Progress Update

We are still trucking along with the Your Baby Can Read!. It's become a pretty integral part of our daily routine. I put the video on each morning we get up, and TJ watches portions of it, but also runs around to get re-acquainted with his toys, get some breakfast, and explore. Each evening I put the video on after he's taken his bath, darken the room, and he watches the video snuggled on my lap. I think he gets the most out of the evening viewing, he participates and watches the entire video without really looking away very often.

It's difficult to tell if he's learned to read any new words. He is not crazy about the flash cards. I place two or three flash cards in front of him and ask him to identify a word. Often, he picks the right card, but some times he just gathers the cards and hands them back to me, picks the wrong one, or takes the cards to another room. After this routine started, I did not use the flashcards anymore. I am pretty confident he is learning, but is not ready to be "tested" with the flashcards. So I will let him just take in the information for another couple of weeks before trying again.

We are still watching Volume 1. For a while, we had a minor problem with this video that turned into a MAJOR problem. There is a song "If you are happy" on the video that is played twice. TJ has known this song for a long time because I always sang that song to him during his diaper changes to keep him calm and he had something to do with his hands. Well, I always made up something for the second stanza, such as "If you're happy and you know it wiggle you toes," or "If you're happy and you know it shake your head." During the video, they sing "If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet" and I think this stressed TJ out quite a bit. He would always have a tantrum in the middle of the song, either I guess because he didn't like the way they were singing the song or he didn't know how to stomp his feet. It got so bad, I went and moved on to Volume 2. Volume 2 was a bit longer, quicker paced, and had many more words. If felt it was a bit too soon to move on, so I went back to the Starter DVD, then moved on the Volume 1 again. Maybe he just needed a break, because we have not had a problem with the song anymore!

He can say several words from the DVDs and many of these words he learned from the DVD. Bib, bubble, baby, cat, eating, no, yes (yeah), knees, and a few other things. It is quite fun to hear him talking more!