CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — On a weekday afternoon, six women gathered with their newborns on a carpeted family room floor in an apartment in Cambridge. All new moms, they came together to learn a thing or two about sign language for their hearing babies.
 
“I had heard about baby sign before I had my baby,” said Courtney Horwitz, the mom who hosted the party. “People talk about it all the time now. It’s like a big thing."
 
A playgroup with a purpose
 
A big thing, but not a new thing. Sign language for babies has been popular among parents for a decade. What is new — at least for these moms — is the methods of Jill Tully.

Tully teaches the babies a word. (Courtesy of Brea Ashcraft)

Tully, a mother of three, is what you might call a traveling teacher. She lives in Melrose, but teaches “Sign to Me, Sing to Me” playgroups all over the North Shore and Greater Boston Area. She charges $40 for the playgroup, which came out in this case to a little more than $6 per mom.
 
Tully showed up at Horwitz's apartment with an apple-green-and-white, polka-dot suitcase in tow. Attached to the outside of the bag was a round speaker and a tiny green mp3 player. As soon as Tully got through the door, she turned on the music.
 
The babies ranged from 6 months to 8 months old and collectively displayed all the signs of baby-ness: crawling, cooing and crying. But when Tully started singing and gesturing with her hands, the babies were mesmerized.
 
Tully’s exposure to American Sign Language, or ASL, began when she worked as a teacher for young children with language delays. She learned about its use with hearing babies after she had her first child. She loved the idea and took her daughter to a couple of classes, but then the instructor moved away.
 
“I was really bummed out cause I wanted to continue with it,” Tully said. “So I figured, I guess I’ll start teaching classes because no one else is and it is too cool to let it go.”
 
That daughter is now 7 and Tully has been developing her method of teaching sign to babies ever since.
 
Some people teach baby sign to parents in a workshop, Tully said, but she didn't like that approach. "I’m a teacher by nature so I wanted it to be engaging for both the parents and the children, so that the children are getting some music enrichment and learning some signs,” she said.
 
Baby sign language proponents say the primary purpose of teaching sign to infants is to increase early communication in order to decrease frustration. So if your baby knows the sign for milk — which, by the way, is similar to squeezing the udder of a cow—then she might not have to wail in order to get what she wants.
 
A medical perspective
 
Critics fear teaching sign language to babies might delay verbal speech. Kevin Shapiro, a pediatric neurology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, said there is a dearth of data on the effects of teaching sign to hearing babies.
 
"There’s some research that indicates that children who are exposed to symbolic gesture and develop larger gestural repertoires do a little better on measures of expressive and receptive language in the first two years of life,” Shapiro said. “But that advantage pretty much disappears by 30 months. Then their verbal language takes off and they are pretty much indistinguishable from other typically developed infants.”
 
But Shapiro said that babies are predisposed to pick up on symbolic gestures and primed to learn language. In fact, whether the language is spoken or signed, the regions of the brain involved in language development are similar — mostly in the left hemisphere, part of the inferior frontal lobe and part of the temporal lobe. And, Shapiro said, "We know that early exposure to language is a good predictor of language development down the line.”
 
So teaching your baby sign language might not make him smarter in the long run, but it might allow him to choose the topic of conversation. Shapiro used the example of an infant who makes the sign for “bird.”
 
“The parent knows that the infant is engaged in the birdie and will respond by saying, oh yes, it’s a birdie,” said Shapiro. “It’s a way of eliciting conversation from the parents, which we know is good for child language development.”
 
Baby sign language in the real world
 
The parents in Tully’s class were eager to know when their babies would start communicating through sign. She said that if babies are exposed to consistent signing, they can usually master simple signs by 16 to 20 months.
 
However, one mother in the group said her daughter, Aurora, used her first sign — "milk" — when she was only 6 months old. Brea Ashcraft said she and her husband had been signing "milk" every time they fed Aurora. One day, while taking a break from a feeding, Aurora looked right up at her mother and clenched her fist.
 
“I could hardly believe it,” Ashcraft said. “Over the next few days she started doing it more and more, and now does it a lot of times when she wants it and even when she’s eating.” If somebody walks in the room during a feeding, Aurora will stop, look up at the person, sign that she’s having "milk" and then go back to eating.
 
