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A few years ago, I took a class through ALSC specifically about using American Sign Language in storytime and library programming. I immediately brought my beginner ASL skills into the school library, and used my learning as a chance to learn alongside my students. I learned signs as I needed to for storytimes, search sign dictionaries after student inquiries, and sought out sign language brain breaks. One of the authors I found that lent themselves to ASL inclusion perfectly for elementary school readers was Corey Tabor. 

Read more: Bringing Sign Language into Story Time with Corey Tabor’s Fox Books

The Fox Series

Corey R. Tabor is the author of many beloved children’s books that are perfect read storytimes, read-alouds and quiet reading with families, but his Fox easy reader series is a particular delight for storytimes with kids from around 2 or 3 in age to 1st or 2nd grade. There are eight books in the easy reader series–all leveled as “My First” in the I Can Read Series. The books follow our protagonist, Fox, on various adventures alongside his animal friends. He skateboards, he goes on trips, he survives a lonely winter, and he plays ball. All of the stories are made up of simple sentences, illustrations that draw the eye and help the story feel more complete, and recurring characters that children can get to know. 

Animal Signs

The most obvious signs to teach and utilize during a Corey R. Tabor storytime are animal signs. For the recurring characters, you might teach FOX, RABBIT, TURTLE, and BEAR. I love to teach the signs as we first meet the characters, and then ask readers to show me the sign when we meet them again. I may read a line of dialogue, but not say the dialogue tag, and ask the students to “sign me” who they think said that based on context. Other animal signs that can be taught throughout the books include BAT, RACCOON, SQUIRREL, TIGER, SNAIL, and SKUNK. 

Communication Signs

While a lot of sign language learning for younger students outside of traditional ASL classrooms focuses on nouns, I found that the Corey Tabor Fox series sentence structure lent itself to teaching some “communication” based signs as well. The sign for SAYS was easy to teach to even the youngest readers who could touch their chin with their pointer finger. There’s also a fair amount of discussion about what a character “likes” that allows for students to learn and utilize the LIKE sign. In “Fox at Night” Fox spends a lot of time looking through binoculars to see what he can find–letting us utilize the LOOK sign, which feels very familiar to students in early elementary school. 

Feeling Signs

Finally, we can bring in a little social-emotional learning to the conversation by utilizing feelings signs that students can then deploy when words escape them later. We see Fox and his friends experience various emotions throughout the series–ANGER when Fox is skating over them, LONELINESS when all his friends go off to hibernate for the winter, and many characters also feel SCARED when faced with a night full of monsters.  You can also add in signs like ANXIOUS, NERVOUS, ANNOYED, or FRUSTATED by asking students how particular characters might be feeling at moments in the text. 

Incorporating movement and language learning into storytimes made by read-alouds twenty times more engaging for my early elementary school readers. Corey Tabor’s books are a natural way to bring those signs in, but I encourage you to think as you read about other books that might naturally expand for the reader with the inclusion of American Sign Language. 

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Aryssa Damron is a librarian living in San Antonio, Texas. She’s been a public librarian, a school librarian, and a personal librarian to many friends and toddlers. She is an ALA Chapter Councillor and a former member of the Alex, Carnegie, and Caldecott awards committees.

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