Welcome to TinyTalk Inverclyde!

Hi everyone!

I've set this site up as a way to keep you all informed of what's going on, class dates and times, local events of interest and anything else I can think of! Basically, I'm just addicted to newsletters, so here I can news brief to my heart's content.

It'll also be a place to share the latest information about baby signing, share pictures, and announce First Signers and Happy Birthdays.

I hope you'll subscribe to the RSS feed, so you'll know when I make an update to the site.

For those of you new to TinyTalk, baby signing and me, let me introduce myself. My name is Lori, and pictured on the sidebar are me and my TinyTalkers Fiona and Isla.

I started signing with Fiona from the time she was born. I started by simply signing ‘milk’ every time I fed her. Fiona first signed back when she was 7 months and hasn’t stopped signing (or talking) since. I’m now on round two with Isla and looking forward to the special relationship baby signing creates!

I’m still amazed at how much signing helped with our communication and frustration levels. Because Fiona could tell me when she was hungry or tired or even wanted to stop to pat the neighbour’s cat, we had very few problems with frustration and tantrums. It's for this reason that I decided to start teaching baby signing - to give other parents and babies the opportunity to communicate with each other before speech develops. Plus, I just love spending all day with adorable babies!

Baby signing is the use of simple signs and gestures (TinyTalk uses BSL) with pre-verbal children to help them to communicate their needs, feelings and what they are looking at or thinking about.

At TinyTalk, we believe that sign language encourages early communication. To understand and to be understood is fundamental to our well-being and our sense of self. Signing provides a way of introducing language to children, enabling them to begin to express their feelings, wishes and needs and to make sense of their world. This early and explicit introduction to language often helps early speech.

The classes are very informal and friendly so if you need to feed or move around to keep your baby happy, please feel free to do so. It may seem a bit overwhelming at first with all the songs and signing, but please do as much or as little is comfortable for both you and your baby.

All of the songs and signs are repeated frequently throughout the weeks, and you will soon pick them up. Just relax and have fun with your baby. However, there are also CDs, DVDs and Signing Packs available should you want to practice more at home.

And that, I am certain, is more than enough for today. Welcome to TinyTalk Inverclyde!