Ashcraft said Aurora now knows a second sign: diaper.
 
“On Saturday my husband was holding her and she was frantically signing for diaper,” Ashcraft said. “So he takes her into the bedroom, takes off her diaper and her diaper is dry, and he’s like, you don’t need your diaper changed, and then she peed all over him.”
 
The takeaway from that story? Some things clearly get lost in translation.

Children today pick up using tablets and touch-screen devices as if they were born to it. (michaelaion/Flickr)

Tim Monroe is head of school at the Sage School for gifted children in Foxborough, Mass. Like many other educators, he is faced with integrating the new technology into the classroom. He talked with WGBH Radio's Bob Seay about that challenge and gave some advice for parents.
 

At Sage, every second grader has been given an iPad to use for part of the day, Monroe said: “What we’re trying to do this year is figure out [if] mobile devices enhance learning in the school setting. And so far the results are pretty good.”
 
He thought it was key that parents supervise their children’s screen time and not use these devices as digital “babysitters.”
 
Dr. Michael Rich, who directs the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, agreed in an October 20 conversation with Jared Bowen, guest host of “The Emily Rooney Show."
 
When considering the effects of mobile devices on children, Rich said, “The first thing is to think about what the child is doing on it and for how long. If it is simply to distract them so you can get dinner on the table or take a shower, that’s probably not the right choice to make. … There are alternative activities that kids can do that will keep them just as happy, like giving them a bunch of pots and pans and a wooden spoon while you’re making dinner.”
 
When a child is allowed to use an iPhone or iPad as a distraction, “it teaches them that this is the default position for downtime,” Rich said.
 
Hear the complete conversation on "The Emily Rooney Show."

Related

Theresa Lynn is the executive director of ReadBoston, a nonprofit children’s literacy program founded by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. In this role, she has led many new literacy efforts to address reading development, including the creation of the Early Words program, which seeks to substantially increase verbal interaction between parents and infants and toddlers. She has also overseen the development of the Environmental Literacy Project, a multifaceted program which seeks to increase literacy skills using environmental themes. This program has been extremely successful, especially with boys and reluctant readers.

What impact do the ReadBoston book distributions have on young children? 
The research on the “summer slide” is very clear. Children who have access to books in the summer can avoid the academic slide that many children from families with low-income experience. As few as six books can make a difference. Free book programs are important to young children because the “summer slide” effect is cumulative. So after a few summers without access to books and educational engagement programs over the summer years, an at-risk student might be as much as a full academic year behind his fellow classmates. By reaching them early, we are working with WGBH to stem this problem before it starts.

Tell us about the many programs that ReadBoston sponsors for young children, and how Boston families can access them.
The centerpiece of ReadBoston’s summer activities is our popular and ubiquitous Storymobile program, which will visit 80 Boston locations each week for seven weeks. At each stop, children receive a free, new book and participate in an engaging storytelling session. The times and dates are listed on our website, and all public locations are open to everyone.
 
New this year, we are adding two evening locations, one outside the Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester and one at the Pond in Jamaica Plain. We also have an exciting week of special Storymobile events planned for the week of August 15, including sessions at Fenway Park and the Boston Harbor Islands, so please check out our website, and visit our Fan Page on Face Book.
 
Much of our focus at ReadBoston is on strengthening the capacity and skills of people that interact with children, including parents, but also childcare staff, teachers, after-school staff and para-professionals. Strong literacy practices include creating a print-rich environment, reading-aloud, lots of engaging verbal interaction, extending the book themes through drama, singing, and art and, of course, access to lots of great books!

Tell us about the new summer initiative that you are partnering on with WGBH this summer.
ReadBoston is thrilled to join forces with WGBH to help put the breaks on the “summer slide.” Together, we plan to implement a variety of activities designed to provide young Bostonians with ready access to new children’s books that they will be excited to read and share with their families, as well as access to engaging, skill-building activities, both online and in the community. We’re working with several elementary schools to recruit rising first graders and their families to participate in a summer books-by-mail program. Participating children will receive six new books, plus fun giveaways such as pencils, word magnets, stickers, etc. Families that register will receive a series of text messages with literacy tips, links to educational games online, and invitations to free community events. ReadBoston, Mayor Menino, and WGBH will also collaborate on a large-scale event for children and families featuring read-alouds and book distributions.

