Your Baby Can Read?

hacked

Whilst flicking through infomercials at an ungodly hour thanks to my darling daughters teething, I happened upon a commercial for a programme called "Your Baby Can Read"

For those of you who don't know, it's a series of DVDS matching written words with the spoken word and the action/picture. It comes with flashcards of the words as well and supposedly teaches babies to read and build an advanced vocabulary.

I'd actually heard of this programme before I got pregnant, and people talked like it did work.

Has anyone got any experience with the programme? Would be interested to see what people thought as I'd love to try it with my daughter.

Melion

Have a look online.
I was up at the same ungodly hour as you a few months ago and was watching it too

I was amazed by it aswell but after looking online i decided against it. Just let your son/daughter learn at their own pace.

Das Kitty

Apparently it's just some sort of party piece, bit like a counting horse!

There was a thread before, someone here bought it.

axel rose

Im a firm believer in letting kids be kids. Babies need cuddles, food and sleep. They will be enough pressure on them in school and beyond. Why start that crap early?

(Not to mention that if you mention that your 2 year old can speed read- every adult in the room will think that you are annoying and showing off- most of us like our kids snotty nosed and a wee bit grubby )

hacked

axel rose wrote: »

Im a firm believer in letting kids be kids. Babies need cuddles, food and sleep. They will be enough pressure on them in school and beyond. Why start that crap early?

(Not to mention that if you mention that your 2 year old can speed read- every adult in the room will think that you are annoying and showing off- most of us like our kids snotty nosed and a wee bit grubby )

Kind of disagree with you here. If I did decide to try it, I wouldn't be sending my child off to study for hours at a time. I had a look at the DVDs and they look like fun as well as being educational. Stick them in front of that for a few minutes a day, and thats all you want....there are still plenty of hours to play, sleep, eat, have cuddles (yeah, like im not going to want to cuddle my gorgeous little girl all day long! ) etc.

Not to mention, I wouldn't be doing it so I could go around bragging. Mentioning it to others hadn't even occured to me. I was always good with English and adored reading and the baby's father is the same.
I taught myself to read when I was a small child by doing a rather old programme now (Although i wonder if they still sell it?) called Hooked on Phonics. My mother introduced me to it, but she didn't force to use it. I used it all by myself, skipped ahead to the advanced tapes (3 years ahead of what i should have been doing by times!). I absoloutely loved it and was reading and writing fluently by 4. In school I was always 4-5 years ahead in reading and English.
I chose to do that myself as a small child....I loved learning.

I would love to be able to share that with my child, especially as with the baby boom we aren't going to have enough schools for our children and will most likely have classes of 50 per teacher. (I saw the statistics somewhere recently) As a result, I don't trust the future education system and if I weren't a single parent who has to work would love to homeschool my child to make sure the proper attention is given her.

girlyhappyface

I agree with Hacked. I think you should give your child every opportunity in life, including getting them involved in educational activities from a young age. I love the idea of my children ENJOYING reading. I know someone who used it and her 8 month old baby was using signs for things like "milk", which cut down on crying and frustration for the child. Well worth it, IMO!

Das Kitty

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055871366

beachbabe

I would be worried that the child would get bored and frustrated in school when all the other's are learning to read.
I would also be a bit worried as the DVD's are American, so pronunciation, and spelling might be different in some cases.

hacked

hehe I'm half american...so she's screwed accent wise either way!

I never got bored during school, I just skipped ahead and got on grand.

Having looked into it further i think i will give it a miss. I saw a comment by some one that was very true...something about the programme teaching them to recongnise the word but not how to actually read properly.

Would still love to get something like I had as a child as it made learning fun. I see what my four year old sister does in school and what she gets for homework and think i could find something better.

gogo

girlyhappyface wrote: »

I agree with Hacked. I think you should give your child every opportunity in life, including getting them involved in educational activities from a young age. I love the idea of my children ENJOYING reading. I know someone who used it and her 8 month old baby was using signs for things like "milk", which cut down on crying and frustration for the child. Well worth it, IMO!

That's baby signing and a completly different thing.

cazzycaz

I introduced the letterland characters to my children at quite a young age flash cards,wall charts books etc. They loved learning them it was a natural progression to reading and writing. Most children love learning and should be encouraged and supported. All my children went on to love books and learning and still do!!:):D

caprilicious

I seen something similar that I thought was interesting, teaching babies sign language.
If you search it on google you can see babies from 6 months being able to communicate with signs when they want a bottle etc
What I took from it was that it was easier for them to communicate their needs/wants & have them addressed quicker/causing them less distress.

One thing I did see that I thought was a little off the wall is 'infant potty training'. I kid you not, apparently its best to start the training at 3 months old.
You read the babies signs/anticipate when they need to go & hold them over a bowl/small potty!
Each to their own, think I'll stick to the nappies for now!

gogo

Caprilicious there is a great baby signing book and flash cards in tk maxx at the mo for 9.99, seen it in both kilkenny and portlaoise so probably available in other ones as well. was trying this for a while with my baby but then I kept forgetting to do it so just gave up. He was getting a great laugh out of it tho so really should have kept it up. He's at the right age for it now, so might start again.

