anyone doing "teach your baby to read"?

[sophiems]

I've been reading a book called "Teach your baby to read."  It involves showing them cards with large words printed on them at a very early age and the basically learn to read by just seeing the words as pictures.  Is anyone doing this?  I'd love to hear from you. 

[janelle]

I think there are a few of us doing it (or who have done it) Checkout childbrain.org for more info on this book and other Doman methods

[deb]

I totally love your avatar, Sophie!!!!!

Anyway, this topic first came on the boards about, oh 3-4 years ago (when Josie was a baby). It became a hot button topic right away, with a lot of heated discussion on both sides, so for a while there was a Yahoo discussion group and then a bunch went over to Childbrain.org for more discussion about it.

I went for it with Josie and she and I had a blast with it; now at 4.5 she's an AMAZING reader. She loves to read, for pleasure, for information, the works. Her reading and comprehension both tested high when she was evaluated in January for her sensory stuff too. I rmember her at 16-18 months bringing me her big index card box and demanding, "Do words!" She's also done well going to phonics for sounding out new words and for writing words.

Natalie isn't as much into words in the same way - she prefers to manhandle the cards, so for now I'm just doing it low-key. I keep the cards at the table and show her words depending in situations and interests.  Still too soon to tell where is'll go on what timetable, as she and Josie are just two different people entirely!

That's our experience, FWIW.

[sophiems]

thank you both for your info. 
Just wondering, deb, when did you start with Josie.  I haven't finished the book yet but I'm wondering how much time I have to make the cards!  I would like to do it with both kids but Dominic is already 3.  Is there any hope for him still?  Luke is 10.5 mo so I'll start with him hopefully "on schedule" 
I'm just finding out about this whole idea and I absolutely love it.  I'm glad to hear you've also been able to do phonics.  I never learned that but my husband is kind of adamant that they learn that at some point. 
I'll check out the childbrain message boards but for now I couldn't seem to register.  Every time I filled in a password it said I didn't fill it in

Thanks for your help!

[deb]

Josie was probably 8-9 months old when I read the book so we would have started cards around 10-12 months, I think. I went straight to 5x7 index cards, which I file alphabetically in a file box (now two boxes, one for A-P and one for the rest of the alphabet, and did them in basic black Sharpies instead of the big red they suggest when starting out with tiny babies.

I did do a set of red cards (also 5x7 - hey, I'm lazy! ) for Natalie before she became mobile and still spent some time in her bouncy seat w/her reflux, but haven't had them out for ages; she's been using the cards I made for Josie plus words it turns out I never got around to (like "sister!" LOL).

As for phonics, you might want to consider starting there with your older DS; from what I've read, the best window of time for the sight words is until 2-3 years of age, and around age 3 is when the brain starts to "prefer" more of a phonics approach.  With Josie, once in a while I'd point out some of the individual letters and their sounds but I didn't make a big deal out of it. Fo example, if I showed her her name, I might point out the J at the beginning and say, "This says,'Josie.' Juh-Juh (pointing at the J) Josie." Then if the same letter showed up in another word I might point it out again. I don't really think I went out of my way to do that, though.

Oh, BTW, in Montessori they do the phonics a bit differently from "traditional" school. Instead of learning letter names, they learn the sounds. In other words, instead of spelling the word "cat" "Cee-Ay-Tee" you'd say, "C (hard C or K sound)-A (short A vowel sound) - T (T sound).

HTH!

[Erin M]

Current brain-based research says that it is very important for kids to learn phonics.  But, there's also nothing wrong with teaching them sight words when they're little as it's exposure to print that helps kids to develop their phonics skills.  I've heard from researchers at reading conferences that recent studies have shown that something like 80-85% of kids are going to learn how to read no matter how you teach them -- if you start out with sight words, your kids should learn the sounds that letters make andhoe letter combinations behave in words based on generalizations that they'll be able to make just from familiarity with those sight words. 

As for a "magic age", it used to be thought that kids needed to be 5-6 to learn how to read, then researchers proved it could be done with younger kids....which IMO led to people getting carried away and forcing 3yo to learn to read.  That being said though, there's totally nothing wrong with exposing your LOs to print -- just have fun with it and it will benefit them in the long run.  Like Deb said, don't make a big deal out of it. 

Oh and the whole point of needing to learn phonics is that the English language is made up of millions and millions of words (with more being added all the time) and it's absolutely impossible for any human to be able to learn all those words, much less retrieve them into working memory when needed.  85% of English words can be sounded out using the rules of phonics, so it's really a much quicker method of being able to figure out new words that are encountered in print.  But like I said before, your kids should pick up on phonics if they're exposed to enough print (and I'm sure they'll get exposed to it in school) -- the only thing I'd worry about is if you have any sort of family history of people having trouble learning to read as dyslexia has been identified as a genetic condition.

Sorry if that was more info then you're looking for, I tend to get carried away when people ask about reading

[Kori]

Thanks for this idea! My daughter is almost two and I recently bought her word flash cards which she loves. Plus she is the biggest reader. I am going to get the book, I really think she would enjoy me doing more like that.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

i think i might get the book so I can see for myself all about this.  I learnt to read at 2 1/2 because my brother, who was 4 was learning to read at school. I have always been an avid reader, and will read absolutely anything, but he;s not intersted. I'm keen that rosie will learn to read and enjoy books, as her father isn't a reader at all.

I might not start it just yet, though we do play with books a lot, but i think learning more about teaching them to read is a good plan.

Apparently in our local area there are classes for parents about how to teach your child to read.  I might have to find out about those as well.