How to move from signing to talking?

[kristine_elen]

I love that Jack knows and uses so many signs, but how do I transition him into actually using verbal words for words he already signs? Example: I'm trying to teach him to say please, so when I say, "Say please," he eagerly signs it. I don't want to tell him he's wrong, but I'm not sure how to transition over to the verbal side.
Anyone had experience with this?

[Karenn]

Once Colin has learned how to say the word for one of his signs, he generally drops the sign, or signs the word while he says it. I usually assume that if he is still making the sign, he can't say the word- but I know that may not be the case with all kids.

One thing I did do is once he learned a specific sign, I stopped using the sign to communicate with him. Since I knew he could understand my spoken word as well as the sign, I just used the spoken word. He's now the only one in our family that communicates with sign. My theory was that this would model for him the fact that in our family we usualy use spoken words to communicate when we can. Who knows if it made a difference or not! :)

My friend's son would often sign words that he COULD say, and she would just say something like "That's right! Can you say please with your voice now?"