Sign 1st
See more: Sign Language Curricula, Learning Activities & Games, Related SL projects
Sign Language Curriculum and Teacher's Guide for K, 1st- 2nd Grades, Elementary School
The project: “Teaching Signed Languages as a First Language” (SIGN FIRST) is based on the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Universal Design for Learning, the Paris Declaration, data driven results and recent best practices for the development of literacy in students with hearing impairments.
The Participating organisations consist of 7 distinct partners based in 3 countries of the European Union (Greece, Cyprus, The Netherlands) and Switzerland, a Partner Country.
The Project aims at developing bilingual programs targeting the literacy of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students as well as the design and development of an effective inclusive school context.
In alignment with the above, the main aim of the Project is to train the educators who teach European Sign Languages as the first language to students with hearing impairments, using an inclusive educational project along with suitable learning resources. The teachers, in turn, contribute to the improvement of the academic performance of the target group by applying the material to practice.
The SIGN FIRST Project addresses students at Nursery school and at the first 2 grades of Primary School aged 4-7 years old. However, there is the capability to extend the Project to students of higher grades.
International studies show that the vast majority (90-95%) of deaf children have hearing parents and they grow up without having access to the language of their parents or caretakers. With minimal signed and/or spoken linguistic input in the early years, the children are deprived the opportunity to acquire a first language and hence to adequately develop communicative and world knowledge.
The SIGN FIRST project specifically aims to fill existing skills’ gaps by the development of a teaching curriculum and educational materials for teaching European Sign Languages to deaf students as a first language. Additionally, the project aims at developing sign language assessment instruments for this target group.
