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Fingerspelling
Practice, Day 1
American
Sign Language (ASL) uses many more “letters” (handshapes) than English.
Please memorize the 21 distinct handshapes.
Note:
-
G
& Q differ only by palm orientation (palm in vs palm down)
-
H,
N, & U differ only by palm orientation (palm in, palm down, palm out)
-
I
& J differ only by movement (none vs twist in);
-
K
& P differ only by palm orientation (out vs down);
Need help with the letters? Here’s
a great resource:
http://where.com/scott.net/asl/
Practice*
signing your name and your teacher's name.
Use a complete sentence:
ME
BE-CALLED fs-___.
MY
TEACH+ER NAME fs-ALYSSE fs-RASMUSSEN
Remember:
ME
uses your index finger; MY uses your flat hand.
BE-CALLED
is 1 movement; NAME is 2 movements.
*NOTE:
Don’t
practice fingerspelling or numbers for more than 5 minutes at a time (but you
can practice every hour, on the hour! J).
Why
would I tell you not to practice for hours and hours at a time?
There are two good reasons.
First,
you’re new to this and your muscles aren’t “warmed up” yet.
If you practice too long in one sitting, you could get cramps.
Don’t “shake-out” your hands.
Do warm-up and cool-down exercises (wiggle them!) instead.
Second,
and more important, practicing often – a few minutes at a time, several times
a day, will give you an advantage over the “once a week crammers”.
If you spend 20 minutes a day, 3 times a day (that’s one hour!)
signing, you’ll probably get that “easy A” whereas the “crammers” will
be lucky to get Ds.
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