Sign for word children

When you are a teacher wanting to get the attention of your students in a fun and exciting way, you would want to try anything. Children and teenagers are attracted to something that they can relate with–which is something fun, engaging and informative all at the same time. There are many education-themed templates that you can use for your students and your classroom to suit your every day needs without taking up a lot of time. 

In this article, we will show you a couple of printable classroom sign maker templates for Word. These templates are specially designed for schools and young students. These templates created for Word.

Learn To Read The Signs With This Class Sign Template

The Classroom Sign Template for Word is a beautifully designed template, appropriate for young children. This template shows the type of class and the room number. This template can be used for posting right on the classroom door to help students acquaint themselves with the classroom, teacher, and the class itself. This is especially true during the first days of class, where students are either new to the school or are stepping up a school level and need to be familiar with their classrooms.

This simple yet beautifully designed template features drawings of a pencil and a teacher’s desk specially illustrated to look as if drawn by students themselves. There are two rounded boxes where you can print or write by hand, the name of the class, the professor or teacher’s name, and the room number. You can print multiple copies of this for all your class rooms so your excited students will not have to go to his or her class late from trying to find the right classroom.

Update:

This template is not available anymore, however, you can download an alternative template via the below link.

Go to Download Classroom Sign Template for Word (Alternative Link)

Make Chemistry Much More Fun And Exciting

Who says chemistry is boring? Pretty much every student, right? With this Chemistry Class Sign Template students will be excited at what is in store behind the door where this sign is posted.

This Chemistry Class Sign Template is a Word 2013 template that allows you to create your own sign for your chemistry or science classroom. This is a printer-friendly template that you can easily customize and print on a standard letter-sized paper.

The template features a neat-looking graphic image of a beaker, atoms, and mixtures in a beaker. Just at one glance, students can easily identify the classroom to be for a chemistry class. To customize, you can simply type the teacher’s name and the subject on the placeholders.

Go to Download Chemistry Class Sign Template in Word

Now that your child can say or sign a few common words, you need to begin to expand his vocabulary to include different kinds of words. Most babies learn nouns, or names of people, places, and things first. Remember that your baby also needs words for actions (verbs), locations (prepositions), and descriptions (adjectives/adverbs) so that he can?combine these to form phrases. Children typically begin to produce phrases when their vocabularies are close to 50 words. It’s almost impossible for your child to make the jump from words to phrases unless he has expanded his vocabulary. If your child isn’t yet talking, but has become a good signer, be sure to expand his signs too. Below are lists of words by category that most children include in their early vocabularies, for first 100 or so words, compiled from several sources. If your child is not yet talking and you would like to know the sign for word, you can cut and paste the following link to your browser to search for a demonstration of the sign – http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm

Social Function Words

more, please, thank you, hi/hello, bye-bye, again, sorry,?uh-oh, yes/uh-huh/okay, no/uh-uh

Common Action Words (Verbs)

eat, drink, go, stop, run, jump, walk, sleep/night-night, wash, kiss, open, close, push, pull, fix, broke, play,want, hug, love, hurt, tickle, give (“gimme”), all gone, all done, dance, help, fall, shake, see, watch, look, sit, stand (up), throw, catch, blow, cry, throw, swing, slide, climb, ride, rock, come (“C’mon”), color/draw

Location Words (Prepositions)

up, down, in, out, off, on, here, there (Plus later ones such as around, under, behind, over at/after age 3)

Descriptive Words (Adjectives/Adverbs)

big, little, hot, cold, loud, quiet, yucky, icky, scary, funny, silly, dirty, clean, gentle, wet, soft, fast, slow, color words (red, blue, yellow, green, pink, orange, purple, black, white, brown) and quantity words (all, none, more, some, rest, plus early number words – especially 1, 2, 3)

Early Pronouns

me, mine, my, I, you, it (Then toward age 3 the gender pronouns such as he, she, him, her )

Just in case you’re wondering, here’s a list of the most common nouns:

ball, book, choo–choo, train, bike, rain, bubbles, car, truck, boat, plane, baby, bowl, spoon, diaper, sock, shoe, shirt, pants, hat, star, flower, house, tree, brush, towel, bath, chair, table, bed, blanket, light, cookie, cracker, chip, cheese, apple, banana, ice cream, cereal (Cheerios/ “O’s”), candy, milk, juice, water, dog, cat, fish, bird, duck, cow, horse, bunny, bear, pig, lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, monkey, chicken, butterfly, bee, frog, alligator, snake

Plus names for people – Mama, Dada, brother and sister names, pet names, grandparents & other family members, and favorite characters such as Elmo, Dora, Diego,etc…

What is key word sign?

Key word sign is the use of signs and natural gestures to support communication and the language development of children and/or adults with communication difficulties. It is a form of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) (i.e. a communication method other than speech – e.g. using pictures, sign or a communication device).

Signs are used for the words in the message that hold the most important information versus signing every single word. For example, if someone said, “Dry your hands” the key words that would be signed would be ‘dry’ and ‘hands’.

Key word sign uses a core vocabulary of specifically selected words containing concepts and ideas. Key Word Sign Australia was previously known as Makaton Australia. Each word or concept is matched to a hand sign. In Australia, the language used by the deaf community is Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Key word signing uses signs from Auslan.

The main features of key word sign include:

• Using sign and speech together.
• Signing the key words but saying the whole sentence.
• Using visual strategies such as body language and facial expression.
• Using symbols where appropriate.
• Some use of finger spelling.

