Amazon.com: Kids gobble cookies, blow bubbles, open and close a box of dress-up items, even sit on the potty to illustrate some of the 31 hand gestures taught throughout this excellent sign language video. Much like a mini video "dictionary," teaching focuses on word recognition alone--not the alphabet nor on full sentence structure--and covers a smart variety of simple verbs and nouns (based on American Sign Language and Signing Exact English). The format is simplistic but highly effective, and keeps the action moving. After the word appears on-screen, an adult carefully signs and pronounces it twice. Then, scenes flip open like book pages or spin like revolving doors to reveal several real-life examples; for instance, "grandfather" fishes with his grandson, eats cereal, and reads a book. More hand gesture repetition, performed by a culturally diverse group of grownups and kids, offers lots of practice time. Probably best used in the home or in a hearing classroom, this visually and audibly appealing 40-minute show comes from the folks who created Parent's Choice award-winning Baby's First Impressions series. --Liane Thomas
Must have for speech delayed child I got this video a couple of years ago and my son with global developmental delay and major speech problems. He had complete access to it. He liked it and learned all the words. We misplaced it for awhile and now he has it out again and is in his room saying and practicing the words/signs by himself.
A waste of time and money.... My wife.. She is Deaf, and taught Sign Language, she laughed at the movie MORE than I did. Signs were inconsistent, example: The other people were signing "Ball" and one woman was signing (looked as if...) "Certificate or Certification". The sign for "Go" is traditional (yeah.. like 30 years ago). A sign for "Sock" was pointed down and looked like the sign for "handicap"... The sign for "potty" (as they put it), looks like the one handed sign for TOY(s)(look at the sign for "play" here and you'll understand the orgin) potty should be the "T" sign short shaks from left to right, "potty " here is signed left to right..turning in and then turning out, this is more like LAZY sign, this It goes on and on. We are of the belief, teach it RIGHT to begin with.. then the "lazy" (I hate this term.. my wife uses it ALOT)sign develops naturally with time and conversations and culture. THEN you can take that SIGN they way they USE here and understand the context in which it is used. OHHHHHHHHH the sign for "video" is a signed english form of the word from the sign "movie".. it's dumb and incorrect, DON'T USE THIS SIGN! (PLEASE) When you have a bunch of Hearing people, (probably instructed by OTHER hearing people) this is probably what a sign language video will look like. Deaf people HATE expressionless people! (esp expressionless faces).. For hearing people it's the same as sitting thru a mono-tone lecture where sooner or later the speaker sounds like the teacher from Charlie Brown (wha waa waa, blah waa waa, waa blah blah etc... boring huh?) Want a GOOD investment in your child and money!? Get the Baby Einstein Sign Language videos... Professionally done, NOT BORING for toddlers that will probably get up and walk away... and Baby Einstein videos HOLD the interest of the short attention span mind.
Kids enjoy it I have 3 sons and they all enjoyed watching this video, and learning to speak with their hands.
Not useful as a signing video This video MAY have its place, but teaching signs isn't it. However, my baby loves watching scenes of other kids at play, and was as captivated by the kids in this video as she would be with any other, non-signing video.
The video introduces about ten to twelve (maybe more?) VERY basic signs - mother, father, baby, on, off, love, etc, plus cookie (which I personally don't feel is necessary for a baby to learn).
There IS a nice diversity of kids and adults shown - different races and differently-abled kids - though I didn't see hearing aids on any of them, which might have been a nice nod to the non-hearing community (I realize, however, that today's hearing aids are so tiny that they're hard to spot if you're not looking for them!)
This is truly a video for hearing children, as many scenes rely on a voice-over of the word being taught with no visual cue as to the sign. There are no animations (except one scene where six cookies appear in two rows) or anything else to break up the talking heads interspersed with video footage instructional format. None of the glitz of the Signing Time videos, for example - this is a bare-bones vocab lesson in 45 minutes.
Scenes of doggies at play are interesting for a baby, but would quickly grow tiresome for older children (I watched the video with my 11-year-old just because he'll watch anything, but I don't imagine even he would watch it twice willingly :-) ), or for any adults in the home.
I got this out of our library as a starting point, and will probably watch it once with my baby - a few minutes at a time as it's a nice way to distract her when she's being changed. I know she likes watching the other babies, and the animals... but for that, I could put on any kiddie video - making this one a redundant addition to our repertoire.
Save your money; I'll keep searching and report back when I've found something better!
Timing and Accompaniment Might Make the Difference If you have other signing videos and environments for your child, he or she may not like Talking Hands much at first. He or she might come to appreciate it over time, however... quite a bit. Other reviews here describe its content fully; I write here to testify that your child's first impressions of it can change.
My son received this as a gift for his first Christmas. It was his first signing video, and he was just beginning to see a few signs from us as a support for learning language and speech. He found it unengaging and, frankly, we did, too; it's slow and pizzazz-free. It went to the back of the video drawer for a loooonng nap.
Two years later, our son has had a year of structured signing-supported speech instruction and signing/talking playgroups. He knows all the video's signs and their accompanying spoken words now. Suddenly, he wants to watch it more than any other - even Thomas the Tank Engine, and that's saying something. He's seen several Signing Time videos and likes them for their entertainment and energy, but this production's admittedly deliberate pacing and presentation hit the target for him right now. It's not teaching him or compelling him to learn, but it IS reinforcing him for signing AND speech that he HAS learned. At this point in his development, when he's just really starting to Get It, it's his hands-up favorite.
Had we only seen it briefly as, say, a rental, we would have no more use for it than the reviewers who panned it on first impressions. If we didn't own it, we'd never have seen it again. Right now, though, we see it nearly every day - by request. It could, and has, become a valuable team member as part of a signing-video collection that varies in energy and style. In six months, it will probably be in the back of our drawer again; our son will have grown past it in knowledge and zip. Today it supplies a validation - or something - that he's hungry for, at a pace he can easily keep. It might fill a niche for your child, too.
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