Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Signing Made Easy (A Complete Program for Learning Sign Language. Includes Sentence Drills and Exercises for Increased Comprehension and Signing Skill) 1st Edition

Rate this book
Signing Made Easy (A Complete Program for Learning Sign Language. Includes Sentence Drills and Exercises for Increased Comprehension and Signing Skill) 1st Edition. Professionally spiraled and resold by a third party. This spiraled book is not necessarily affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by the publisher, distributor, or author.

Spiral-bound

First published February 20, 1989

10 people are currently reading
202 people want to read

About the author

Rod R. Butterworth

3 books1 follower

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
89 (50%)
4 stars
36 (20%)
3 stars
38 (21%)
2 stars
10 (5%)
1 star
5 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Profile Image for Angela.
54 reviews6 followers
June 17, 2009
I did my first community Education class to this book. Joining with me to this class was two of my sisters and my mom. I was able to communicate with my family in ways I was not able to before such as through the glass doors or out of windows. My mother homeschooled me at the time and we would make lists from this book and I was tested on how much I would sign when she read them to me.
When Peter was a young child we were room mates. I taught him the elephabet out of this book. He caught on! On quite nights that we had to be quite but were not tired. I would sign signs into his hand until he was spelling words. In a while he had to learn how to read. It was hard for him but the break through came when I had his mother show him a letter or number than I would sign it to him and he was able to recognize the similarities and remembered how to spell and was doing great in due time.
As a teenager I brought this book and the Joy of Signing everywhere I went (that is where a book would servive not the pool of something funky like that.)I used this book to understand how to put signs into sentences and the Joy of Signing as a tool like a thasurus.
I went to an instutution. There I met a man that only signed many people wanted to sign to him because he was really friendly. We would meet in small groups and study this book and come up with conversation that we would have. When my parents came to visit my friends would be practicing in the mirror until I came back then we would do a refresher and go out to the eating area where everyone could visit and we used our signing. It was really neats seeing my friends enthusiasm in being able to communicate. They took it a step farther. When anybody came in speaking a different language we would buy two dictionary that showed English and their language dictionaries. I am out of the instiution. But I still keep in contact with my teachers and friends and encourage them to keep doing this good work.
I started to realize that when I sign worship songs they have so much more meaning to me. I started bringing this book to church with me early every Sunday and practiced the signs while the the worship team played their music Then I would go up front during the worship service and sign the words to the songs. I do this to this day.
On Sunday. I gave a lady a copy of this book. She is elderly and I think the big print in this book will be helpful for her. Mother and I will keep up with her learning by working with one new sign that we know each week, to encourage her in her want of learning Sign Language
Profile Image for Kevyn.
21 reviews13 followers
November 17, 2007
The theory of this "program" is sound and using it did increase my confidence in being able to communicate using sign, but not in the grammatical sense.

Chapters begin with a "Practice Learning Signs" section illustrating different sentences, with the sentences printed underneath(+). The bottom of each page usually gives brief descriptions of any new signs introduced (+)... It is essential to read these because the arrows don't always show the move-direction as described or the picture merges in with that of the next/previous sign so it is hard to tell the two apart(-). Both simple and "complex" words are used so you aren't endlessly reviewing simple "apple, box, cat" exercises (++).

This section is followed by a few other practice exercises to review (sign this sentence, match the sign to the word, etc.)

The last section of each chapter is "Practice Receiving Signs":

"Practice Receiving Signs" could be the most essential part of the book, but it fails to reach its potential. The phrases are VERBATIM the phrases of the first "Learning Signs" section. Once you've gone through it once, you don't need the illustrations to recite the phrases, so you are memorizing rather than learning (-). In future editions the authors should consider some variety between the "Learning Signs" and the "Receiving signs" sections.

My goal is to learn American Sign Language to communicate effectively within the Deaf community, but this book shows Signed English (exact word order) rather than ASL. Imagine taking a German sentence, for instance, and translating each word to English but not changing the word order and not taking into account words that should be left out or added. With concentration, you'll probably understand... but is vocabulary all you really want to know when learning a language? If you are serious about learning ASL, this book may steer you in the wrong direction (-). There are better books than this for learning ASL such as A Basic Course in American Sign Language.

Because of its ease of use, this book is appropriate if you are a casual learner of signing or specifically only want to learn Signed English.
Profile Image for Sheila .
1,999 reviews
June 23, 2013
Many years ago I went through a phase where I had a great desire to learn sign language. This book was one of the ones I purchased for my own personal reference and learning. What I enjoyed most about this specific book was that it was set up with lessons, drills, exercises, and other practice methods to help increase my comprehension. The illustrations for the signs are also well drawn, and easy to understand. For me, this book did make signing learning the basics of signing "easy", as the title states.
Profile Image for Sarah Kelly-Ramsey.
221 reviews4 followers
March 21, 2012
I was taught the sign alphabet at a very young age; as a young adult I met a wonderful neighbor who was deaf. We signed to each other through my alphabet, I was always aware that he had much patience with me since he knew ASL. After his resent tragic death I made a vow to learn sign beyond the alphabet. I picked up this book and I am well on my way. This book has workpages for you to learn no only to sign to others but what it looks like to be signed to. So you learn so much better! Great job by the authors on their teaching technique!
Profile Image for Brittany.
18 reviews
October 26, 2008
I am currently trying to add another language to my life and why not choose the third or fourth most used language in the world (depending on what statistic you look at). So far this book is easy to comprehend and the illustrations of the signs are understandable. Hopefully after reading through it and practicing I will be able to have a conversation.
Profile Image for Jenni.
310 reviews5 followers
Currently reading
May 17, 2012
Would rather it be ASL instead of exact English.
Profile Image for Judy.
15 reviews3 followers
October 19, 2012
A good introduction to conversational signing book. I recommend to parents of hard-of-hearing children.
6 reviews
July 16, 2013
This book made learning to sign very easy, I would recommend this book to anyone trying to learn sign language.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.