This as-seen-on-TV early language development system purports to teach babies to read before they can even talk. The commercials state:
Pardon my naivete, but isn’t that how everyone learns language? Why would a parent need to spend $14.95 for the 30-day risk-free trial, plus potentially a whole lot more money later, just so their child can perform parlor tricks? (“America’s Funniest Home Videos” has already done amazing-babies-can-read-or-name-the-US-states trick; they’re not going to nominate another for the weekly prize.)
You’re missing the point…it’s marketed towards THOSE parents of “special snowflakes” so they can manage to get little Smashlie into Name Brand University, so they can become a High Acheiver.
Yeah, I think that crap is terrible. Why can’t kids just be allowed to be kids?
My daughter is 17 months old. We read to her constantly–she brings us books all the time–but I’m not insane about showing her HOW to read. There will be time to learn that–right now I’m teaching her how to enjoy the world around her and explore it. She likes the ABC song so we sing it to her, but she doesn’t really know what it means yet. There will be time for all of this. If she loves reading (and it seems like she does) then when it’s appropriate to do so, I’ll start teaching her how…but right now is ridiculous.
Plus, YBCR teaches whole-word sight-reading rather than phonics, so the kids have no idea how to pronounce words they’ve never seen. Like mentioned upthread, it’s not really reading, it’s a parlor trick.
Exactly. Children should be raised in a word-rich environment without focusing on the word recognition part per se. There a whole host of pre-reading skills that are critical to be a strong reader later on (such as recognizing which direction a sentence goes, which way to open a book, recognize the function of punctuation etc). These skills develop with being exposed to reading.
In addition, many earlier readers have their peers catch up later in school. My daughter was reading independently by three- she did this on her own. She was head and shoulders above her peers in writing and reading by kindergarten. Now, if sixth grade, she is still a very strong reader and writer but some of the “slower” kids caught up and she is no longer such a stand out. Which is perfectly normal. So, even if those programs were to work, there is nothing saying it matters! (of course I mean “slower” in an ironic, nonderagatory way).
Just get the kids to love reading, or at least associate reading with information gathering, and that’s what matters.
I had friends who taught their baby sign language so they could communicate before they could vocalize. I think there’s a whole movement about this. So people who wait until their kids can speak are slackers.
Baby sign language is a completely different thing. When you’ve got a volatile little person who has decided wants and needs, and has a subzero threshold for frustration, giving them an additional way to communicate can be incredibly useful. They can often work their hands well enough to convey “more,” or “milk” long before their mouths can orchestrate the words.
On the other hand, “Your Baby Can Read” probably just like “Your Dog Can Spell,” because when you say “V-E-T” they get anxious.
Wow–down to the age of my daughter and the ABC song, I could’ve written this post word-for-word.
When I was getting my teaching certification, I took a class on early childhood development, and I read a journal article about language acquisition among infants. They tracked the acquisition of Chinese phonemes among US children, some of whom were read Chinese children’s books by a woman sitting in a chair in front of the children, and some of whom watching a videotape of the same woman sitting in the same chair at the same angle at the same volume reading the same Chinese children’s books.
The kids who listened to the woman live showed significant acquisition of Chinese phonemes. The kids who watched the videotape showed no acquisition of the same phonemes.
The researchers didn’t have an explanation for this difference, but speculated that maybe the liver reader was making eye contact with the kids, pausing during a crying spell, adjusting pacing to account for kids’ attention, or some other form of interactivity that the video couldn’t duplicate. In any case, it makes me supremely skeptical of attempts to substitute video interaction for live interaction with a kid.
Ain’t nothing better for teaching language skills than immersing your kid in a language-rich environment, holding conversations with the kid, responding to what they say, etc.
As for teaching reading, I am similarly supremely skeptical of people who talk about young children (3 or younger) who can read. I think people making those claims have very little sense of what real reading consists of; they think that if a kid sees a word and says the word, that constitutes significant reading.
