Back to Kindergarten

October 1, 2020 1 By Brandon Rumford

This post is a little late but better late than never. This past week I focused on memorizing the ASL alphabet and numbers 1 to 10 and I surprised myself because I did a lot better than I thought I would. I now know the entire alphabet but I am still working on fully memorizing the numbers. 1 to 10 is not super difficult but they are different than most would assume. Trying to remember that the number three is with your thumb and first two fingers, and not your first three fingers is something I am constantly reminding myself.

ASL Alphabet & 0-10
“ASL Alphabet & 0-10” by anathea is licensed under CC BY 2.0

To learn these basics I found an app called ASL American Sign Language that in my opinion did a great job at teaching me the alphabet and first 10 numbers. You just pick which section you would like to learn and there is a sort of slideshow showing the letter and corresponding sign for that letter. For the numbers it is slightly different, instead of a slideshow it is simply laid out in a list you can scroll through. I’m not really sure why they both weren’t just laid out the same way but both methods worked well.

After looking further into the app I should be able to learn some more basics from the different categories like finger spelling, and basic words. However some categories like animal signs and question signs are locked since I do not have the paid version of the app. Because of this my plan is to try to get as far as I can with this free version and then find more free resources from there. Looking more at short term, I want to work on the next set of numbers, maybe 10 to 20 or even 10 to 30, as well as get into the finger spelling, and basic words categories and see what both have to offer.