Our reviewers evaluate products and services based on unbiased research. Top Consumer Reviews may earn money when you click on a link. Learn more about our process.
Tuesday, June 6th
Sign It! American Sign Language is a self-paced program taught by well-known educators and entertainers from the ASL community. Some recognizable names include Rachel Coleman, Sean Forbes, Peter Cook, Crom Saunders, Patrick Fischer, and more. This course is meant to help students become fluent in ASL and would span an entire year or more if you go through all the material and practice tests.
20 lessons available
The full Sign It ASL curriculum has a total of 50 lessons that teach conversational ASL. It will go over sentences, vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. However, not all lessons are available yet because only 20 of them are funded at this point. Lessons 21-50 will come as soon as they are ready to launch.
Extensive study material
In the first 20 lessons, there are over 1,200 vocabulary words, fingerspelling practice, sentence structure material, and more. The course has 3 difficulty level settings and you can slow down or speed up videos to fit your learning preferences. Lesson topics include introductions, family, feelings, job, school, neighbors, transportation, countries, vacation, money, clothing, hobbies, colors, religion, and so much more. Each lesson contains an hour of content and 8-12 quizzes. It's recommended that students go over the whole course three times. It takes about 35-40 hours to do lessons 1-20 without repeating lessons or doing practice exercises.
Donate to support free use for families
Sign It ASL is provided by the Signing Time Foundation in partnership with Two Little Hands Productions. For individuals wanting to donate and support free ASL lessons for families who need it, there is a link to donate. Free lessons are available to families who have a child 36 months or younger that have hearing loss.
Lifelong access
Lessons you purchase from Sign It never expire. This way you can go through the content at your own pace and review it as often as you'd like. For those with educational site licenses, each user will have access for 12 months from the time of purchase. You'll need an internet connection for all the quiz and test features to work.
Different lesson packages to choose from
You can preview lessons #1, #2, and #10 for free to get an idea of how the Sign It ASL platform works and if it caters to your learning style. The packages include:
No return policy or satisfaction guarantee is mentioned.
Students love Sign It ASL
Students who have used Sign It ASL enjoy that humor is used in the teaching. They say it is easy to follow and they learn new signs quickly. The videos are not only informative, but enjoyable to watch. This is an extremely thorough way to learn ASL at your own pace. The program is designed to help students become fluent and remember words and phrases long-term. We highly recommend this program if you're willing to dedicate the time to going through all the course material.
Whether you're interested in connecting with people in the Deaf community, trying to communicate with a non-verbal child, or facing hearing loss yourself, you're in good company. It's estimated that over 500,000 people in the US and Canada use American Sign Language (ASL).
If you're hoping to learn to sign, it's important to choose lessons that teach not just the signs themselves but also about Deaf culture and the differences between ASL and English. (It surprises many people when they learn that they don't correspond in a 1:1 fashion. In fact, ASL often uses a completely different word order, and facial expressions are a critical component of using ASL fluently.
Sign language lessons that include different instructors can help you see that individuals often have their own unique way of signing - just like someone from the South has a spoken accent that's very distinct from a New Yorker. Going back to the question of where to learn ASL, it might be possible to find classes nearby at a community college or even a library. Will they fit your schedule? Your budget?
Maybe, maybe not. Fortunately, there are many providers of sign language lessons online that let you study at your own pace, any time of day or night. (And hey, unlike other language lessons, you don't have to worry about disturbing people as you practice ASL in a quiet public place!)
What should you look for as you choose where to take sign language lessons through the internet? Here are some suggestions that can help you narrow down the options:
TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best Sign Language lessons available today. We hope these reviews help you open new doors of communication as you learn to sign fluently in ASL right away!
Select any 2 Sign Language Lessons to compare them head to head