Signs All Around Us

If you have young children you have been in a restaurant when you needed to take your child to the bathroom. A child on the brink of reading going to the washroom in my experience takes extra pride in sharing which bathroom they should go into reading off BOYS or GIRLS or MALE and FEMALE on the bathroom door. However, many restaurants today have unique and quirky ways to share the differences between the sexes. Long past are the days where you will always find a bathroom sign with the word WOMEN; and a stick figure woman wearing a skirt, and MEN; and the stick-legged counterpart on the bathroom doors.

My family recently embarked upon a bathroom sign disaster with our new reader. These signs read, “Lad” and “Lassie” without any picture clues to help our new reader predict which bathroom was for her. Needless to say, my daughter ended up in the wrong one!

This spurred a great blog idea! Sign creations! Why not prepare our young ones for all the signs they will read – both with words and pictures and without! The internet is a great place to start your review of the signs one will encounter around town and the world. If you’re interested, check out this photo gallery of some great bathroom signs around the world!

Helping young children to recognize words they know and see around them will make their beginning reading process even more meaningful and exciting in their lives. The more they learn to read the more they will become encouraged to “see” and “read” the world around them as offering more possibilities!

Stepping Stones Together would love it if you shared your favorites and posted them here!