We received a standard kit from BabySignLanguage.com to facilitate our review. As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Did you know that babies have a working mental vocabulary before they’re able to verbalize words?  This means they can learn to sign before they can learn to speak, which can save them — and you — a good deal of frustration!  It’s good being able to communicate!

We’ve been teaching our babies a little bit of American Sign Language since our oldest was born, so this was not new to us.  And although none of us is fluent, we have had some exposure to “real” ASL (as in, not just with little babies), as well.  That’s the perspective I’m bringing to my experience with the Baby Sign Language Kit.  The standard kit includes flash cards, a wall chart (poster), a signing dictionary, and a guide to teaching your baby to sign.

The wall chart is pretty simple.  It’s 2 feet by 3 feet and shows 17 signs.  Not a lot, but it could be handy to have them in sight all the time.

The flashcards are pretty awesome.  These are like the “board books” of flash cards.  They’re sturdy cardboard, not flimsy cardstock — great for using around grabby toddler hands that would tend to tear regular flash cards.  (And I don’t know about yours, but my toddlers love cards!)

My first impression was that the wall chart and flash cards were kind of an odd selection.  Not that they have useless words on them — particularly not the wall chart — but that the selection is not of the most useful signs I can think of for little ones.  Upon reflection, I think it’s because of the difficulty of representing some of the concepts as images.  All but three of the signs on the wall chart are nouns.  All of the flash cards are nouns.  Neither includes “please” or “thank you.” It’s a lot more useful to me for my child to be able to say “more” or “please” or “up” than “tiger” or “duck.” But I’d imagine a flash card for some of those would be pretty tricky!

All of those are in the reference dictionary, which is much more extensive.  (“More” is also on the wall chart.)  The dictionary is not in full-color — just in black & white (which is fine) — but it contains 650+ signs, so that’s definitely a much larger vocabulary list than the flash cards or wall chart!

The teaching guide is 122 pages long, and very practical.  It talks about what signs to start with, how to teach them, reminds parents to speak out loud, too (!)  It talks about the developmental stages of language learning, suggests ways to get others (like Grandma) involved, and offers tips for communication.  There’s no fluff here — just helpful stuff.

The very end of the book has spaces to log the signs your child knows.

I think this would be very helpful for those just getting started with baby signing.  The resources are so fundamental and practical they’re great tools for those of us with a bit more experience, though, too.  This would be a wonderful gift for a toddler or a new mom.