Baby Sign Language is a growing phenomenon around Australia after the inception of using sign language with babies began in America.

Using baby sign language can help ease frustration for parents and babies during those preverbal times offering a simple form of communication to help enable babies to get them selves understood.

But does using baby sign language actually delay speech?

The short answer to this is no.

Signing is a very good start to communicating as a babies physical development does not allow them to start speaking properly until around 18 months old.

Communication is communication and using forms of sign and gestures are all very effective ways for a child to get their message across and get others to understand them.

Teaching your child to read can be challenging, time-consuming but also rewarding and lots of fun. In order to get your child motivated and ready to learn to read you may need some pointers to get off to that good start.

The pronunciation of English is difficult as it is not a totally phonetic language. There are phonetically spelt words and sight words which are not phonetic

This pronunciation is so complex that even simple words that are common in the English language such as 'said', 'the' and 'he'. The use of simple phonics would not result in the correct reading of the word. This is the point that children start to learn sight words. Learning common words on sight, recognising the whole word and reading it as one rather than trying to blend the sounds together from the individual phonemes. The sight words can be taught specifically and learnt through frequent use while an adult helps them.