About Kiddisign
Hi, I'm Yvonne K. Lavelle, founder of Kiddisign. I started up a nanny agency 8 years ago after being a childcarer for 5 years and discovered Baby Signing when I was looking for a sign for outside my office and googled 'child like signs'. The search produced 'Baby Signing'!
I became hooked on baby signing from then onwards and realised that it had been used in America for over 20 years. I decided that I had to learn this and help other parents and childcarers to learn it, so that they would have easier lives and less frustrated babies than I had seen in my working life!
In January of 2004 I started helping other parents to sign with their babies. I saw babies signing within a few weeks and I couldn't believe how popular it became and when parents saw their baby sign back, they were just as surprised as I was! It was like a revelation! I was also learning sign language at night school while running a busy nanny agency and baby signing classes. It was an exhausting time but really worth all the effort now as I have just published my first book!
I decided that most of the books on the market were either too complicated to use or too simple with little instruction, so I decided to use the class plans that I taught, which I knew worked, so that parents and childcarers could learn easily with the children at home or in a day care setting.
I also learned American signing as we have a few Americans in Scotland, you know! And so, you can buy the book in the British or American versions.
Kiddisign's workbooks are for Parents, Groups, House Meetings, Grandparents, Caregivers and Nurseries. The workbook has six sections all step-by-step using adapted nursery rhymes, and you can start today with our downloadable book or buy a hard copy from the 'Our Books' page. It teaches you how to integrate baby and child signing into a baby/child's day to help them communicate before and after they speak or for deaf children, to learn in a fun way!
(Please note that Kiddisign E-courses are not produced by Sign2Me, but Kiddisign is a certified member of Sign2Me as a teacher/presenter)
And, for toddlers and older speaking children, it's like learning a new language - they love it and are able to utilise it to communicate to younger siblings or if they come across a hard of hearing or deaf child!!
You can use everyday soft toys from around the house or nursery to sign with the nursery rhymes but if you wish to purchase finger puppets or larger puppets for your child or for the nursery, then please visit a wonderful website at www.cambridgeeducationaltoys.com.