Playing games provide a great role in enhancing a child’s cognitive development, especially when learning American Sign Language.
Learning through seeing and doing signs is the most important aspect of learning and mastering content. Therefore, inculcating play in learning American Sign Language teachings will improve the understanding of the various signs taught. In this article, I will describe how playing ASL games while learning American language signs will help kids retain what they learn.
Fun Events Are Stored In Long Term Memory
For knowledge to be remembered, it needs to be stored or retained in the long-term memory and that is why anything you learn will be retained better if it was learned while having fun. The benefit of inculcating games with American Sign Language teachings is that anything that the student or kid is learning is implemented immediately while having fun which will allow it to be recalled faster, later.
Games Typically Require Repetition
You know what they say, practice makes perfect. Repetition allows for knowledge to be retained in kids brains properly. It is, therefore, hard for them to forget.
Playing games that target a certain sign while teaching or learning helps the kids focus more, retain and remember the information. Their senses become fully engaged in the learning process.
Note that the kind of games the kids should play while learning the ASL should be directly related to a certain skill. Every game should target a certain sign language skill. It is very hard to forget knowledge that was practically implemented. So as a teacher it is your job to ensure that certain ASL concepts are associated with certain types of ASL games.
Playing will make learning more relevant and real. Anything that has meaning and practicability in real life situation is easily learnt and understood.
Brain Development:
Research indicates that playing help to shape the structural design of the human brain. Developed brains are more likely to retain content than the immature brain. Playing games provide kids with an active mental exploration that assists in building and strengthening brain capacity in kids. Through games, a kid will have flexible brains that have an improved potential for learning. Research indicates that children who engage in relevant and quality play while learning have well-developed memory skills, behavior control, and language development.
If a kid does not master sign language he or she might experience difficulties while remembering the different signs.
Role Playing Helps Too
Games that put kids into role-playing activities, as well as the competitive games, play a crucial role in enhancing content mastery. If the game involves getting a winner, every kid will try his or her best to emerge successfully. Since the game is targeting a certain sign, you expect that by the time the activity is over, every kid will have understood various signs that the game was targeting. Therefore, a repetition of such kind of play or games will improve learning.
Playing games tend to engage kids and make learning lively. As aforementioned, learning through doing is more productive. Games that are thoughtfully organized will address even the most difficult content that is hard for kids to master in a normal classroom discourse. But if the games do not focus on the target knowledge or content, they will not have any valuable input in the kid’s sign mastery. Therefore, games should be organized around a certain theme or term.
