, don't bother with the videos. For us, they were helpful because dd didn't care about signing until she saw them.

[~cassie~]

I believe we have all of the videos, we may be missing 1-2. My kids love them and we have all learned a lot from them. We tend to watch 1 video of it a day and always learn something new. Luckily our MIL bought 2/3 of the DVD's we own-she'd get a few here for birthday, some for Christmas, etc.

[physmom]

Thanks for asking this. We're pretty much at the same spot. DD knows probably 60+ signs right now and I'm starting to reach my limit (or better put, I don't know very many more than she does!). We've joined a signing playgroup, which I think will help but I was wondering if they had any videos that were more advanced.

What would be really cool is if they had something like a normal kids show that was "dubbed" with signing (you know where you see the person signing in the corner) or if they people were just signing straight through the videos. I'm really wishing now I had taken some ASL classes before having DD!

[boigrrrlwonder]

I personally think Signing Time is one of the best shows for toddlers, but I think it's more like a way to keep my daughter distracted while I brush her teeth or comb her hair than a learning device. I think she mostly picked up the signs I used.