Why is key word sign important?

Speech is the most efficient and effective way people communicate. However, the use of sign and gestures can be an important way for individuals to develop communication particularly to:

• Help a person’s understanding.
• Help a person communicate effectively if their speech is slow to develop.
• Supplement/support the speech attempts of a person which may not be articulated clearly (e.g. the person is unable to clearly say the word ‘water’ but can use the gesture for ‘drinking’).
• Be used as an alternative for someone who has no speech.

Key word sign used in isolation may not sufficiently meet the communication needs of an individual. Other strategies such as the use of pictures or photos may also need to be used to facilitate an individual’s communication.

What are the building blocks necessary to develop key word sign?

• Fine motor skills: Development of fine motor skills to enable the physical performance.
• Imitation: A child needs to be able to copy what someone else is doing in order to produce the signs themselves.
• Lack of tactile sensitivities: A child must be able to tolerate being touched so that someone can assist them to manipulate their fingers to produce the signs.
• Planning and sequencing: The sequential multi-step task/activity performance to achieve a well-defined result.
• Receptive (understanding) language: Comprehension of language.
• Working memory: The ability to temporarily retain and manipulate information involved in language comprehension, reasoning, and learning new information; and to update this information as change occurs.
• Body awareness: Knowing body parts and understanding the body’s movement in space in relation to other limbs and objects.

How can you tell if my child has problems with learning key word sign?

If a child has difficulty learning key word sign they might:

• Get frustrated when they can’t get their message across.
• Revert to grunting, pointing or tantrums when they can’t get their message across.
• Struggle to coordinate their fingers to make the signs.
• Have low muscle tone or difficulties with gross motor skills.
• Fail to maintain attention long enough to copy the sign.
• Be resistant to having someone help them to produce the sign.
• Fail to retain the sign learnt from moment to moment or day to day.

What other problems can occur when a child has key word signing difficulties?

When a child has key word signing difficulties they might also have difficulties with:

• Coordination: Ability to integrate multiple movements into efficient movement.
• Fine motor skills: finger and hand skills.
• Planning and sequencing: The sequential multi-step task/activity performance to achieve a well-defined result.
• Expressive (using) language: The use of language through speech, sign or alternative forms of communication to communicate wants, needs, thoughts and ideas.
• Receptive (understanding) language: Comprehension of language.
• Articulation
• Imitation
• Working memory: The ability to temporarily retain and manipulate information involved in language comprehension, reasoning, and learning new information; and to update this information as change occurs.
• Hearing

What can be done to improve key word signing?

• Workshops: There are workshops that you can attend to learn Key Word Sign which are run by Speech Therapists at Novita Children’s Services (www.novita.org.au).
• Consistency: Using a small number of key word signs as a start and mastering these first, before introducing too many more will ensure a child is able to develop the use of sign reasonably quickly.
• Family involvement: The more people in the child’s life that can be using key word sign, the more practice and reinforcement for the child.

What activities can be used to help improve key word signing?

• In play: When playing with the child:
  • Give the child instructions to follow, sign the key concepts within the command (e.g. “Put the doll in the bed”).
  • Sign the key concepts about what you and the child are doing when using toys in play (e.g. teddy bear jump, doll eating, big banana).
• Books: When looking at books with the child:Sign key concepts when completing routines throughout the day such as taking a bath and getting ready for bedtime (e.g. shoes off, in the bed).
  • Sign the question word and key information when asking questions (e.g. “Where is the girl?).
  • Sign the key words within you or the child’s comments when describing the picture and/or answering a question (e.g. “the girl is under the table”).
  • Get the child to answer questions using sign (e.g. adult: “Where is girl? child: Under the bed”).
• Sing songs/nursery rhymes and sign the key words within the song (e.g. star in ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, the different animals in ‘Old Macdonald’).
• Daily Routines: Encourage the child to use key word sign during daily routines. For example:
  • When asking for food (e.g. “I want apple please”).
  • When asking for a drink (e.g. “Can I have water please?”).
  • To go to the toilet (e.g. “I need to go to the toilet“).
  • To ask for help (e.g. when they need assistance with a toy or need help to open something  – “Help me please”.

Why should I seek therapy to develop key word sign?

Therapeutic intervention to help a child develop key word sign is important because:

• Learning key word sign can help to reduce the levels of frustration experienced by a child who can’t express their wants and needs.
• Learning key word sign can assist a child who is having difficulties understanding information as it provides a visual representation of what is being said.
• Some children have difficulty forming the signs. A Speech Therapist or Occupational Therapist can help a child to develop more accurate signs.

If left untreated what can a lack of key word signing lead to?

When children have difficulties developing key word signing, they might also have difficulties with:

• Behavioural difficulties as a child’s frustration levels increase because they are unable to express their wants and needs.
• Social isolation as a child is unable to communicate with their peers and may resort to other unwanted behaviours such as pushing or hitting to try and get other people’s attention.
• Coping in the academic environment as a child may be unable to understand the expectations if there are no visual prompts (e.g. sign) and may be unable to participate in activities due to a lack of expressive language.

What type of therapy is recommended to teach key word sign?

If your child has difficulties with learning key word sign, it is recommended they consult a Speech Therapist.

If there are multiple areas of concern (i.e. beyond just key word sign) both Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy may be recommended to address the functional areas of concern. This is the benefit of choosing Kid Sense which provides both Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy.