Videobooks in Sign Language
Canales Asociacion Civil
Solution Overview & Benefits
Enabling deaf children access to literature and reading, Canales has created “Videobooks in Sign Language.”
These videos combine children’s books and young adult literature read in sign language, with voiceovers and animated illustrations.
This invites deaf children into the world of reading together with their families and friends. Many of these children never enjoy the pleasure of being read to as their families don’t know sign language. Videobooks also helps bridge the gap in literacy skills between deaf and hearing students.
In this way, the readers become linguistic models, families share stories with deaf children, teachers find tools they can use for education and society can become more inclusive as a whole. The product is a model of bilingual quality education: sign language ensures that hearing-impaired children naturally participate and understand, and Spanish as a second language enables the sharing of culture and information with the society at large.
To standardize the development of Videobooks, Canales has created a manual describing each step of the process. Containing all technical specifications, it also contains notes on the reading of the text. Sign languages and spoken languages have different grammatic structures and the company endeavors to respect the integrity of both languages.
The product allows the possibility to read in sign language, the virtual structures enables remote access, readers are navigated with an attractive and clear design and deaf people are also involved in the creation of the product. Since its launch in August 2011, the site has had 130,000 unique visitors and more than one million clicks; over 2,600 students have benefited through direct download.
History & Development
The Videolibros enSeñas project is the first free, virtual library in sign language and with Spanish voiceover, which we developed as an innovative solution to give deaf children and adolescents access to children's literature. It consists of videos where deaf individuals read the text of books and stories written in Spanish, in the sign languages of various countries. The videobooks also include voiceover, so that both deaf and hearing individuals can share the joy of reading.
Most deaf children do not have reading experiences because the hearing people around them (family members and teachers) do not know sign languages well enough to read to them in an accessible language. At Canales Civil Association, we believe that if deaf children have access to reading in their natural language, with the support of adults or other children (preferably deaf, as they will also serve as identity models), they will have better opportunities to become readers and greater access to information.
Availability
- Publicly available: Yes
- Countries where available: Worldwide
- Price range: Free
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