Carrie E. Tompkins Students Form Signing with a Friend Club

From Croton-Harmon Schools:

A group of Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School students decided to form the Signing with a Friend Club in 2014 to learn to speak American Sign Language and encourage their peers to get involved.

Working with Christine Fico, the Croton-Harmon school’s sign language interpreter, students started meeting regularly and learning new words every week.

“We have library books with American Sign Language in the CET library,” said Fico. “We meet every Tuesday and learn new signs.”

Fourth-grade students Sofia and Tori said they were motivated to continue learning new signs and came up with the idea of sharing what they learned, as well as getting younger students interested in ASL, by reading a book to kindergartners.

“We practiced a lot,” said Tori.

“It’s nice to learn another language,” said Sofia. “There are people that can only sign, and now, we can spend time with them and talk to them.”

The students recently visited Dafna Stouber’s kindergarten class, where they read the book, “There’s a Story in My Head,” and taught signs referencing body parts, such as head, heart, fingers and toes, to the kindergartners.