While I agree that it’s not a common ability, my daughter could sound out a new word by the time she was two. She has learned with a professional phonics teacher from the time she first showed an interest in sight-reading, at 13 months. I turned the page of a book and she read me the next page. The next morning I asked her Daycare Director how I could tell if she had recognized the words or just memorized the book? She pulled out some 3x5 cards, and wrote a bunch of words, and then flashed them at Celtling, who read (or correctly named) something like 13 words. (!!)
I felt it was very important to get her in phonics right away, because memorization is so easy for her, she was simply memorizing the look of the words, and “reading” whatever she wanted. That can be very bad later on if it’s allowed to continue.
Now she is three years old, and reads on a second-grade level.
Some kids are just hard-wired for reading, and it runs in my family. I didn’t have the kind of support that she is given, but was reading the newspaper by the time I was four, and was a college-level reader by first grade.
I never push her at all, and have asked the teacher not to either. Some days Celtling just wants to read a book with the teacher, and I’ve made sure she knows that’s fine with me. Now is not the time for academic rigor! LOL! We’ll do it as long as it’s fun for her. She loves her reading classes and looks forward to seeing “Ms. Julie.”
As for “Your Baby Can Read” I think the way most people use it is heinous. However, when Celtling first started to read she couldn’t speak very well yet - just didn’t have the muscle development - and YBCR was the only program I found for pre-verbal readers. There’s a lot more to it than the videos, there are books with sliding windows, and flash cards with and without pictures. She enjoyed them, and brought them out to play with as regularly as any other toy. She very much liked the videos as well.
In the beginning it’s just getting across to the kids that these symbols = words. But as you move on it does go into the parts of the words and the letters, etc. It’s no substitute for phonics training, and inappropriate as a “pushing tool” but it was an excellent enrichment tool for us to use at home.
I think most people using Your Baby Can Read, with the exception of course of TruCelt, who had unusual circumstances, are missing the whole point of learning at that age.
Also, I’ve got precious little time with my daughter as it is. I hate that she’s in daycare, but it’s a necessary evil. And when I get home, I’d rather take the time I do have interacting with my baby in a less contrived manner than doing reading exercises at such an early age. There’s plenty of time for that later and, as mentioned upthread, a lot of it just comes out in the wash.
To TruCelt, out of curiosity, how structured is Your Baby Can Read? I think that’s one of the things that scares me the most - it seems like most babies wouldn’t have the focus for that type of learning. But then again, I don’t know a whole lot about it. Like I said, I think you’re the exception rather than the rule and more likely to use it for good rather than evil :).
I confess I remember your posting about this awhile ago, and I’m profoundly skeptical of what you’re saying. I don’t think you’re intentionally misrepresenting what’s happening–but as a second-grade teacher and as someone who’s often around very young kids and as someone with a hobby interest in language acquisition, I just don’t think what you’re describing is accurate.
Reading is not just about being able to identify words. If your daughter’s reading on a second-grade level, you should be able to get her a copy of a Henry and Mudge book she’s never seen before (these are written on a beginning-of-second-grade level–there are plenty of other possible texts, but these are very easy to find), and she should be able to read 95% of the words in the book to you accurately. Lower than 95%, and she’s not reading on a second-grade level. (If you want to test this, count out the first 100 words in the book, and then have her read that section to you. On a sheet of paper, make a check for every word she reads correctly; for every word she misses, write the correct word, put a line above it, and write what she says instead above the correct word. If she corrects the mistake without prompting, don’t count it as a mistake. Don’t correct her reading at all during this check. Writing details about the errors is optional, but may help you see patterns of errors–e.g., the elision of suffixes, guessing at a word based on its initial sound, etc.)
Once she’s read the book, she should be able to retell the story to you, including:
-The setting, including any changes in setting
-The important characters
-How the characters change during the course of the story
-The events of the story in chronological order
-The problem (or situation) in the story
-How the problem or situation is resolved
-The author’s intent in writing the story
-A connection between the story and her own life, or the story and another story she’s read.
If she cannot do these things with minimal prompting, then she’s not reading on a second-grade level. Reading is not just about identifying the words: it’s about comprehending what’s read.
