Hampshire Chronicle | News, sport & leisure from Winchester, Eastleigh and Chandler's Ford

Book reading that gives tiny signal

From the archive, first published Tuesday 30th Jan 2007.

MEMBERS of a local parent and baby group have been encouraging families to enjoy a book together.

This month TinyTalk - a company that teaches babies to communicate using hand signs - has been supporting the National Literacy Trust's family reading fortnight.

TinyTalk teachers across the country shared selected books during classes, demonstrating signs for certain words.

Baby-signing classes take place each Tuesday at the Victoria Hall, in West Green Road, Hartley Wintney, and instructor Laura Fergusson has started using books to teach signing to her little learners.

She said: "It is never too early to start introducing books to your baby. Reading with your child is a great way to help their speech and language skills as well as their early literacy skills.

"We have taken this much-loved bonding time and incorporated the use of sign language to help illustrate the meaning of the words."

Mrs Fergusson - who also holds a class in Chineham - has been teaching baby signing for the past eight months.

About 16 mums attend the Hartley Wintney group each week for anything from one to three terms.

The mum-of-three said that she set up the group after she moved to Basingstoke 18 months ago and found no similar groups in the area.

She said: "I started baby signing in Cardiff with my own daughter. My sister told me about it and I went along with her and thought it was lovely. I just thought it was a really nice activity to do with my daughter.

"We loved the singing and at eight months she was able to show me basic things."

Baby signing allows youngsters to communicate with their parents much sooner than they can talk.

Children from just a few weeks old are welcome to join the group. For more information, visit www.tinytalk.co.uk