Teaching your baby to read?

[brittany_stager]

I was at the gym the other night and on the TV's they usually have on BNN, CNN, and other boring news channels, so naturally I choose to watch "The Dr's."

They had a very interesting guest on who runs a program called "Your Baby Can Read!" He talked about how you can teach your child to start to read at 3 months, and they will be reading in full by the time they are 2!! I couldn't believe it!

I went home to check their website and sure enough they have videos of children reading at 9 months!! Holy Cow! Seriously, check it out.....

The arguement is that teaching your child to read at 5 or 6 is not natural because language skills and reading go hand in hand, and since you teach your child to talk at age 1-2 why not teach them to read then too.

Now I am not to sure on this, it just seems like you would be sitting there for hours a day with your baby holding up flash cards trying to get them to read. It also seems kind of pushy... pushing your child to read at that age. But on the other hand, I can kind-of see where they are coming from with the whole learning language and reading skills at the same time.

What do you think? Do you know anyone who has tried this and has been successful? Or is it too pushy?

[chronosadmin]

Never heard of that before either. We taught our youngsters baby sign language which they picked up very quickly. It was really helpful in helping them communicate to us before they could speak. A lot less tears

[beth_nixon]

Yeah, we did some baby sign language too and it was great.

I guess I can see the philosophy on teaching them to read that little BUT it still seems, I guess pushy is the right word Brittany. Now, my mom made up flashcards when I was a young toddler and put them around the house. Things like chair, couch, table, etc. And she said I would know the words. That she would show them to me later and I would recognize them.

BUT, I quickly forgot them when she wasn't doing it every day. So, just short term stuff and I didn't read early or anything.

My son is starting to read in kindergarten and, although he has fun with it, it's hard work. He's really thinking and I can see it clicking together. I think a baby has so much else to learn . . . eating, rolling over, crawling, etc. Heck, they say some babies stop talking when they are learning to walk. Their brain is so focused on learning one big thing that it has to step back on other things.

Interesting thoughts though!

[gatorspore]

I think it is individual for each child like potty training. My oldest was reading by shortly after 2 and my youngest is working on sight words at 3 years old. My middle child though is 9 years old and there is no way he could have been reading at 2 or 3 or even 5 and 6. He is just now learning to read so i guess it isn't pushy if your child is ready but I wouldn't worry about it either if they didn't seem to take right to it.

[MT_Lane_Designs]

Interesting topic.

I taught all of my girls to read early by teaching them the sound of the letters (ah, bu, cu) instead of the name of the letter. Taylor was reading short story books by the age of 2, Baylee and Denver by age 3 (can you guess which one got most of the attention!)...lol! By teaching them the letter sound instead of the name, they learn to sound out words when the letters are put together.

I didn't spend an enormous amount of time teaching them daily...just pointed out letters along with other everyday things when shopping at the store, etc. Worked like a charm