Education · Sign language
American Sign Language
A free path for families learning ASL together, from the alphabet to Lifeprint's 60 lessons, with stories, dictionaries and fingerspelling practice.
American Sign Language is a complete language of its own, used by Deaf communities in the United States and much of Canada. It has its own grammar, which is not the same as English, and facial expressions and the space around the signer are part of that grammar. It is a visual language, so it's best learned by watching fluent signers, ideally Deaf teachers, on video and in person.
This page can't teach signs itself: signs need to be seen moving. It points to free lessons, stories and dictionaries, many of them by Deaf teachers and Deaf-education organizations, and adds fingerspelling practice of its own.
A path for families
Start with the alphabet
Learn the 26 handshapes of the fingerspelling alphabet and spell your own names. Fingerspelling is used for names, places and words without a sign of their own. Practice reading words with the fingerspelling page on this site.
Work through Lifeprint's free lessons
Dr. Bill Vicars, a Deaf ASL professor, teaches 60 free lessons at Lifeprint (ASL University), each with videos, vocabulary and practice sentences. ASL 1 is Lessons 1–15, ASL 2 is 16–30, ASL 3 is 31–45, and ASL 4 (46–60) is practice sentences. One lesson a week, with a few minutes of practice each day, is a good pace for a family. The lesson planner can lay them out week by week.
Watch stories told in ASL
Children pick up a language from stories. The American Society for Deaf Children keeps a free directory of hundreds of children's books retold in ASL, and Gallaudet's Clerc Center has a free app of picture books translated into ASL.
ASDC ASL Stories Directory ↗Clerc Center Bilingual Stories Bookshelf ↗
Look up signs as you need them
When you want a sign for something in your day, look it up in a video dictionary and use it right away. Signs are easiest to remember when you use them for real things at home.
ASL-LEX ↗Lifeprint dictionary ↗Signing Savvy (browse by letter) ↗
Learn about the Deaf community
ASL belongs to the Deaf community, and learning it includes learning about the people who use it. The National Association of the Deaf explains why ASL matters and where it comes from.
NAD: American Sign Language ↗NAD position statement on ASL ↗
Tips for practicing at home
- A little every day. Ten minutes of signing beats an hour once a week.
- Use it at home. Sign the things you say every day: eat, drink, more, finished, please, thank you, bath, bed, the names of family members.
- Watch faces, not just hands. In ASL the face carries grammar, such as whether something is a question.
- Learn together. Parents and children learning side by side is the point; nobody needs to be the expert.
- Practice receiving too. Reading someone else's signing and fingerspelling is harder than signing yourself, so practice both.
For families with a deaf or hard-of-hearing child
If your family has a deaf or hard-of-hearing child: the American Society for Deaf Children and Gallaudet University's Clerc Center have free guidance for families, including the Clerc Center's 15 Principles for Reading to Deaf Children. SignIt ASL is free for parents of deaf or hard-of-hearing children aged 36 months or younger (others pay).
American Society for Deaf Children ↗15 Principles for Reading to Deaf Children ↗SignIt ASL (free for parents of young deaf children) ↗
More free sign-language links are on the Resources page. Teddy Rook Book links to these sites but isn't connected to any of them.