Learning NZSL alphabet with children

As a part of my teaching inquiry, I have been adapting the use of New Zealand Sign Language alphabets to increase my target group's letter identification knowledge. I developed a video where I am signing the alphabet incorporating the use of big alphabet butterfly cards. I play this video everyday in the morning to watch with the children and sign together.

With the target group, they would watch this video everyday on the Ipad accessing from the QR code that I developed. Sometimes, I found it easy for the children to access it on the desktop computers as they could hear better with the headphones.

I am quite surprised about the results that the children have developed through the use of NZSL alphabet.
Here is the data result

Student Name	Start Date	Baseline Data	End Date	End Point Data	Improvement	Comments
Child A	11/6	LD- 4	10/8	LD-17 Sign-14	13
Child B	11/6	LD-9	10/8	LD-17 Sign-2	8
Child C	11/6	LD-28	10/8	LD-45 Sign-39	17
Child D	11/6	LD-5				not collected the data yet
Child E	11/6	LD- 21	10/8	LD-37 Sign-23	16

I am happy to say that there has been a significant increase in children's letter knowledge using the sign language alphabet and their actual development in letter signs. 

One of the main issues that some children face is that it is really hard to transfer this letter ID knowledge in reading or writing. I have been doing some work as a class using NZSL alphabet to emphasize how a word is made up of letters. 

When I am reading a big book of shared reading, and I see the word 'Cat', we talk about the letters C, A, and T in sign, and how the each letter makes sounds. When we put these sounds together, it makes the word 'Cat'. I think in general, there has been a better understanding on this as a classroom as after this discussion, some children go away and come back with the word they made. They are interested and are using their knowledge to explore. 

I would really like to see where it would go using this strategy in reading as well as some children find it really hard to look at the first letter of a word and sound it out. 

In writing, one of the target children has done really amazingly using the developed letter ID knowledge. The child was able to write down all the sounds he heard/sounded out and wrote a sentence on his own. This was his first time to do this. 

I really believe that there is a benefit in using the sign language alphabet. It provides visual support that children can rely on. Some of the letters of the alphabet resemble the shapes of the letters. We often talk about this. 

Using New Zealand Sign Language is beneficial for hearing children. Dr Sutherland from University of Canterbury talks about the benefits of bilingualism (spoken and visual languages) and describes its educational benefits, cognitive development, economic benefits, and growth of communities.

Our children have been learning New Zealand Sign Language since Term 1 and it has been amazing to watch them acquire a new language. The children feel really proud of using this language and understand why we use sign language. Using sign language also helps children develop their fine motor skills and planning of their movement which essentially links to cognitive development. 

Parent/Teacher conference

This time, the parent/teacher conference was done a little differently. There used to be a booking system for parents so that a time frame was chosen by the parents to see the teacher, however this time as we wanted to get more parents and families to come to the conferences with their children, the leadership team developed a more relaxing and casual approach where the parents and family members can drop by anytime they wanted during a set time frame.

When I first heard this was going to happen, I was a little anxious about how it was going to go as I was worried if many parents turned up at the same time, or if I wanted to have a private conversation with some families. We knew that this approach was very successful in the senior classrooms, so it was time to adapt it in our junior classrooms. It was important that we would give it a go.  After talking to a teacher who has done this last term helped to understand how and what I could do if say, a couple parents turned up at the same time.

I had my classroom ready with the children's writing books on the table,  and play equipment ready for the children. I was wondering how many parents will turn up, and was so surprised with a great number of parents/family members came to the parent/teacher conference. It was definitely wonderful to talk to parents who I do not talk regularly, for example, children who are on the bus or whose parents drop off their children at the gate.

I had a couple of parents turned up about the same time, but the parent really respected the space while I was talking to the other parent. I was able to have really meaningful and positive conversations with the parents and family members, it was just such a nice atmosphere. I had a few parents who talked highly about our school, and their love of multiculturalism and what we do at our school.

I had 11 families at the parent/teacher conference, and it was a really awesome turnout. Even though I was worried about a few things prior to the day, I think having it a new way really was not too bad at all, it rather attracted more family members to attend because of the tone that we set in the beginning as a very casual and relaxing conference where their children can show their parents around.

It was great learning for me as this was the second parent/teacher conference after having my own classroom, it definitely developed the relationships with the family and I got to know more about them which was really important for me. I was able to provide individual support that the children can benefit from to continue working with the children and their families.