Two Pigs Sleeping: An Experience Book from China

Experience books are a wonderful way to help young children or children with multiple disabilities to learn about the connection between objects, actions, and events, and spoken/signed words, and written text.  For children who are deaf, use photos to tell a story accompanied by photos of the signs.

This experience book shows how real events in a child’s own life can be used to teach beginning literacy skills.  Children with multiple disabilities most often respond best to stories about their own experiences. 

This example from China shows an 8-year-old girl named Hu Jin Lin  我的名字叫周银月 who tells about seeing two pigs sleeping.  She demonstrates the signs as she watches the pigs.  Having the words written out in Chinese characters while also signing the words is a good way for her to learn the vocabulary and begin to associate objects, actions and experiences with signed words and written text.  The variations are endless!