In 1976, Alice Hagemeyer was a newly appointed staff person at the DC Public Library. As a deaf librarian, she quickly experienced culture shock and a rude awakening as she met and spoke with librarians.
“ASL (American Sign Language) is becoming hugely popular for hearing people to learn,” says Alicia Deal, public services librarian at Dallas (Texas) Public Library. “As great as that is, I worry that it’ll end up being a passing fad.”
Spalding/Sign Language is a year-long humanities program for kindergarteners. Our goal is to inspire a love of reading and offer a distinctly different idea for teaching literacy from the classroom. We have been able to do this by teaching letter sounds using the phonetic Spalding method and American Sign Language (ASL).
Sign language is a fabulous way to communicate. For those students who need alternate ways to communicate in front of others, it is the perfect solution. Even those students who don’t have any inhibitions love learning to speak in sign language.