This website is great if your intersted in taking it further:

http://www.itvbabysign.com/a-z/find-sign.aspx

gogo

cazzycaz wrote: »

I introduced the letterland characters to my children at quite a young age flash cards,wall charts books etc. They loved learning them it was a natural progression to reading and writing. Most children love learning and should be encouraged and supported. All my children went on to love books and learning and still do!!:):D

This is the route I will go down, this is i feel, the natural way to do it and the fun way to. Getting your baby to watch dvd'd dosent sound right to me, i dont know of its works or not, but I know i wouldnt consider it. there's a lot to be said for just sitting down with your child and reading, writing & colouring and making it educational at the same time.
My MIL works in a playschool and she says that the ammount of kids starting with them that dont even know the most basic colours or any number (insequence or otherwise) is amazing 4&5year olds. This to me is crazy, my son is seven months old and even at this stage I count the stairs going down, always say the colour of things, Like would you like a yellow bananna, this comes naturally to people i think and additional aids such as dvds arent necessary.
People who love learning will naturally pass that on, or do their best to. I read to my son and at this stage he might only last a minute before he wants to eat the book, but thats 30 seconds longer than last month, before long he'll stay until the entire story is finished.
Anyway thats a long post to say that I think books, charts and the old fashioned educational toys are the best way to go.

caprilicious

Thanks a mill gogo, will have to pop into TK Maxx in Kilkenny over the weekend to see if I can pick that up.
I'm finding it more demanding to entertain my little lady lately, something like this would be ideal to stimulate her

girlyhappyface

gogo wrote: »

That's baby signing and a completly different thing.

Oh, my mistake. Maybe the person I know was using it in conjunction with Your Baby Can Read, because I know that was mentioned!

hacked wrote: »

Having looked into it further i think i will give it a miss. I saw a comment by some one that was very true...something about the programme teaching them to recongnise the word but not how to actually read properly.

And regarding the baby recognising the words and not "how to read properly". As far as I was aware, schools and stuff were trying to move away from getting children to use sound out individual letters phonetically and to use the whole word instead. This is because a lot of words sound completely different to how they look.

JamesMoriarty

I bought the DVD box set last year.

It seems to teach reading by sight as opposed to phonic reading (which is what they teach in schools nowadays).

I have 2 girls (18 months and 30 months old).
They both like to watch the DVDs (lots of animals, kids, singing etc).

They didn't get much reading benefit out of them.
However I do think they are pretty good for vocabulary building.

Older daughter can read many small words (3 letter cvcs) but got that from Starfall.com and to a lesser extent leapfrog DVDs as opposed to this course.
The 18 month old can recognize all her uppercase letters.

caprilicious

JamesMoriarty, what Starfall product did you use? was it the cd's/books or both? & what age did you start your little one's on it?

I had a quick mooch on their website, they seem very good value but not sure which one to buy

JamesMoriarty

caprilicious wrote: »

JamesMoriarty, what Starfall product did you use? was it the cd's/books or both? & what age did you start your little one's on it?

I had a quick mooch on their website, they seem very good value but not sure which one to buy

I've only ever used their website - it's free.
www.starfall.com
I think its the most popular kids education one on the web.
i.e. I sit with them and do it - started with the ABCs of course.

About 15 to 30 mins a day is all they're allowed
(The pair of them shout starfall, starfall).

My younger daughter started when she was about 14 months (saw the older one and wanted a knee to sit on).
At 17 months she could call out some of capital letters if I pointed to them (the symmetric ones they seem to pick up first - O, X etc).
She has all the uppercase now and some of the lowercase ones.


To be honest I think the most important thing is simply to spend as much time with them as possible and not sit them in front of something and go away.
Mine are not allowed TV but do spend about half an hour a day in front of a DVD usually educational.(Hey you have to clean up the house some time).
i.e. there is no one magic product you can buy that will educate them - its down to you talking to them, reading lots and as I said I found doing the starfall website with them great.

caprilicious

Thanks James, unfortunately my broadband connection is terrible to it wont work for me, I might try one of the books though.

Don't worry, no intention of sitting her in front of a DVD and leaving her to it!
I read to her every day & like the thoughts of getting some more books with a bit more variety & educational too

DublinWriter

axel rose wrote: »

Im a firm believer in letting kids be kids. Babies need cuddles, food and sleep. They will be enough pressure on them in school and beyond. Why start that crap early?

Amen to that.

There's a growing backlash among educational specialists in the States about the use of flashcards in early learning.

I think unstructured play is the best thing for 'em.

CathyMoran

In the past week or so our son has been craving information so we are giving it to him - it may only be books and flash cards but he loves it and smiles at it, he is touching the textures. I only remember from the age of 2 years but I loved reading and my husband was the same when he was young so we intend to give him as much intelectual stimilation as possible as well as as much hugs and kisses as he wants.