(Referring to those within sight but not within sound and the usefulness of fingerspelling) "This, of course, depends on the angle of vision, eyesight, and distance. If you're both equipped with binoculars, you can read each other's fingerspelling across a considerable distance."--pg. 109, p. 5I do not know a single person who carries around binoculars with them on a regular basis. Anyway, I found many of the examples to be quite useful. Underwater I have not tried but that makes perfect sense. As for fingerspelling in inappropriate situations, my little brother and I use that all the time. I learned the manual alphabet when I was 12 and taught it to my brother who was at the time 7. We fingerspell in Church and at other no-talking semi-fancy events, and our mother has completely given up on trying to get us to stop. Since I have started taking ASL I, I have gotten a lot better at reading his fingerspelling. Before now he was always better than me. I'm not sure if that is because he learned it younger or if it was just a difference in abilities.
I think all children should learn to sign beyond just fingerspelling. I also think they should start learning right away, not just in preschool-first grade. Babies can sign-babble earlier than they can speech-babble, so there's the benefit of being able to communicate with your children earlier. This would also let those who have to sign be less isolated. Even though ASL is a different language from English, since it uses English writing and reading it seems like the two languages are intertwined enough that it makes sense to know both.
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