Promotional graphic, a white square with blue corners. Text: Coming soon... Language First Canada. Image: the Language First Logo, a pair of stylized hands signing PRIORITY
Good news for Canadian families with #deafkids!
Image of a year-old baby lying on a rug, on top of several children's books, holding the dust-jacket of one (Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen.) Also visible is a book with the text "Will Yeti ever find sleep?" The baby's shirt has a baby elephant on it.
Connecticut people: Sunday 4/26, I'll be in Manchester to talk about reading and signing children's books to #deafkids. It's my absolute favorite topic!
It'll be a small, hands-on, kid-friendly event at Language 1st's Early Language Center at 10am.
language1st.org/events-ct/ha...
Photo of a black and white nonfiction comic, showing various children and adults speaking and using sign language. Text from the panels: Depriving a child of language like this is often called the "forbidden experiment" because it would be an inhumane way to discover how people learn languages. However, it happens more often than people may think. Some deaf children might not be be exposed to a sign language until later in life. They have no saccess to the spoken languages around them. The younger they start learning a sign language, the more fluent they will become. Withholding any language from children can be detrimental, such as when parents only want deaf children to speak. The earlier children start learning language in any modality, the more proficient they can be at language in all modalities. Unfortunately, some deaf children never get the opportunity to learn a language, Because they experience no spoken or signed input, these children invent their own gesture systems, called homesigns. These systems are created by the children, so the signs they make are unique, but patterned-and their parents have to learn them from the children! Usually homesigns have a small vocabulary of up to a few thousand signs, and they use simple sequencing. In the 1970s in Nicaragua, several homesigners came together in a school, where they shared their signs into a communal vocabulary. Homesigns are fairly limited compared to the complexity of full sign languages, and they are unique to each child! As more children joined the school and learned this system, their shared and refined patterns created a richer vocabulary and grammar, emerging in a Nicaraguan Sign Language. Nicaraguan Sign Language nicely shows how social interaction provides a necessary ingredient to grow the complexity of a language. With new signers learning it, this system continues to rapidly develop!In fact, several emerging sign languages have been recognized in the past decades, with unique…
Was reading @neilcohn.bsky.social 's excellent Speaking In Pictures and got surprised by a succinct description of language deprivation in #deafkids showing up. There's a huge amount of fascinating stuff in the book about the links between signed and spoken language and drawing / comics.
Flier for a book launch, done in clownish pinks, yellows and purple. The book cover is in the top-right corner, showing a cute and alert Black infant on a white background, with the title, "The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual, a guide for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, from birth through kindergarten." Flier images: several small cameo images of a goat, a child in a bounce house, a woman signing ASL, and pizza, as well as headshots of Will Fertman, a middle aged man with curly hair, and Rachel Zemach, an older woman with long wavy hair. The logos of several involved organizations are at the bottom, as well as a QR code. Flier text: Book Launch & Family Fun, Saturday, May 2, 10am-2pm. Join author Will Fertman for a free, kid-friendly and activity-packed celebration of his new parenting guide for deaf and hard of hearing children. In ASL and English-interpreters provided. Reading an panel discussion at noon with Deaf author Rachel Zemach (the Butterfly Cage.) Petting Zoo, Bounce House, ASL Stories, Mozzeria Pizza. Hosted by The Learning Tree Preschool, 34050 Paseo Padre Pkwy Fremont CA. Thanks to: DCARA, California School for the Deaf, Fremont, California Hands and Voices, AFTC, Banter Bookshop, ASL at Home, the Signing SLP, S.T.E.P.S. by Kie-Che. RSVP: tinurl.com/deafbabybook
My parenting book for #deafkids comes out next month. Should I launch with a night reading at a bookstore, with warm wine and sweaty cheese? Or do I throw a family-friendly party at a preschool, with a petting zoo, ASL storytellers, bouncy house and a Deaf pizza truck?
I think you know the answer.
Candid photo from the inside of a coffee shop. The camera looks over the heads of several patrons bent over their phones/coffees, looking up to a wall where a disability pride flag, and an LGBTQ plus pride flag hang.
Every time I’m at the Philz in Fremont, the disability pride flag gets me. #deafkids
Photograph of an elementary aged student in a library, holding up a home-made comic book. The student is snarling in triumph, with their identity disguised by a yellow box across the eyes. The comic shows a princess holding the number 6 presenting it to a spiky-haired figure holding a number 7. The cover has a title, "Wi4th My Davices"
Photograph of an elementary aged student in a library, holding up two pages of a home-made comic book. The student is smiling, and their identity is disguised by a yellow box across the eyes. The comics are drawn in pencil and hard to see: the left-hand page shows a sports game with stick-figure participants, and the right-hand page prominently shows the numbers "6, 7" in dark marker.
I struggle with sign sometimes (the kids are FAST,) but I've got a wonderful partner in CSDF's school librarian Joann Ikeda, who helps facilitate. It's only open to elementary kids right now, but we've had requests from middle school and ECE to join in. #deafkids love comics!
