From the heart and hand-delivered

Danette Goulet

One by one, the students in Carol Jewell’s third-grade class silently

introduced themselves to their pen pal, Danielle Berman.

She nodded and smiled in perfect understanding.

While Jewell is teaching her students at Andersen Elementary School to

read and write, she is also teaching them Danielle’s language -- sign

language.

Danielle is 9 years old and has been deaf since birth.

Despite an initial shyness Wednesday morning, Danielle quickly warmed up

to the eager 8-year-olds who huddled around her, each trying to sign

their many questions to her.

“I asked her what kinds of books she likes to read,” said Sarah Colgate.

“She was really fun.”

Jewell did not teach the students sign language just for this one

occasion. She has been incorporating signing into her lessons for five

years.

Previously retired, Jewell went back to teaching kindergarten at Andersen

five years ago. She began using sign language to help teach phonetic

sounds to the children.

Children learn in different ways, Jewell said. All teachers use sight and

sound, but Jewell added “kinetic,” or physical, learning through signing,

which she said is a very powerful method for some children.

“It’s another way of learning, another avenue to broach,” she said. “Why

not hit them with everything?”She received confirmation of her theory

almost immediately.

Soon after incorporating sign language, Jewell had a meeting with a

student and his parents.

As the student read aloud to them, he stopped, unable to pronounce a word

that Jewell was sure he knew. So she signed the two syllables of the word

to him.

“He immediately said ‘Oh -- fat,”’ she recalled.

Now a third-grade teacher, Jewell continues to use sign language. She now

has nine students in her class who learned the basics of signing when

they were in her kindergarten class.

Emily Morris is one of those students and has loved the signing aspect of

class, said her mother, Cecilia.

“She would lie in bed at night and practice signing,” Cecilia Morris

said.

With Danielle, Jewell has found a means of bringing that language to

life. During a summer signing class, Jewell met Danielle and the idea was

born.

“One objective in the third grade is being able to write a personal

letter,” she said. “It ties in with their learning of language arts.”

After two months of writing letters back and forth, the pen pals finally

met Wednesday.

Every student was vying for Danielle’s attention.

“I think somebody who signs could really be best friends with her,” Sarah

said.