Customer Reviews

Perhaps the First Video Your Child Should Ever See: Beginning Reading & Sign Language (Ages 2 - 12) [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After having waited over a month to receive this video I was so dissappointed in the type of words they chose to teach which were mostly animals, the quality of the video was poorly done, very choppy demonstrations which gave me a headache after I was done watching and the plain fact that I did not learn the alphabet which I would think is the first thing a beginner should learn. I guess I will have to take the class in college after all.

I did not like it at all. It was not for beginners. I was expecting to learn sign language alphabet and basic stuff of sign language, but I did not see any of those stuff. You will not be able to learn sign language from this video if you are a beginner. Quality of video was very poor as well. It was very amature work.

This tape offers a list of words, lots of animals, river, and other nouns. The words are shown signed, written in English and illustrated by real life photos. It is meant to be of interest to children and my not quite three year old grand daughter watched it and signed along. What it fails to show is the way deaf people interact using American Sign Language. For people already familiar with American Sign Language this video would help to build vocabulary. It does nothing to impart syntax or sentence structure. It would be greatly improved for my purposes if two people had presented in dialogue form: e.g. Where are you going? I'm going to the river. What is that animal called? It is a lion. And so forth. With what I learned I can now sign a word list, which is not useful skill for me.

I have several sign language tapes and all are better quality, better learning approaches, and less expensive. This tape only shows each sign one or two times and there is black screen in between signs (and it is often a very choppy switch between the two...) Sometimes, the camera distance or angle makes it difficult (if not impossible) to see what she is signing and you then have to use another source to get a good understanding of the signs. Also, for a video that claims to be the first video your child needs to see, it uses some pretty obscure words while leaving out some important 'everyday' type words (I don't know about you, but rhinoceros sightings are not a frequent occurence in our area and do typewriters even exist anymore??--It is copywrited 1990, though, so maybe I am being a bit harsh...) In addition, for a video geared to children, it isn't interesting or attention grabbing and it is too choppy, fast, and poor quality to ecourage easy learning. "Signing Time," "Baby See 'N Sign," and "Sign Me a Story" are much better quality learning tools and more are more affordable, too. Plus, they are fun to watch--for young and 'older' alike! I hope this helps you!

My views are somewhere between the other two reviews on this page. I think the reason they introduced the signs for so many animals is because they were obvious and easy to learn. It would be fun for kids to start learning such easy signs. I also wish they had showed the signs more closely so you could be sure you were doing them correctly. Each sign was only done 2 or 3 times, but I used the pause and rewind button on my VCR to go back over them. Plus they were pretty obvious so it was easy to pick them up (e.g. the monkey, bear, tiger, giraffe signs, etc. were pretty obvious). It was better than other videos I have seen.

I use this video to supplement my signing activities with my children. My youngest son began signing at 12 months of age ...and this video was an instant hit when he saw it. Of course, not all signs are signifigant to a young child (such as the money signs), but what other toddler do you know that knows what a buffalo, fox, and elk are? I wouldn't say this video is a good "teacher" of sign language (as in ASL context and structure), but it's a great vocabulary builder for those signing with their babies as well as others wishing to learn sign vocabulary.

I was disappointed in this video for two reasons. First, the vocabulary selection is inappropriate for beginners. Among the first words signed 25 (nearly 25% of the total) are for animals and other wild creatures, which a beginner is unlikely to need or use. What the beginner needs are signs for such basic ideas as "hello," "goodbye," "thank you," "excuse me," "please," "yes," and "no," none of which are demonstrated. Second, the movements are too fast. The beginner needs to see movements close up and in slow motion to be sure he or she knows exactly which fingers should be used, and exactly how the movements should be executed. A person who already knows the basics of signing, however, will undoubtedly find some value in this video.

I thought this video, although looking like a home video, was quite well done. I learned how to sign 123 different items in less that one hour. They did a good job in showing you what you were going to sign, then showed you multiple times the actual signing technique. I hope the company continues their series. Highly recommend this for anyone wanting to learn sign language. A good beginning...

Beginning Reading and Sign language teaches how to Sign 124 words. It moves well, and viewers can fast forward or reverse right to the area they wish to learn words from, because the words are bunched according to subject matter.