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• Caillou - "Getting the Message"
  Caillou learns there are many different ways to communicate. He makes friends with Robbie, a deaf boy he meets in the park, and learns how to communicate using sign language. Shopping with Daddy, Caillou and Rosie help to surprise Mommy by keeping a secret about her special gift.
• Reading Rainbow - "Silent Lotus"
  Lotus, a young Cambodian girl who cannot hear or speak, is invited to become a dancer in the king's court. LeVar takes the opportunity to explore the vast and expressive world of non-verbal communication by watching mimes and talking with people who communicate using sign language. He also learns how deafness impacts people's lives.

Do in Class

• Arthur: Arthur's Communication Adventure - Deafness - Try these lessons on deafness and sign language in your classroom.
• Arthur: Sign Design - Learn basic sign language, including how to sign letters and numbers.
• Between the Lions: Cornerstones - Implement these 3 full literary teaching units made especially for deaf or hard of hearing students.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Paper People in a Row - Make a string of paper people and then decorate each person differently. Discuss how people are all the same underneath even though they may look different on the outside.
• Postcards from Buster: Step by Step: Hearing Aids - Discuss a program's feature on a hearing aid, and encourage and compare students' questions to what Buster asks. (Lesson Plan 39)
• Religion and Ethics: Living with Special Needs - Develop an understanding of what it means to live with limiting physical conditions, such as impaired hearing, and other disabilities, such as dyslexia.

Play Online

• Arthur: Sign Design: Practice Signing - Learn to sign your name using basic sign language.

Read

• Amelia Lends a Hand
  By Marissa Moss
  Published March 2002 by Pleasant Company Publications
  Amelia has a new neighbor, a boy who launches rockets. Just the kind of friend Amelia wants. She's tired of listening to her sister, grouchy old Cleo, fight with their mother. When Amelia discovers the boy is deaf, she wonders how she will ever become his friend. The book introduces American Sign Language and provides 32 sign language flash cards. Readers will find that Amelia's marginal doodles and comments reflect real childhood likes and dislikes.
• The World at Her Fingertips: The Story of Helen Keller
  By Joan Dash
  Published August 2002 by Scholastic
  By the time she died in 1968 at 87, Helen Keller was an internationally known writer and speaker. This biography relates the life of a young girl from Alabama who triumphed over the loss of sight and hearing, graduated from Radcliffe, lectured around the world, and was admired by figures like Eleanor Roosevelt. This book has black and white photographs.

*As most PBS children's programs offer one year extended taping rights for teachers, please feel free to tape them now and save them for use in your classroom during the school year.