Baby Signing Essentials: Easy Sign Language for Every Age and Stage

by Nancy Cadjan

Easy baby sign language for every age and stage! From the author of the award-winning Baby Signing 1-2-3 and the creator of the bestselling Sign Babies ASL Flash Cards, comes the simple and comprehensive resource you've been looking for to help you and your baby learn sign language and have fun doing it! Using trusted American Sign Language (ASL), Baby Signing Essentials is the perfect resource for parents, caregivers, and educators looking to create effective two-way communication. Designed to grow with your baby by covering physical, emotional, mental, and linguistic development at each age, this is the essential guide to sign language. This easy, illustrated book will help you in teaching your baby basic sign language like more, please, milk and all done, plus hundreds of other signs to help you and your little one communicate. With the gift of sign language, you can communicate with your child as early as four to six months, reduce tantrums, build verbal language skills, and create a stronger bond than ever!

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2015

Reviews

[Tomoko · Rating 2 out of 5]

The illustrations showing the signs were not helpful.

[Kaitlyn Shrestha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glad I picked this up when I did, because they recommend starting at 4 months if you can! Although we have been using the signs for more and milk for a while, we plan to become more consistent with using them in the coming month. So I remember the ones to focus on first: more, milk, changing diaper, all done, eat, bath and book.

This book was super easy to follow, it broke down the information in a really digestible way. I enjoyed looking ahead for what’s to come. It also made this not seem like a daunting task, for each age range we plan to make a list/follow the recommendations of the 10ish signs to add, and if we can, add a few more. I can’t wait to learn more of my son’s thoughts with this extra communication tool. It also makes it easy to teach my son’s grandparents just a few words so they have an easier time determining/figuring out his needs. Hopefully as he starts to phase out around 2-3 we will have another baby that he can help teach as a bonding method!

[Dee/ bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource!

[Erica Eberhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is very pro-baby signing and gives a little bit of a vibe that you're not being the Best Parent You Can Be if not teaching your child to sign. The signs are pretty straight forward and easy to understand, and everything is sectioned off into ages to teach your child and what signs are best for that time period. If you're looking to learn about signing, this is it and it's very straight forward. For us, I read the book but without my husband having read it, we found it hard to consistently sign to our son. It's definitely a group effort for the household--or at least it'd be a lot easier if everyone your baby is spending a lot of time with were to read the book and be on the same page.

Ultimately, we taught our son how to sign he was hungry and that was about it. He's 11 months old now and clearly indicates what he wants even while he's not completely verbal yet. It's good enough for us

[Kiersti Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked how this book was formatted. It went by pretty quick. I wish the alphabetical listing of signs at the end included the pictures of the signs as well. As it is, you have to go back to each chapter and view the signs. Nancy Cadjan's other book "Baby Signing 1 2 3" has a list of signs with the picture of the signs all in one place. I would highly recommend reading a physical version of this book. The ebook is a little finicky.

[Erin Stuhlsatz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice resource, good for explaining what's going on in baby's development and how that relates to signing. The signing glossary is pretty hard to follow, but there's always youtube (and video is way easier to read than a picture of someone signing).

[Marie-Sharrane]

This book includes pictures with simple explanations on how to sign the words. Each chapter includes essential signs for the different age groups. For instance, four to seven months, eight to twelve months, and so forth. This is a nice touch.

[Jill Bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kids (and grandkids) are far too old to benefit from this but I sure wish I’d known about this when they were babies. My first boy was verbally late and lived in frustration, as did we.
This would have made life a lot more fun.

I’ve just bought it for a friend.

[Kim Tee Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

skim read to find the bits i wanted, but some simple pages which introduce the key sign words for different age groups.

[Alli Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is the most comprehensive of the signing books I’ve seen, just read this one.

[Sandra Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

read as an E-book and I recommend having the physical book.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for getting baby signing. The pictures and organization are super helpful for fast reference. My one wish was for more general signs, like "animal" in addition to the specifics "zebra", "tiger", etc. Signing has been wonderful for our son, though. It's a joy to communicate with him, and it eases his frustration (read: less screaming).

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple, east to read, and very helpful to get started at any age. Very encouraging and great list of signs at the back.