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American Sign Language for Beginners: Learn Signing Essentials in 30 Days
A 30-day beginner’s guide for learning American Sign Language
There’s an easy way to leap right in to learning American Sign Language (ASL). American Sign Language for Beginners delivers 30 days of lessons that will help you sign with those in your home, community, and classroom.
From letters and numbers to essential vocabulary and grammar basics, this beginner’s guide provides the essentials needed to develop a solid foundation for American Sign Language in the real world. Each daily lesson takes less than 30 minutes to complete and focuses on a single set of vocabulary or ASL grammar. Throughout the course, you’ll find key phrases, helpful memory tips, signing practice activities, and insight into deaf culture. Start your ASL masterclass today.
American Sign Language for Beginners
30 Days of easy ASL—Start off right with an accelerated plan designed to help you begin signing in just one month.Easy-to-understand instructions—Lessons concentrate on a single idea or subject and include photographs to demonstrate signs.Everyday phrases—Daily instruction highlights vocabulary you’re most likely to need as you explore ASL in your daily life.
Jump-start your learning experience with American Sign Language for Beginners!
There’s an easy way to leap right in to learning American Sign Language (ASL). American Sign Language for Beginners delivers 30 days of lessons that will help you sign with those in your home, community, and classroom.
From letters and numbers to essential vocabulary and grammar basics, this beginner’s guide provides the essentials needed to develop a solid foundation for American Sign Language in the real world. Each daily lesson takes less than 30 minutes to complete and focuses on a single set of vocabulary or ASL grammar. Throughout the course, you’ll find key phrases, helpful memory tips, signing practice activities, and insight into deaf culture. Start your ASL masterclass today.
American Sign Language for Beginners
30 Days of easy ASL—Start off right with an accelerated plan designed to help you begin signing in just one month.Easy-to-understand instructions—Lessons concentrate on a single idea or subject and include photographs to demonstrate signs.Everyday phrases—Daily instruction highlights vocabulary you’re most likely to need as you explore ASL in your daily life.
Jump-start your learning experience with American Sign Language for Beginners!
336 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 14, 2020
1142 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 14, 2021
This book has good explanations of the signs, as well as photos!
January 31, 2025
What I liked:
-Content I never see in an intro book: health, weather, and emotional topics discussed in more depth or description than expected.
-the resources in the back that I was familiar with, (besides the self-promos), were Deaf created.
What I was surprised by:
-Early in the book I had a few frustrations - "but they didn't explain X" yet..." But by the end I had the majority of these concerns resolved.
-In the holiday section it listed a bunch of secular events (birthday, spring break) and then one religious holiday. I was thrilled to see it wasn't Christmas, that's what's normally included, but it felt odd to have only one- I'd have loved a broader representation of religious holidays.
What I didn't -
-The photos on my smartphone (this is an e-book) are smaller than my thumbnail, literally. It wasn't something I could adjust the size of.
----
I see other folks in reviews mentioning an app or videos, I don't have that version, but that would have been helpful.
I've taken formal ASL classes and read ASL grammar books but some things here were explained more clearly than I've had in the past.
-Content I never see in an intro book: health, weather, and emotional topics discussed in more depth or description than expected.
-the resources in the back that I was familiar with, (besides the self-promos), were Deaf created.
What I was surprised by:
-Early in the book I had a few frustrations - "but they didn't explain X" yet..." But by the end I had the majority of these concerns resolved.
-In the holiday section it listed a bunch of secular events (birthday, spring break) and then one religious holiday. I was thrilled to see it wasn't Christmas, that's what's normally included, but it felt odd to have only one- I'd have loved a broader representation of religious holidays.
What I didn't -
-The photos on my smartphone (this is an e-book) are smaller than my thumbnail, literally. It wasn't something I could adjust the size of.
----
I see other folks in reviews mentioning an app or videos, I don't have that version, but that would have been helpful.
I've taken formal ASL classes and read ASL grammar books but some things here were explained more clearly than I've had in the past.
August 14, 2025
A good refresher for a lot of important basic signs! I think it doesn’t replace learning from an actual signer, but very useful to practice.
December 15, 2023
there were small photos on every page showing how to make the motions but then there was a lot of blank space on every page that led me to wonder why the instructional photos were so small.
