Your Baby Can Read

My husband recently watched an episode of Penn & Teller's Bull**** and they talked about this one. Basically, it's a waste of money whether or not you watch tv in the same room or not.

I've seen this come up over and again on various boards throughout the last few years. There's been a good deal of discussion on this one and why it's a load of ****. If you want your child to be a reader, talk to him, read to him, read books yourself and have them around the house. I think these are the only things that have been proven to have any correllation to reading.

Hi T.---I don't know much about this program but I will say this...there is no reason for an infant to be learning to read. Small babies need to learn other things like motor skills and things they learn just by being babies. I just don't see the benefit in such small children being educated to a 4 or 5 yr old's capacity. And having taken as many elementary ed. reading classes as I did, I see teachers are being fully eduacted to teach children how to read without parents needing to buy these programs.

Yes, I used it. My son started it closer to about 12 months, but I do plan on starting my daughter around 4 or 5 months. My son loved it, and I was actually so impressed that I bought it for a friend with a baby and he has told me that his son loves it too. Hint - check Ebay - it's usually there for a better price than their website. I do not necessarily think my son learned to read from this system! I want to make that clear. However, it really helped his vocabulary. He was slightly behind in speaking at the time, but after watching these videos he learned all the words and still uses them appropriately today. In fact, his word for "television" for a few months was "Aleka," (the name of the child in the video). Some people will probably say that it was just coincidence that he started speaking at this time. Maybe that is true. However, it is only 20 minutes a day. I ALWAYS watched with him and said the words myself. And I LOVED to see the smile on his face when he was saying the words. I could see that he was so proud of himself. We do read to him every day, and he has always loved his books, but I think these are a great supplement. By the way, we are now onto "Preschool Prep Company" videos and I can say the same thing about those. After just a few showings, he has become much more sure of his alphabet and his numbers, and has almost mastered his colors and shapes. He is amazing on sight words - possibly because of previous exposure to YBCR.

If you get these, I would love to hear your opinions!

I have never heard of this program, but I don't see any reason for you 8 month old to learn to read right now. If you are using it to build vocabulary that is wonderful. You could probably get the same result by just teaching your child new words everyday. I am a former teacher (left to stay home with my children) and I do plan to teach my daughter to read before she goes to kindergarten. I will not start this process until she is at least 3 1/2. First teach him the alphabet when he is around 2 then work on reading later. I speak to my children a lot and teach them new words everyday and my daughter had an extensive vocabulary by the time she was 15 months old. My son who is now 11 months only knows about 15 words, but is learning a new work each day. I would save your money and just put some realy quality time teaching him words right now reading can wait.

I have not heard of that program, however, I have heard of the "How to Teach your baby to Read" program from Glenn Doman. It's the one where you use flashcards with words printed on them. I actually bought the set of cards and the book to use with my son. I believe it can work, however, my son was not interested enough in it (wouldn't look at the words). I have the set for sale, if you're interested. I'm going to put it up on ebay soon. Let me know. There are like 200 cards or something in the set.

Hi T., I think it is great that your wanting to do what you think is enriching for your baby. I am a pediatric therapist and have experience in development. I want to caution you in pursuing anything that's not developmental appropriate for your little one. The reason being that even if you get the end result such as reading you may skip the natural processes that take place prior to that without knowing. For example, there are many parents that encourage their children to walk and skip crawling. And crawling is very important to human development because it lays the foundation for left and right brain communication through bi-lateral movement. In fact, many children with academic delays did not crawl. So just make sure you don't move too quickly. Hope that's helpful.

I have this video series and started it with my daughter when she was 14 months old. She's been watching it for 3 months now. She really enjoys it. She isn't really talking very much yet, but she does recognize the words and seem to understand it...she points to all her body parts with the video. So, overall, I think it is a good educational tool. But all children develop at different paces, so don't be disapointed if your doesn't do everything the video says he/she should.