Once again, @thinkingautism.com nails a point that applies to parents of #deafkids just as well.
This goes double for our #deafkids. The one tool they need most is the one that hearing educators are least willing to give.
Did anyone else love the Vanishing Hitchiker books growing up? Does anyone feel like they're applicable to a lot of situations now that you're older, including, but definitely not limited to, early intervention and education for #deafkids?
buttondown.com/will_fertman...
Parents of #deafkids, 504 is one of the bedrocks of our children’s legal protections. The states pressing this lawsuit are looking to undo some of the most basic disability rights.
Here’s @dredf.bsky.social ’s guide to fighting the new attack on section 504. Im calling everyone in each state tomorrow. This is a direct attack on our #deafkids and all kids with disabilities.
New newsletter out now on the links between ghost hitchhikers and Listening and Spoken Language. #ASL #deafkids
Just got back from @jensiebelnewsom.bsky.social ‘s visit to CSD Fremont. She came to learn more about the teacher pay crisis—it’s desperate, but I’m feeling some hope for our #deafkids.
Ad for live event. Two circular cameo images on a brown background with text on the left side. Text: You're Invited: Hands to Pages, reading with your deaf child + book signing. Join Author and father Will Fertman as he dives into books as essential parenting tools. He will also be selling and signing his new book, The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual, a guide for hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children from birth through kindergarten. April 26, 2026, Manchester, CT. Top image: a book on a lectern with an audience in the background. Bottom Image: a cozy modern library nook lined with books.
Coming to Connecticut this April to talk about reading to #deafkids and to promote my new book, The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual. If you're a parent or pro in the Hartford area, you can come see me at Language First's Early Language Center in Manchester for free: language1st.org/booking-ct
Parents of #deafkids have seen this movie before.
A simple 3-panel comic strip, drawn by a child, in pencil on white paper. Panel 1: A stick figure jumps from a trampoline. The word "Jump" appears above. Panel 2: The figure rises from the trampoline. The words "Boing" and "Wee" appear around the figure. Panel 3 The figure is isolated, high in the air, with a bird passing by. The figure says "Helo" to the bird.
First meeting of comics club at my son's school was a blast! Him and a group of classmates met to read and discuss favorites, discover new books, and draw their own.
Super-grateful to CSD Fremont's head librarian Joanne for making this possible! #deafkids #kidscomics #library
This is a particular problem for #deafkids, who don't necessarily have academic deficits, but who absolutely need services to get by in school. Classic example is the child who's succeeding in a mainstream classroom with an interpreter, so the district decides they don't need an interpreter.
Yes. What they do to trans kids, they will do to #deafkids. Eugenics works like that.
IDEA and the IEP system is imperfect, incomplete, and often infuriating, especially for #deafkids. It is also the bedrock on which my child's education is built and it is worth defending and celebrating.
If you’re riding the Black Friday train, why not pre-order The Deaf Baby Instruction Manual for your favorite parent or professional? #deafkids ♿️www.bloomsbury.com/us/deaf-baby-instruction...
Just spent an enlightening morning talking with a board member from handsunitedor.org. Really underscored the need for orgs to offer multilingual services—half of my son's class at CSD, and half of all California families with #deafkids, use Spanish at home.
The younger one is sick this morning, but not sick enough to stay in bed. He's building a city out of the recycling, and put me in charge of billboards. So far, he's requested Safeway and Sweet James. #bayarea #deafkids
I'm starting a comics club at my son's school, so I'm excited to learn more about comics' formal visual language and to see how #deafkids in particular engage with it.
Illustration from the children's book I Want My Hat Back. On a nearly blank page, a large brown bear and a small brown rabbit stare out at the reader. The rabbit is wearing a conical red heat and is partly hidden behind a large weed.
Have I mentioned my love of Jon Klassen lately? I think he's Edward Gorey's natural successor and one of the best children's book authors of our time. But what I LOVE about reading his books to #deafkids is how they cultivate theory of mind...
Parents of #deafkids need to be careful of this, too. Mom Tyanna Meyers put it perfectly: "Your grief over your child's Deafness should never outweigh their joy in being Deaf."
One of the first books I could sign to my kid in ASL! I've actually got a whole series in my newsletter about #kidlit for #deafkids called "Beyond Brown Bear"! buttondown.com/will_fertman...
Show of hands: hiding recipe links in my forthcoming book on raising #deafkids. Tacky or fun?
Slide from a presentation on reading books to deaf children: a white background with several colorful book covers thrown randomly down. Text: Action Books, they make you do things. The book covers shown are: Pete's a Pizza, by William Steig, with a child lying on a table, The Monster at the End of this Book, showing Grover the muppet waiving, I See, I See, with a symmetrical eye icon in the center of the page, Let's Play! with a circle of colorful dots, and Press Here, with a single yellow dot in the center of the cover.
Excited to be visiting with Hands & Voices Wyoming on Monday! I'll be in Casper with my presentation on reading to #deafkids, and all the incredible #kidlit out there for our children. ♿