I just made the materials available to her, and let her bring them out when she wanted to. She named the video “Arms up” and asked for it as often as “Horton” or “Elmo.” The books are neat, they have the word on a sliding window with the picture underneath. Some of the sight cards are made the same way, with a sliding portion that comes out with the picture on it. So the child is developing fine motor skills, as well as recognition and vocabulary.
I suppose one could develop daily lesson plans, and a schedule, and generally make it into a nightmare; but we really enjoyed it.
Geniuses do happen dear. I’m beginning to feel sorry for any who may find themselves in your class.
And I didn’t put the second-grade label on, that’s the phonics teachers assessment.
I’ve never seen a “Mudge” book, but she can read any book I’ve given to her, and she knows the story when she’s finished, and develops play scenarios based upon the stories.
So do delusional parents. Dear. So do scam artists who praise children ridiculously in order to continue getting that paycheck. Dear. But your sorrow for my students is noted, and duly weighted against the words of the parents (and children) who have actually been involved with me on a professional basis.
It’s not remotely difficult. I’ve had the privilege to work with many exceptional children. I was one myself. However, I also know that delusional parents exist in much greater numbers than children with the degree of exceptionality you’re claiming, as do scammy private educational consultants, and at some point, Occam’s razor has got to enter the picture–especially when your response to skepticism is a wholly unwarranted and unjustified attack on my teaching ability.
I’ve offered you a simple test of reading ability and comprehension. I perform this for each of my students multiple times a year (minimum 3, often double that), and it takes about 20 minutes. I’m genuinely curious what results you’d get with your kid on such a test.
There are other measures of reading level, but the ones I know of (e.g., sight-reading a certain number of high-frequency words accurately) don’t measure a broad range of reading skills. They are, however, ones that are much more in the realm of plausibility for a child of the age you’re discussing.
Not to speak for LHoD, but from my perspective, it’s not difficult at all to accept that an exceptional child exists. I myself was creating breathtaking works of art at the age of 27 1/2 months, using my hair as a brush and mushy poop and phlegm as paint.
The problem is, 99.9 percent of parents are hard-wired to brag about their children, or believe they’re exceptional in some way. Roughly 99.4 percent of those parents are wrong. It’s not that their children aren’t wonderful in their own way; it’s that parents are the single worst source of impartial information about their own children.
So, here’s the dilemma we (as unbiased observers) are faced with: Your child is quite likely one of the smartest people in the history of the world. Unfortunately, as a parent, you’re a lying scumbag, and since we only have your word for your child’s marvelousness, we tend to discount it.
Nothing personal, and I hope you understand. If I’ve hurt your feelings by this post, allow me to make amends by offering you, at a substantially reduced price, one of my phlegm-and-mushy-poop masterpieces. My old phonics teacher said she’d never seen poop used with such dexterity and boldness of vision.
I did not attack your teaching ability, I said I feel sorry for a genius who lands in the class of a teacher who appeared not to believe they exist. If you are sure that they do exist, then what reason do you have to accuse me of being delusional?
Celtling’s teachers (3 homeroom teachers over the years, and her phonics teacher, not to mention the Center Director) are far from scam artists. They are caring, intelligent professionals, working in a nationally accredited pre-school. who, I might add, have actually met and worked with my child, which you have not.
This thread is a great indication of the gifted and talented people who post to the board! I feel lucky just to be able to read it (although, I confess I’m having difficulty comprehending most of it).
Wow! You didn’t have the support your daughter had, yet you were a college-level reader by first grade? So, that’s age 6… you must be a SUPER-GENIUS. Like Wile E. Coyote. And I hate to break it to you, but your daughter is woefully behind your own personal, torrid reading pace. Let’s pick it up!
Indeed! It takes one to know one, so I do believe the **LHoD **WAS an exceptional child.
This post proves that **Sauron **is the most impressive poster on this board, and I for one look forward to the opportunity to buy a mushy poop masterpiece.
Are you all in Mensa? I can’t believe I haven’t met you at the meetings!