You estimate that ReadBoston will distribute a staggering 50,000 new books to Boston’s children this summer. Is there a title or two that young Bostonians are most excited about?
Yes, we’re extremely proud to be able to offer so many books to Boston’s children, many of whom would not otherwise have books to call their own. In terms of titles, we’re hearing a lot of buzz about Swim! Swim!by Lerch, which tells the story of Lerch the goldfish who is lonely and  goes in search of a friend. When the family cat offers his friendship, Lerch is understandably concerned since the cat refers to his new friend as “Lunch.” Another popular title is Brontorina by James Howe and Randy Cecil, which is a story about acceptance and pursing one’s dream. Brontorina Apatosaurus wants to attend Madame Lucille’s dance academy, but there’s a problem: Is it that Brontorina is too big, or is it that the dance studio is too small? Clever Jack Takes the Cakeby Candace Fleming and G. Brian Karas is a funny tale about a boy whose story about what happened to the cake he baked for the princess is as “delicious” as the cake itself. Book series such as Arthur, Curious George, and Martha Speaks, all three of which have been turned into successful PBS Kids television series, are perennial favorites.

During your tenure, you’ve distributed hundreds of thousands of books to Boston’s children. Is there a particularly memorable story you’d like to share?
In the course of my work, I meet tons of parents who tell me how much they like the Storymobile program. They tell me the location they went to and the ages of their children. When I visit classrooms, I often ask the students if they have ever heard of the Storymobile program. Generally, there are several children who have experienced the Storymobile program, and can recall which books they received. Being able to choose their own book is meaningful to them.
 
Recently, I met a young boy named Jackson at a Family Night in a Dorchester school. Jackson was there with his mother who was getting information about language-building activities to try at home. His mother told me how much Jackson likes to read and that he reads all the time. She also told me that she really didn’t like to read herself and didn’t do so very often. But Jackson was always bugging her to read him books and to get more books in the house. When she found out that I was from ReadBoston, she was very excited and told us that Jackson had been part of our Reading Trail program at his preschool, then our Family Literacy Project at his elementary school, and received books at home during the summer as part of our Summer Time is Reading Time program. And he also attended a few Storymobile sessions each summer. I was gratified to see how our multiple programs touched Jackson and his mom, and helped them both develop a love of books and reading.
 
For more information on ReadBoston, or to find out when the Storymobile will be in your Boston neighborhood, please visit:

http://www.readboston.org/
http://www.facebook.com/ReadBoston

Three independent studies report that the highly rated WGBH and PBS KIDS series Martha Speaks is an effective tool across platforms (broadcast and mobile devices) in increasing young children’s vocabulary. The studies noted increases comparable to traditional classroom vocabulary instruction (such as reading out loud) for kids who viewed multiple episodes of the show, as well as gains of up to 31 percent in the vocabulary tested among low-income children who played with the Martha Speaks Dog Party iPhone app.

“We’re thrilled with the impressive impact the project is having on increasing young children’s vocabulary,” says Carol Greenwald, WGBH senior executive producer. “Vocabulary is critical to reading comprehension and a key predictor of reading success. By the time children enter kindergarten, however, a great chasm in vocabulary knowledge exists between disadvantaged kids and their peers—and the former never catch up. Across multiple platforms, Martha Speaks has been able to enhance kids’ knowledge of words through the context of a talking dog and great stories.”

Both fans of the series and education experts agree, saying:
 

• “I could not agree any more. My daughter is three and tests at a higher level and I thank PBS daily for that.” - My Springfield Mommy
• “My experience is a bit different from other parents, because my oldest son is autistic. At the age of 4-years-old, he was hardly talking and strangers couldn’t understand him at all. That’s why we get very giddy when he likes shows like Martha Speaks that actually make a big effort to help his development.” - Mommy Q
• “Kids like Martha, and a host of studies now show she’s improving their vocabularies in a big way. At a time when many members of Congress want to kill federal funding for public broadcasting...it’s important to acknowledge the benefit that shows like Martha Speaks bring to some of its youngest, and most disadvantaged, viewers.” - American School Board Journal
• “Yay Martha Speaks! "Martha Speaks" Shows Impressive Impact in Helping Children Learn New Vocabulary http://t.co/bOWyTEw @pbskids - Alice Wilder, Educational Psychologist and co-creator of Super Why

Dr. Ilan Stavans is founding academic host professor at Amherst College, and co-founder of the Great Books Summer Program.

