Bilingual Stories Bookshelf

Discover the Bilingual Stories Bookshelf app, designed to support early language acquisition for young deaf and hard of hearing children through a diverse collection of bilingual storybooks in American Sign Language (ASL) and English.

Immerse yourself in signed stories with interactive vocabulary lessons that foster an inclusive learning environment for families and celebrate the richness of various cultural perspectives!

Bilingual Stories Bookshelf App

The Bilingual Stories Bookshelf app is a central feature of the Regional Early Acquisition of Language (REAL) Project, led by the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center and Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Our mission is to provide deaf and hard of hearing children and their families with bilingual storybooks in both American Sign Language (ASL) and English, supporting early language acquisition from birth to age 3—a critical period for developing a strong language foundation.

Through this app, entire books are translated into ASL, offering a virtual bookshelf of signed storybook videos. Users can engage with the app through three interactive modes:

Enjoy the entire story signed, with the book’s pages as the background.

Experience page-by-page videos, with each page accompanied by its text.

Explore key vocabulary words signed and fingerspelled.

We anticipate adding at least 75 more stories to the app over the next three years, with a total of 85 published bilingual stories and 35 original stories.

SPOTLIGHT

We are thrilled to spotlight the bookshelf’s Shakur series, developed by Black Deaf creators and featuring Black Deaf characters who use ASL!

Accessing the APP and Stories

Free downloads: Published books will be available for free download through the app.

Special Access for Families with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

Families registered with their REAL regional center or the Clerc Center early intervention team will receive:

  • Free downloads of the Shakur series and future paid content added to the app.
  • Access to published books through the REAL Family Resource Packages distributed by the REAL regional centers.


If you are a family member with a young deaf or hard of hearing child (Ages 0-3) and would like to see if you qualify for free access to the Shakur series, please fill out the form.

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