"your baby can read" does it work
posted 11 Jun. 2009, 8:54 am (15 moms have helped)
My son is about 3 months old and I want to give him a head start. I've seen "your baby can read" on tv that works for kids 3 months to 5 years of age. Has anyone tried this before? Does it work and is it worth getting?
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posted 16 Jun. 2009, 2:24 pm
No it does not and it is actually detrimental. This is not what the brain needs for development. From birth to age 3 the brain is laying the groundwork of nerve paths. From age 3-10 the brain builds on that. If we put all this unnatural stimulus on them the brain will not develop correctly and this will cause learning problems that can be severe. What they need at this very important time in their development is face to face contact with real people real conversations and real life activities. Baby videos and TV, flash cards and all those artificial things cause harm to the developing brain. We cannot force intelligence and we cannot rush it either. Let the little children be little children and when the time comes for them to learn reading and such they will catch on very quickly because they have well developed brains ready to learn because their nerve paths in the brain are sufficiently made. All of those ads about early start are about money. Do some research and enjoy your baby boy!
posted 29 Jun. 2009, 12:08 am
Honestly, I haven't tried it, but if you want to give your baby a head start, I have an idea. I have 4 boys, and the older 3 all had speach issues. I think it is because I am from the west coast, and my husband is from the east coast, so they are getting mixed signals in the home from our accents. BUT, with my 3rd son, I had someone give me the idea of teaching him to sign. Just the basics, but we started with yes and no, and then added more, please, thank you...just a couple of the easy ones. It was so great, it sure took the terrible out of the terrible 2's. Sometimes it can be so frustrating when they get to the age where they know what they want, but we as parents have no idea what they are saying. So now, with my 10 month old, we have already started to teach him to sign. My older boys (ages 10, 9 and 7) are all on board, and remember all the signs that they learned when my 7 year old was a baby. So now we are adding more signs, just for fun, while teaching all the basics to the baby. Having the boys know the signs for yes and no is also good when you are in church, and don't want to give the evil eye when they are across the room doing something you disapprove of. I can always sign no, and they know they need to stop :)
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posted 24 Sep. 2009, 3:15 pm
Why not just let babies be babies? I mean, don't "baby talk" with him, speak clearly to him, but let him play, and enjoy his surroundings. Babies (newborn through about age 5) learn from playing. It is actually their work. Give your child lots of love, simple toys, and lots of one on one play time with mommy or daddy. That's really the best thing you can do for him, especially at his young age.
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posted 27 Oct. 2009, 10:30 pm
I TOTALLY agree with the sign language post- a much better investment for your money.
We have the videos but don't use them the recommended way (2 or 3 times a day plus flashcards). Yes it will work if you do it as recommended. Worth the money? That's debatable. I'm not sure how much of a head start it is worth. Yes, it will help learn reading earlier but some studies show that doesn't matter for some of the top income earning jobs.
We have quite a few baby einsteins and the YBCR series. This is how I use them, we don't even watch one a day but occassionally one of my older children will watch a video with my 18 month old while I'm doing some other school task in the other room with the 3rd child. It gives me hopefully 30 minutes uninterupted teaching time and when you have an 18 month old, 4 1/2 year old and a 6 year old- that's priceless!!
Has she started reading anything?? She recognizes Hi, wave, and clap. Everything else she does is typical development for an 18month old so I will not attribute it to the videos. We also do sign language (have for each of the kids) and she does about 5 signs.
If your child is in day care or something for awhile, it might be a good thing to ask them to show your child. But if your home with your child, save your money- there are so many other things you can do to stimulate your child's brain and give him a head start!! Happy Blessings of Motherhood to you!!!
posted 28 Oct. 2009, 7:41 pm
i have to agree with these posts.. my husband was all about trying this program with our kids.. i was like.. ahh no its not the natural way that they would learn, and i dont really think they're learning the actual meanings of these words.. its just doesnt make sense really.. they learn from interaction and simple teaching from mom and dad, and theyre surroundings every day
posted 13 Dec. 2009, 12:14 am
Yes it does work, we got it for out daughter who at the time i think was 8 or 9 months ( we got a late start), but she is going on 18 months the 19th of Dec. and i think she know twice as much as outher children her age. We go to church with a family that has a daughter that is twice as old as our daughter, and our daughter know as much as her! good luck i hope you get it :)
posted 30 Dec. 2009, 7:32 am
I've looked at these, and having taught one child to read and starting on the second one (they are 6 and 4 respectively), their skills explode so fast anyway, I'm inclined to use the leapfrog videos from 1.5-2 years up, and let phonics and natural logic take its course. There is a man in our church (in his 50's) who was taught recognition reading as a child, and that poor man struggles with anything not in normal daily speech. Like, say, reading assembly instructions for something or a computer manual. NOT WORTH IT. Besides, if baby DOES learn to recognize all those words on sight, it can make for a lot of confusion when it's time to learn phonics. They tend to assume they know the word and move on without really checking to see if they are right. Let your kid be a baby, and if you're interested in reading development, read TO him, sign, etc.
