Every teacher I’ve ever met reads aloud to their class because the benefits include: introducing and reinforcing new vocabulary words, practicing listening skills, promoting reading for enjoyment and an introduction to new genres, etc. Because read aloud time is mainly a listening activity for students it’s not very interactive, especially for your visual and kinesthetic learners. An easy way to make your read aloud time more interactive and fun is to incorporate some American Sign Language signs. Here’s how:
- Choose a book to read aloud to the class, preferably one that has a repeating word or two in it and is a vocabulary word you’d like your students to know.
- If you don’t already know how to sign the word, look up the sign in an American Sign Language Dictionary. I highly recommend Michigan State University’s ASL Web Browser, which you can find online at http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/
- When introducing students to the book, also introduce the signs. Tell your students that whenever you read the word they are to sign it. They have an important job to do because they are not just listening to the story, but they also have to sign along with it as well.
- Your students may need a reminder or two, but by adding the sign they should pay better attention because they have to listen intently for the word that they are supposed to sign.
- An added benefit for you is that you can tell who’s listening and who’s not – the ones who aren’t signing are probably not listening either and now you can redirect them. This method of incorporating sign language into your read-aloud also gives your kinesthetic learners something to do (a way to act out the story) and your visual learners get a more visual representation of the story.
- A great example: When I teach students about hibernation, I use the book Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming for my read-aloud. Students will sign the words winter and sleep. These words repeat throughout the story as each animal goes into hibernation for the winter. When I am done reading the story, the children have signed winter and sleep several times and by the time we’re done the children have a clear understanding that in the winter there are some animals that go to sleep – hence hibernation. Children not only have a clear understanding of this new vocabulary word, but they also have had a fun, interactive read-aloud time.