Related Putting The Breaks On The Summer Slide What's So Super About Super Why Reading Camps

Download the 2011 Great Books brochure.

A conversation with Great Books Summer Program co-founder, Dr. Ilan Stavans

Dr. Ilan Stavans is Founding Academic Host Professor at Amherst College, and co-founder of the Great Books Summer Program. Dr. Stavans holds an endowed chair as Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latino Studies at Amherst College. Dr. Stavans is a prolific author and editor and is well known for his books, such as Spanglish, as well as his definitive collection of Pablo Neruda’s poetry. In 2010, he created the Great Films movie based on a session at Great Books.

Dr. Stavans, please give us some background on the Great Books Summer Program.

The GBSP is a terrific way to spend the summer immersed in ideas and with people who love them. Designed for middle- and high-school students, Great Books Summer Program invites young people to engage with the literary classics (Plato, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Whitman, Tolstoy, Kafka, et al): to open them up, to debate them, to re-imagine them, to apply their message to our time. During the session, campers may enact plays, write stories, recite poetry, and perhaps even make movies, with the guidance of thought-provoking adults who themselves are teachers, writers, and actors.

I co-founded the program a decade ago. My dream was to open a space where teenagers would thrive in, through, and around ideas, to inspire them to have the passion I feel toward books. I combined that vision with Peter Temes who was then the President of the Great Books Foundation and we created the program to employ the love of ideas with the “Shared Inquiry” method, always looking to foster the camper’s critical thinking skills. That’s what we need in this complex universe: critical thinking.

What type of young person would enjoy and benefit from the Great Books program the most?
 
An engaged, intellectually curious young person interested in the various aspects of culture.

What’s a typical day like at Great Books? What are some of the books that are read and discussed? Who are some of the guest authors?
 
A typical day starts with breakfast, followed by a morning meeting which features a poetry slam. Then comes a lecture with a distinguished thinker about Homer’s The Odysseyand after a short break there is yet another lecture about Pablo Neruda’s Spain in the Heart. Afterward is a discussion section, in which small groups of campers reflect and share ideas on the content of the lecture. Then comes lunch. A free hour allows campers to take hikes, swim, or stage a play. The afternoon might features electives which include creative writing, visual art, music, theater, and various literature related topics. Each evening features an event—there may be a movie showing (Duck Soup, O Brother Where Art Thou, Citizen Kane) or a guest speaker (Debbie Applegate, Joseph Ellis, John Sayles). In the late evening, campers might read the poetry of Emily Dickinson under the starry sky.

Why do you feel it’s so important for young people to continue learning during the summer?

First, learning shouldn’t be a task. It should be fun and Great Books helps to remind campers that the pursuit of knowledge can be a lively and engaging affair. Second, we all know the importance of maintaining academic progress over the summer, to avoid summer slide. Bright young people should engage in academic pursuits to help enhance what they have learned in the previous school year and to prepare themselves for greater academic challenges in the year to come.

How does Great Books Summer Program help prepare kids for college?

It makes kids intellectually curious, inviting them to reflect in engaging fashion about the political, social, cultural, and moral issues that define us. In addition, campers that attend the Great Books Summer Program are participating in college-level reading and thinking under the tutelage of our experienced staff who make tacking the great philosophical questions of our time both accessible and interesting. The skills that the campers gain in close reading and in expressing their ideas will prove invaluable in their college experience.

Do you offer scholarships or financial aid to cover the Great Books tuition fee?

We do indeed. Limited financial aid is available to help offset the cost of tuition.

For more information on the Great Books Summer Program, visit:

http://www.greatbookssummer.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Great-Books-Summer-Program

What is the “Summer Slide”

We all look forward to the rest and relaxation of summer. It’s good to take a break, but hot, lazy summer days with nothing to do may not be the best thing for our children. To succeed in school—and life—children and young adults need ongoing opportunities to learn and practice essential skills such as reading and math. This is especially true during the summer months, when many children who do not participate in educational enrichment activities experience learning losses.

