I've been told before that in sign language fingerspelling is the first thing you learn and the last thing you master. I try to catch the first and last letters and grab as many as I can in the middle. And then squeeze them all together. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've also found that it will take my brain a second to clue into what I've seen. So I'll see the fingerspelling and then a few seconds later get the word. Using context clues is important. I also try to say the sounds of the letters in my head as they're happening instead of saying the letter. When you see a word happen letter by letter at the end you'll have all the letters, but your brain won't be able to put those back together to make a word. I don't know why that happens but it's ridiculous. You could watch someone sign U - N - D - E - R - S - T - A - N - D, and you could see and understand every letter, but not be able to put that back together to make understand. I don't get how that works, but it happens to me all the time.