November 2, 2024
So, starting off this review I would like to just say that this book is pretty good. The way it constructs its lessons is comprehensible-- the thing that I value the most about it is that it gives you "memory tips" underneath certain words to help the signs stick with you easier. It also gives you small activities after the lessons which I find beneficial. The bad aspects of this book are very small and not that significant to the knowledge and information on ASL that you learn, but it's the amount of bad that piled up and made it noticable for me.
For those who don't have the time to read my complaints with the book, here's the overall take away: get an ASL dictionary. I mean, you were going to have to anyways with your language learning journey. But the overall flippant disregard for explaining how to do some of the signs/incorrect image placement will make you start to tweak.
Anyways here's the wall text:
What I find a little disappointing is that the book feels a unpolished. For example, there are a lot of images that aren't where they're supposed to be. For example in the number section, they show the signs for 18 and 19 with the same picture. This didn't bug me that much since I figured out the number pattern by this point. But it gets worse when the book does this for WORDS as well. Like for the word "why?" The picture goes completely against what the text is telling me to do and I had to search it up instead.
A lesser issue I have is that some words that you'd assume would be together just aren't. There's a section of the book about "Asking Questions," and in the description it tells you the facial expression you're supposed to make with "WH-" questions-- specifically Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The book has What, When and Where introduced on pages 19-20, but it has Why introduced on page 50. And Who isn't even included in the book.
An even lesser issue I have with the text is that it will describe how to sign the word as well as other additional meanings you could use that sign for. But it's randomized whether or not that additional meaning will be in the description of the text or in the memory tip box. It makes it hard when you try to catalogue which words/phrases you've learned.
What upsets me more than this is when the author will say things like "finish [this phrase] with the movement for the sign LATER." This is a beginners book, I don't know the sign for "later," you have to teach it to me first. It doesn't matter if the sign is something as simple as changing the position of your fingers held in the same shape, I would still like to be told how to do it rather than just be shown an image and be told "figure it out." ESPECIALLY if the book has shown me that sometimes the the images can be incorrect.
For those who don't have the time to read my complaints with the book, here's the overall take away: get an ASL dictionary. I mean, you were going to have to anyways with your language learning journey. But the overall flippant disregard for explaining how to do some of the signs/incorrect image placement will make you start to tweak.
Anyways here's the wall text:
What I find a little disappointing is that the book feels a unpolished. For example, there are a lot of images that aren't where they're supposed to be. For example in the number section, they show the signs for 18 and 19 with the same picture. This didn't bug me that much since I figured out the number pattern by this point. But it gets worse when the book does this for WORDS as well. Like for the word "why?" The picture goes completely against what the text is telling me to do and I had to search it up instead.
A lesser issue I have is that some words that you'd assume would be together just aren't. There's a section of the book about "Asking Questions," and in the description it tells you the facial expression you're supposed to make with "WH-" questions-- specifically Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The book has What, When and Where introduced on pages 19-20, but it has Why introduced on page 50. And Who isn't even included in the book.
An even lesser issue I have with the text is that it will describe how to sign the word as well as other additional meanings you could use that sign for. But it's randomized whether or not that additional meaning will be in the description of the text or in the memory tip box. It makes it hard when you try to catalogue which words/phrases you've learned.
What upsets me more than this is when the author will say things like "finish [this phrase] with the movement for the sign LATER." This is a beginners book, I don't know the sign for "later," you have to teach it to me first. It doesn't matter if the sign is something as simple as changing the position of your fingers held in the same shape, I would still like to be told how to do it rather than just be shown an image and be told "figure it out." ESPECIALLY if the book has shown me that sometimes the the images can be incorrect.
July 31, 2020
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
American Sign Language for Beginners is a beginner's tutorial guide to ASL by Rochelle Barlow. Released 28th July by Callisto on their Rockridge Press imprint, it's 192 pages (for the print copy) and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.
This is a great 30 day tutorial for learning ASL either independently or as part of a classroom. I liked the easy to follow layout of the book and the accessible language. The introduction covers the author's personal history with ASL as well as the origins and use of signing. The introduction also gives a good breakdown of hand position and posture for signing as well as the "five parameters" (handshape, palm orientation, location, movement, and non-manual markers).