Called the “summer slide,” this phenomenon has long been of interest to educators and researchers. In 1996, researchers conducted a synthesis of 39 studies that indicated that summer learning loss equaled at least one month of instruction as measured by grade level equivalents on standardized test scores (view this research). In other words on average, children’s tests scores were at least one month lower when they returned to school in fall than scores were when students left in spring. 

Clearly, children will benefit from a high-quality summer program that helps them maintain and improve important skills. But how do you find one that really works? Kids Media Matters went looking for some answers, and found many examples of great summer reading models!

Throughout the summer we’ll be posting profiles of programs and organizations actively involved in promoting summer reading and improving skills. “Summer slide” can affect children at any age in their academic development, so each of the profiles feature a summer program that has demonstrated success with a particular age group.

Read More

What's So Super About Super Why Reading Camps?
Taking place for the third consecutive summer, Super Why Reading Camps are interactive learning adventures for ages 4-5-years-old.

There Are Good Books, And Then There Are Great Books
Designed for middle and high school students, the Great Books Summer Program invites young people to engage with the literary classics.

Boston Is A City Of Readers
A conversation with ReadBoston executive director Theresa Lynn.


Summer Surfing (Online, That Is!)
An interview with Christine Zanchi, WGBH web producer for Martha Speaks and Arthur.

A consumer watchdog group has put together a list of toys to avoid just in time for holiday shopping.  

The Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG, released its latest report on unsafe toys of the 2010 season. 

Thanks to tougher federal safeguards and new limits on lead content, deaths from dangerous toys are declining. But Micaela Preskill of watchdog group Mass PIRG says that parents still need to watch out.

Preskill said that many toys still contain toxic chemicals and pose choking hazards.   To illustrate her point, she picked up a harmless looking toy called “Baby’s first train set” sold on Amazon.com:

“We have a wooden train set with small pieces that are little wood pegs.  And these wood pegs don’t violate our choking small parts standards, but a Washington, D.C. parent notified us of this toy after she had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on her son to stop him from choking on this piece,” Preskill said.

That wooden train is on U.S. PIRG's list of dangerous toys, which was released today.  Also on the list is a plastic tiara sold in K-mart, which barely meets safe lead standards; and a Dora the Explorer backpack from Claire’s, which contains high levels of pthalene – a toxic chemical found in vinyls that has been linked to developmental problems in children.

Lois Lee, an ER doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital, recommends a couple of steps for keeping the family safe.  First, she says, when choosing a gift for an older child, keep in mind any potential risks to younger siblings.

“I recently took care of a 9-month-old son that the father was concerned may have choked on a Lego, because he saw the 9-month-old crawling towards a pile of Legos that he saw his 4-year-old son playing with earlier that day," Lee saud. "So it’s more than just worrying about the child for whom the toy is but also about the other children in the home.”

Also, Dr. Lee says, read warning labels on toy packaging, ask the toy store owner for any additional information, and use common sense.   For more tips and for the full report on hazardous toys, go to toysafety.net.

Ever wanted to be a circus performer, or just looking for new ways to entertain your friends and family? Learn how to perform these tricks with this collection of DIY tips, brought to you from the cast of Circus. Watch Circus beginning Wednesday, Nov 3 at 9pm on WGBH 2 (view clips and schedules).

How to Do a Handstand

Some circus acrobats seem as comfortable walking on their hands as they do on their feet. Big Apple Circus performer Christian Stoinev shows students the basics of the handstand and provides a few tips for getting started.

How to Juggle

Juggling in the circus takes years of practice, so why not get started now? Learn juggling basics from master juggler Jake LaSalle. He demonstrates how to build up from juggling one ball to three.

How to Make a Clown Face

What would the circus be without clowns? Big Apple Circus clown Glen Heroy gives you some tips and ideas for creating your own clown face.

How to Train a Dog at Home

Training dogs like Luciano Anastasini takes patience and good rapport with our canine companions. In this video, students can learn to teach their dogs simple tricks by observing and rewarding their behavior.

How to Walk a Tightrope

Walking the tightrope requires focus and balance, but anyone can do it. Wire walker Sarah Schwarz demonstrates the basics of tightrope walking. With patience and practice, students can learn to balance like the pros.