5 key reasons to teach Nursery Rhymes with American Sign Language, ASL | Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Nursery Rhymes, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, which we just posted our Signing Instruction and our Signing Song videos on YouTube, have been such a beneficial and traditional part of early learning, playtime fun, and parent/teacher and child interaction. We, however, have come to understand that these simple kids rhymes and kids songs have proven to have been very beneficial to generations of kids.
Adding American Sign Language turns nursery rhymes and kids songs into interactive singing game. They can be played at home or at school by teachers, early childhood professionals, parents and kids.
We don’t really know how and where Row, Row Your Boat came from, but it appears to have been published first in 1852. Since then it has been published, republished, recorded and rerecorded thousands of times.
I’ve read lots of speculation as to the meaning of this nursery rhyme. That it teaches children about life, about reaching for dreams, about looking to enjoy peaceful times in their lives. For me I think that adults often think too deeply about the meaning of things that children don’t ever do. I think that to children Row, Row, Row Your Boat is just a silly song that they can sing, sing in a round or in our case, add American Sign Language, ASL, to making it a fun music and movement activity.
The 5 key reasons to teach Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Rhyme Songs, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, with American Sign Language, ASL, are:
1. Signing Nursery Rhymes Enhances Physical Development. Signing encourages children to use their fine and gross motor skills. In our new computerized world of swiping with an index finger, signing offers all preschoolers a fun and challenging activity for them to use their fingers, hands and arms.
2. Signing Nursery Rhymes Develops Vocabulary. By singing and signing Nursery Rhymes they get to use and learn lots of words, their meanings and how to use them in conversation. They learn the pattern of words and how they go together in sentences.
In Row, Row, Row Your Boat one of the key words learned by young children and can be used over and over in their daily life is the word Gentle. It is simple to sign and a powerful sign to remind young children to be gentle with an animal or a sibling or a classmate.
Gentle: Hold 1 hand flat palm down, then gently stroke the back of that hand.
3. Signing Nursery Rhymes Develops Memorization and Recall. When children sing and sign words, they are learning them in multiple ways including physical, visual, verbal, and musical. This allows children to memorize words and their meanings in many different parts of their brain providing them with a powerful way to recall them as they need them.
4. Signing Nursery Rhymes is as Fun Bonding Activity. Children love to interact playfully with their teachers and parents. Singing and signing Nursery Rhymes offers a great opportunity to not only teach, reinforce and remember words, and enhance motor skill development, but singing and signing Nursery Rhymes is a fun musical activity. You do not need to be fluent sign language to add a few signs to a Nursery Rhyme like <Little Bo Peep>, link to youtube song and children never expect you to be a great singer. They just enjoy the interaction.
5. Signing Nursery Rhymes Keeps a Cultural Heritage Alive. For generations, children have been learning, singing, chanting, saying, and reading Nursery Rhymes like Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Singing and signing Nursery Rhymes allows children, their parents, grand parents and even, at times, great grand parents to enjoy a common connected activity.
I began using Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes as part of my preschool programs over 30 years ago because I found that kids, when asked, often did not know what they were. I would get the newest song from a Disney or other animated movie, or something from Barney or Sesame Street. Many did not know any beyond
- Mary Had a Little Lamb, mark link these to youtube
- Itsy Bitsy Spider, and
- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
These titles will take you to our YouTube video demonstrations.
If you like to sing Nursery Rhymes with children, our CD of over 30 Nursery Rhyme songs for kids is for you. We include many new nursery rhymes and melodies you will find nowhere else.
Get the CD at www.4parentsandteachers.com
You can also order our We Sign Rhymes DVD / CD collection for your home or school use. It features an instructor track that teaches the signs used in each song and then a nursery rhyme song demonstration. We also have kids track featuring all the nursery rhyme songs performed by kids.
Learn More at www.4parentsandteachers.com