An entire school learned sign language to help welcome its first ever deaf student.
Maine, the United States of America – At Dayton Consolidated School in Maine, one student has inspired a big change to the curriculum. Morey Belanger, a 6-year-old kindergartner, is the school’s first deaf student and to make her feel welcome, the entire school embraced the opportunity to teach all the students American Sign Language (ASL).
The school installed a hearing assistive system and implemented extra teacher training to incorporate sign language into every classroom. Sign language posters line the walls of hallways, and students have learned how to sign more than 20 words.
Many of the teachers also began to learn sign language in their free time.
“Morey helped all of them to learn the alphabet,” Principal Kimberly Sampietro told CBS News.
“The kids have just really embraced her. They look up to her, they want her around, and they want to partner with her.”
To celebrate the students’ year of hard work, the school invited a real-life princess who knows ASL to come to speak to students.
“We wanted to show our students that this isn’t something they can only speak with Morey, we wanted to show them that signing happens in all kinds of settings,” said Sampietro.
On May 29, the school posted a video to Facebook of “Cinderella” surprising the students with a song, during which she signed the lyrics in ASL. Morey got to join the princess in signing in front of her classmates.
“Our community has embraced American Sign Language – many staff and students learning additional sign on their own,” the school wrote when sharing the video on Facebook.
“As a thank you and as a way of reminding our students that ASL goes beyond our walls, Cinderella paid a visit and sang us a song while using ASL. Thank you to Rent a Princess for donating your services!”
Watch the video below:
Our community has embraced American Sign Language- many staff and students learning additional sign on their own. As a thank you and as a way of reminding our students that ASL goes beyond our walls, Cinderella paid a visit and sang us a song while using ASL. Thank you to Rent a Princess for donating your services!
Posted by Dayton Consolidated School on Wednesday, 29 May 2019
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