Language Development for Infants- Sign Language and More!

While they aren’t yet speaking in any language, infants are doing their best to communicate feelings and needs. Our curriculum is designed to help infants with that expression, and in more than one way! At Tierra Encantada, teachers are speaking, reading and singing in fluent Spanish everyday. Babies are absorbing the sounds and beginning to recognize the language! 

Our teachers are constantly expanding the world of the infants they teach through their other senses as well. Our classrooms are full of engaging visuals and textures that babies interact with everyday!

For continued language development and supporting expression, we use sign language with infants!  With their hands, babies are able to let those around them know if they’re hungry, full, hurt, happy and more!

 Starting sign language at a very young age has also been shown to speed up language development in children! At Tierra Encantada, we teach 17 basic signs to the infants in our care. We focus on a new sign weekly, and reinforce the previous week’s sign while also learning a new one! 

It can be helpful to continue the sign language use with your infant at home. Asking “More?” (or in Spanish, “Mas?”) out loud while mimicking the sign, and repeating that process multiple times. This ties the languages together, and your infant then knows that making that sign means they are asking for more! To help reinforce signing  at home, parents can use and print off our infant signs to place at home!