The teachers in the West Wing introduced visual flashcards by playing simple games with them during our Sign Language meetings. They have been used to prompt signs for each corresponding picture. Now these flashcards are available for the children to access any time of the day.
Teacher Jennifer: How do you play this game?
Isla: You sign something and then people try to find it.
Leah: And then someone comes to help when they need support.
Isla: Not always. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
When we were observing the children playing this game, we noticed a couple of things. One was just how many words they have learned to sign and recognize and second was that the game was mostly played in silence. When the Signer would want the Receiver to pay attention to the next sign, she would tap the Receiver’s shoulder. This demonstrates their understanding of how subtle non-verbal cues are as a part of signing and how confident they feel in using it as the primary language in this game. These cards have ushered in another way for the children to practice expressing what they have learned.