Last summer I led a discussion at my Mother's and More group about
the benefits of signing with infants and young children. My friend
Karen attended the meeting as my guest. The talk was well received, and
we were both surprised at the number of people who were actually
interested in the topic.
It was, as Oprah says, an "A-Ha Moment."
So
Karen and I had a little business meeting about what it might take to
get something like this off the ground. Karen already had her own
interpreting agency, Northern Indiana Communication Exchange, Inc. She
did a little research, and I did a little research, and we checked out
different companies that had teaching tools for a venture like ours. We
found Sign 2 Me, and the rest is history.
We both became
certified presenters through the Sign2Me company, and Karen added a
couple of others who were interested in teaching classes, and we found
a place to hold classes.
Jump ahead to this year...
Karen
recently decided to throw this area of the business over to me to take
care of. So I came up with a catchy little name, and have been trying
to market like crazy. Registration numbers have been slow since our
first classes last fall, but I am hoping that will change.
Signing with preverbal hearing children is a no-brainer,
really. It helps them develop early communication before their spoken
language is ready to develop, cuts down on frustration and tantrums as
a result. Not to mention that research has shown that it does NOT
hinder spoken language development, but rather enhances it. Add to that
the benefits of developing better literacy skills, larger spoken
vocabularies, higher IQ scores, and signing is a recipe for success
academically. And learning through the classes is not as difficult as
some parents think.
Hmmm. Maybe I should do a commercial...
Stumble It!