posted January 1, 3:00 pm
Read the book "Better Late Than Early" by Raymond and Dorothy Moore before hand. It's good to look at arguments from both sides of the spectrum.
posted January 6, 7:47 pm
Don't push your baby... children take to reading much better if you don't force them..
posted January 15, 1:31 pm
We have it for our 9mo son and he likes it and is starting to learn from it simple commands. i think its worth it but dont expect the same results for each child but any learning that is encouraging and fun for your baby is worth it.
posted January 15, 8:52 pm
I've been using it for about 6 wks with my 5 month old. She's grown to really enjoy the videos, cards & books. I don't force any of it on her. If she wants to roll around & play while the video is on - that's fine with me. It's important to me that she enjoy it. Obviously at her age I can't tell if she understands any of it yet. How teaching a child to read early is damaging is beyond me. My mother read to me all the time when I was a baby & I started reading basic books on my own when I was 2. This edge was so helpful to me all through school & after. I always loved to read & often would be reading many at the same time. I don't see how using these videos, flash cards & books (along with other books too) is anymore damaging than reading to & interacting with your child in general.
posted February 1, 1:18 pm
This issue with this program is really very basic. Do you want your child to learn to sight read or read phonetically? That "system" is like teaching a dog to roll over. The child is simply memorizing what a word looks like, not actually reading. Sight reading was introduced in the 50's as the "new" way to read. It took about a decade before teachers realized what a terrible thing it was. Now children are taught to read phonetically unless there is a learning or development issue.
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posted February 2, 10:22 pm
Actually, "they" have shown that both ways if done strictly don't work. (Have you been to a public school's K or 1st grade class?!?!? That's the main reason one of my friends pulled her son out of public school!!!)
English sucks to teach strictly phonetically, there are too many exceptions to the rule. But sight words have a limit, too. I think that's why Hooked on Phonics is such a success, it kinda blends them both. My mom taught us back in the 70's with a mix of both when we were each 4, it works!!
The videos are just another medium for the sight words. I think most people take issue with the tv time aspect of it- there are plenty of studies that show the bad effects of tv on young children, mostly due to the quick changing images and flashes. That is my one complaint for the videos- they change too quickly!! I prefer certain Baby Einstians and Brainy babys (not all fo them) because they are slower.
If you watch the interview with Dr Titzer and his daughter, yes she's a smart cookie- above average and that's great. Parent's want to give their children whatever boost they can, but I was not like WOW, super impressed with her. And like I said before, research on various jobs and incomes shows that age of starting to read has no correlation.
posted June 4, 12:26 pm
I agree. There is no correlation to reading at an early age and levels of income, but then again it depends how you view or define success. Is success making a high income or finding your passion even if you dont make a high income? Do you want to teach your child to be highly competitive in school or life by always giving him the head start or do you want too teach your child to follow his natural talents and that its ok not to know it all? This is all debateable and depends on a parents expectations. When we want our children to read at a young age they dont necessarily have the emotional capacity to comprehend what they are reading or you may expose him to too much information too soon. Then again there are certain children who teach themselves how to read with little or know parental influence. They are a rare and special type of child called gifted and its ok to let the gifted child wonder off into his own little world. But if you are exposing him to this environment it is not natural for a very young child. But then again if your child is going to be watching tv at the age of two, should he be watching spongebob or my baby can read? I dont think that teaching your baby to read early has any long term damage though. I believe there is no point in rushing it when by the age of 16 most "normal" teenagers have the capacity to read at the same level. I am not saying that there arent 16 yr olds reading at a 4th gr level but if he is passionate about reading he will pick up books that interest him and read and comprehend them just as well as the early reader. So does this mean that the person able to analyze and reaad Shakespeare will be more succesful than the person who sticks to the local paper and internet articles? Good question.
posted June 8, 5:33 am
When I first saw their info-mercial (sp?) I recorded it on our dvr and made my husband watch it! He didn't buy into it and once I thought about the joy I've had in guiding three of my children into reading "Go, Dog, Go" or "Little Bear" in kindergarten or first grade, I decided to stick with our normal way of doing things. We did use sign language with our babies and that was wonderful. Also a quick note about sight words vs. phonics - my oldest attended public school kindergarten and when we brought her home for 1st grade I was amazed that she never learned how to sound out a single word, it was all sight word learning at her public school. For example, she knew "c-a-t" was "cat" but only from sight, not because of each consonant sound and short-vowel rule. In my opinion as her mother, that kind of set her back. When she ran into a word she hadn't seen before she had no idea how to figure it out.