One of the foremost authorities on the use of sign language with hearing children provides a guide for teachers and parents who want to introduce signing in hearing children's language development. Marilyn Daniels provides a complete explanation for its use, a short history of sign language and its primary role within the Deaf community, an identification of the steps to reading success delineated with suggestions for incorporating sign language, and finally the results of studies and reactions of children, teachers, and parents. She shows how sign language can be used to improve hearing children's English vocabulary, reading ability, spelling proficiency, self-esteem, and comfort with expressing emotions. Signing also facilitates communication, aids teachers with classroom management, and has been shown to promote a more comfortable learning environment while initiating an interest and enthusiasm for learning on the part of students. Sign language is shown to be an effective agent to accelerate literacy in hearing children from babyhood through sixth grade. A comprehensive exploration of the physiological rationale for the educational advantage sign carries is presented. Overlapping integrated brain activities are incited by movement, vision, meaning, memory, play and the hand itself when sign language is used. Recent findings clearly indicate this bilingual approach with hearing children activates brain growth and development.

“Ursula Le Guin at her best . . . This is an important collection of eloquent, elegant pieces by one of our most acclaimed contemporary writers.” —Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post Book World “I have decided that the trouble with print is, it never changes its mind,” writes Ursula K. Le Guin in her introduction to Dancing at the Edge of the World. But she has, and here is the record of that change in the decade since the publication of her last nonfiction collection, The Language of the Night. And what a mind—strong, supple, disciplined, playful, ranging over the whole field of its concerns, from modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos, with an eloquence, wit, and precision that makes for exhilarating reading. “If you are tired of being able to predict what a writer will say next, if you are bored stiff with minimalism, if you want excess and risk and intelligence and pure orneriness, try Le Guin.” —Mary Mackey, San Francisco Chronicle

The celebrated author offers her thoughts on a broad range of subjects, including literary criticism, the state of science fiction writing today, and government and governmental policies.

Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts spanning Robert Walser’s career, from pieces conceived amid his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers during Walser’s life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all but forgotten. They are strung together like consciousness, idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their humor. Some dwell on childish or transient topics—carousels, the latest hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book—others on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had in childhood—and all of the danger.

Clickity! Clickity! Long green feet! Who is dancing that clickity beat? Lizard is dancing on clickity feet. Clickity! Clickity! Happy feet! Introducing a get-up-and-dance toddler book-so catchy and rhythmic, you'll almost want to sing it. Lindsey Craig's rollicking text features funny sound words (Tippity! Creepity! Stompity! Thumpity!), dancing animals, a singsong beat, and a guessing element just easy enough for preschoolers to anticipate. Marc Brown's artwork is bright, textured, and joyful, a collage of simple shapes for kids to find and name. So grab a partner and tap your feet to this read-aloud picture-book treat.

It's more than a book—it's a game! Every spread is missing a key element of a featured animal—from an elephant's trunk to a penguin's beak, these creatures are incomplete. And it's up to young readers to help them out! Kids can finish the illustration by wiggling their fingers through suitably placed die-cuts. Children are sure to giggle at the silliness of turning their fingers into elephant trunks and chameleon tongues—and learn a bit about animal features on the way!

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.