Your Baby Can Read

[MountainMom]

Has anyone seen this infomercial or am I the only one who stays up till 2am? It's about some guy who developed a program when his daughter was little and shows home videos of her reading at around age 2 or 3. It's interesting if it works, but it would seem that you could do it yourself. They see the word, they hear the word, they see the action or representation of the word. EG: Clap C-L-A-P Clap, *Person clapping* One thing that ticked me off is that one testimonial mom said, "You just plop them in front of the tv and you don't have to do anything" hmm, yeah, great parenting. Anyway, not to publicize them or anything, but has anyone heard/tried it? Is it worth all the 2am hype? Okay, waiting...

There's more to life than learning to read at a young age. It sounds terrible, harmful, sick.

 

[Wildsky]

I started reading at a young age... around 3... but that was because my parents read EVERYTHING to me and I wanted to be able to do it on my own. They never forced me to learn anything, I LOVED reading (still do) by the time I was 4.5 I was reading novels on my own and just asking about words if I got stuck.

I would never try to force reading onto my baby (who I haven't had yet... lol) and I definitely wouldn't buy a program for it, but I would hope that by reading to him/her and showing them how much I love it, that love of books would get passed on.

I don't see anything wrong with playing games and having fun with it... but only if the child is having fun too.

My son started early, not 3 but probably around 4 or so, I think he was frustrated mostly by NOT knowing how to read, and he just started figuring it out for himself, mostly on street signs etc.. all we heard "what does that say" for months! He did it on grocery items and things like that as well.

He loves reading as well, plows though books faster than I can get them for him. (I just bought him a Kindle a few months ago)

His sister, not so interested. She's 6 now and still learning at her own pace, although she is in school and does really well, she's not close to the reading skills of her brother.

 

[patandchickens]

I've had several people recommend the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons so we're going to give that a try this fall.

Can I suggest trying it WITHOUT the book first? Honest. Forget about thinking about it in terms of "teaching child to <whatever>" -- all you want to do is HELP your child TO LEARN. Children are excellent natural learners (although not always of the exact things you WANTED them to learn, lol).

And while it is quite difficult to teach all children to read, it is pretty *easy* generally to teach ONE child to read... because you do not have to span the range of all different learning styles and developmental stages and interests and personalities that a whole class of children (or a whole audience of how-to-teach-reading materials) is likely to include. No, you just have to aim things at what works for your child IN PARTICULAR. Probably you already know this to a reasonable extent, and as you go along you will develop an ever-increasing knowledge of how he learns best and what makes him most WANT to go on learning things.

Truly, I think that in the vast majority of cases, using "systems" from books and videos and such actually IMPEDES the process of a kid learning to read. It also gets in the way of you getting to know your kid better, which makes it harder (as opposed to easier) to teach him *other* things in *future*.

So, really, what about starting with the beginnings of reading *now*, no book no video no system no nothin', just take inventory of what interests him and what he learns best, and start from there, and feel your way along. Really really

JMHO,

Pat

 

[chandasue]

Can I suggest trying it WITHOUT the book first?

You can suggest anything you want. We all have our own ideas on what will work and what won't for our own kids, hence why we homeschool in the first place.

Edit: FWIW I have been working with him and where he's having trouble is precisely the area the book tackles that I haven't been able to address effectively. Knowing when to look for outside help before I make him more confused is more important.

 

[VickiLynn]

My son was reading at 3 yrs. I taught him very casually. I would read to him every day, and I started pretending I didn't know a word and would stop and sound it out, trying to show him how people sound out each letter to read a word. Pretty soon he was helping me sound them out, and after a while he was doing it himself.

When he started school, he was way ahead of the class and they wanted to bump him up a year. I said no because I didn't think he was ready socially or emotionally. So, his poor teacher was constantly having to come up with ways to challenge him.

He's nine now, and a good reader, but I think he would be a good reader now even if he hadn't learned so early.

It really depends on the individual child, and nobody knows a child like his parents.