Signing Time

We have three toddler sign language videos that we are borrowing from a friend called "Signing Time," (www.signingtime.com). Everyday, Ava watches one of the three videos. She loves watching them, gets excited when the video comes on, signs "all done" (although I think she's signing "play" which is a similar motion and doesn't have the hand shape right), and dances to the intro song.

The image below is a chart with vocabulary for each volume and we have the first three volumes. Ava sees each word printed on the screen, hears the word being said, and sees the sign associated with the word several times with a different child each time signing the word. She will copy the signs half the time. I've seen her sign the word once the word pops up on the screen before the word is said out loud, which makes me think she either has the order of words memorized and knows what sign is next or she can actually read the word, although I may be overestimating her. 

Right now, Ava only uses a few of the words: eat, more, sleep, hungry, thirsty (all done, which isn't in the videos). "Thirsty" was a new one today. She understands a lot more and so far, I can only tell that she understands the following: milk, water, ball, shoes, mom, dad, no, yes, banana, cheese, bath, and bear. The way I can tell she understands the sign I use is when her eyes look for and rest upon the object or she'll pick it up (ex: her sippy cup, banana on the counter, teddy bear, ball, etc). Earlier today, I signed "shoe" to her and she promptly sat down on the floor and lifted up her foot, as if I'm getting ready to put her shoes on her feet. Today, Ava was fussing and signing "eat" to me and I handed her a cup of Cheerios. She refused it and cried some more. I kept saying "what, what?" and then she finally signed "thirsty," the first she's used it, and I gave her milk. She was a happy camper. 

If you can't read the words on the image, try clicking on it to enlarge