What Is Sign Language?

What Is Sign Language? — page 1 — Beanca Turner was born deaf but can still communicate with the world around her 4

What Is Sign Language? — page 2 — Chapter 1 Words in Her Hands When most children start kindergarten they already understand about three thousand words For Beanca Turner however learning language was different Beanca was born deaf When her mother and father spoke to her she was not able to hear anything they said Since she did not hear spoken language she did not learn to speak Sometimes she made up hand gestures to mean words such as EAT HOUSE or CAR These hand movements are called home signs Home signs helped Beanca express simple things but she could not ask questions or tell stories When she felt happy she could not tell her family why When she felt sad she could not explain what was wrong 5

What Is Sign Language? — page 3 — At school Beanca and her classmates learned American Sign Language Everything changed for Beanca when she went to school All the children in her class were deaf The teacher communicated with the children by forming signs with her hands The signs were words and ideas that the deaf children could see and understand The teacher was using American Sign Language ASL Beanca and the other children watched the teacher They learned new signs every day Soon Beanca was 6

What Is Sign Language? — page 4 — using these signs to ask questions tell stories and explain how she felt For the first time in her life Beanca could communicate with other people She could understand what they said to her Beanca began to use ASL with her family Her mother and father took ASL classes so they could Beanca’s family learned ASL so that they could all communicate 7

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