Whispering is not signing, Jane.

Jane is 3. She is the only one of our kids who grew up around ASL from the beginning. All her church teachers sign. Her family signs. But this little girl does not sign. For the longest time, when you sign to her, she'll whisper back, with a look on her face that clearly conveys that she got what she was supposed to do. It makes no sense to me.

The last couple of months, we've been working a lot on sign language, and one thing we've been drilling down on is whisper signing. That's when you sign, but you mouth the words so loud that nobody has to look at your hands to understand you, they just listen. Some of our kids do this a lot. It really helps aid communication. But it doesn't aid language acquisition, I don't think...so we said everyone needs to turn their voices all the way off. And interestingly, Jane's concept of what sign language is started to change!

Last week, we were reading scriptures. When it's Jane's turn, I say a phrase, and Jane copies it. So here's how it went:

Mom: "And it came to pass..."

Jane: "And it came to pass."

Mom: "...that Mosiah did read..."

Jane: "That Mosiah did read."

Mom: "...and caused to be read..."

Jane: moves her mouth silently like a guppy

Mom, again: "And caused to be read..."
Jane: moves her mouth silently again. Then whispers, "Mom, I'm doing it in SIGN LANGUAGE."

WHAT!?! This is NOT an improvement. Jane. Sign language uses your HANDS. (And yes, your mouth too...but the hands are sorta key here!)

Gah.