The following chapters are laid out in daily tutorials covering individual words and phrases and leading to more complex and nuanced sentences and contextual signaling as well as verb tenses, sentence structure, and questions. The author has also included a solid resources and links list for further reading. The photography in the tutorials is clear and understandable.
This is a very well done book and would make a good resource for self-learners as well as classroom settings.
Five stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
American Sign Language for Beginners is a beginner's tutorial guide to ASL by Rochelle Barlow. Released 28th July by Callisto on their Rockridge Press imprint, it's 192 pages (for the print copy) and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free.
This is a great 30 day tutorial for learning ASL either independently or as part of a classroom. I liked the easy to follow layout of the book and the accessible language. The introduction covers the author's personal history with ASL as well as the origins and use of signing. The introduction also gives a good breakdown of hand position and posture for signing as well as the "five parameters" (handshape, palm orientation, location, movement, and non-manual markers).
The following chapters are laid out in daily tutorials covering individual words and phrases and leading to more complex and nuanced sentences and contextual signaling as well as verb tenses, sentence structure, and questions. The author has also included a solid resources and links list for further reading. The photography in the tutorials is clear and understandable.
This is a very well done book and would make a good resource for self-learners as well as classroom settings.
Five stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
August 10, 2020
It makes sense to study "static" hand signs from a book, but the moving/dynamic ones are super hard to get from a book! Nonetheless, this one does try, using photos and explanations (some are more successful than others). I appreciated the sections on sentence structure, as well as the little tips on how to remember certain signs.
*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
June 1, 2024
I am a deaf French Canadian woman who grew up in a hearing family. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to learn sign language because my family had no motivation to learn it.
Here I am today, in my early thirties, telling myself that it is not too late to learn it and to join on the magnificent learning of ASL. I am happy to have discovered this book and it allowed me to learn a good basic ASL. This is just the beginning!
Here I am today, in my early thirties, telling myself that it is not too late to learn it and to join on the magnificent learning of ASL. I am happy to have discovered this book and it allowed me to learn a good basic ASL. This is just the beginning!
September 8, 2024
4 stars!
The book and accompanying videos are really helpful. They are broken into sections and build on basic language skills. A really good refresher for those with experience using ASL or for those wanting to learn ASL.
I will say it is not ideal on kindle / smart phone.
The book and accompanying videos are really helpful. They are broken into sections and build on basic language skills. A really good refresher for those with experience using ASL or for those wanting to learn ASL.
I will say it is not ideal on kindle / smart phone.
February 10, 2021
Great resource for those wanting to brush on on skills are start at the beginning. Well paced, and lots of pictures with practical examples of everyday ASL. Kindle Unlimited.
January 9, 2023
Everything you could want In a ASL book
January 29, 2023
Ok resource
I am a visual learner, so each g text in this book wasn't helpful. I learned more with an app with interactive videos and tests.
I am a visual learner, so each g text in this book wasn't helpful. I learned more with an app with interactive videos and tests.
September 9, 2024
For content and details, this deserves 4-5 stars. I gave it 3 stars because I personally have a hard time learning ASL from photos (I need video or in-person instruction). But the author does a great job with images, details, lessons, and instruction.
I offer my utmost respect and admiration to those who are fluent in ASL.
I offer my utmost respect and admiration to those who are fluent in ASL.
April 27, 2024
Learn Loads
This book is either a wee bit dated, or has regional signs that I’m not very familiar with, so it was GREAT to see them. I am using this as a resource for informal lessons with friends so they can sign to me and I feel it is set up in a nice, natural approach to learning the language, pretty nice explanation for things and is a valuable resource. I agree with the author that books are important, and she does a pretty good job explaining each sign and phrase.
This book is either a wee bit dated, or has regional signs that I’m not very familiar with, so it was GREAT to see them. I am using this as a resource for informal lessons with friends so they can sign to me and I feel it is set up in a nice, natural approach to learning the language, pretty nice explanation for things and is a valuable resource. I agree with the author that books are important, and she does a pretty good job explaining each sign and phrase.
August 10, 2024
Was trying to pick some ASL for work purposes, and I would like to more fully study it at some point. I’m thinking video footage might be more appropriate for this type of visual language, but I really enjoyed the book regardless. It’s a great reference guide.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews