“I have all this homework due Monday but the book is… well it’s a book. It’s hard to know if I’m signing correctly! I just started the semester and I’m already behind! What should I do?” -AnonGirl
We found this common problem on a forum recently- A lot of ASL curricula these days use two-dimensional books to teach an amazing expressive language that’s…3D. Some students do just fine, but other students get lost just like AnonGirl. They can’t check if the motion is being done right because the pictures being used don’t fully demonstrate a sign: It is a still image that uses arrows to show required movements.
Let’s take the sign for LEARN (pictured right): 
As you can see the sign for LEARN involves laying your non-dominant hand flat, and then moving your
dominant hand from the palm to the forehead (with an O-handshape).
What you don’t see is that the motion should be fluid, that your dominant hand should actually look like it’s taking knowledge from a book (your flat hand) and putting it into your brain (your forehead). See how Mindy sign LEARN below:
Can you see how much her hand is changing shape as she signs? That’s not so easy to tell from the picture, huh? That’s why ASLdeafined is the #1 online ASL Textbook- ALL of our vocabulary on our site and even bonus words in the dictionary are sign by real Deaf people that use ASL as their primary form of communication AND you can slow down the videos! Give us a try for free today!