Was he reading?

This morning TJ pointed to his nose when the word "nose" flashed on the screen BEFORE the narrator said the word or the image of the little girl pointing to her nose. I wonder, was he reading the word or did he just know that "nose" was coming up next??? Either way, I think TJ is getting very close to reading, he is distinguishing words and participating actively in the videos. We've miss maybe 1 or 2 showings a week, and I don't think it is going to make any sort of big impact on his progress.

My Personal Early Reading Experiences

I learned to read at home. At the time I went to kindergarten, I was 5 (turning 6 the following month) and at the neighborhood public school there was no reading curriculum for kindergarten. Meaning we did not have readers, or reading groups, or anything like that. I'm sure we reviewed the alphabet, but the bulk of my memories of kindergarten are of playing outdoors. No one else in my kindergarten class could read. So I believe my parents and siblings took it upon themselves to teach me to read at home. I do not know what method they used to teach me to read, but I think that I was read to until I memorized many of the early readers we had at home. At the end of my kindergarten year, my teacher had me read one of my books aloud to my class as well as the other kindergarten class, and gave me a Bernstein Bears book as a gift. I remember finding the Bernstein Bears book hard to read. I do not remember ever having been taught phonics, but it's possible some one showed me how to break down/sound out words at some point. By the time I went to first grade, I was an advanced reader in a pullout program at another school. I also remember my younger sister being in kindergarten at the new school and she had a reader that they used to teach kindergartners, I guess the school I went to for K was just no good in that respect. I'm sure that I became a fluent reader some time between kindergarten and 1st grade but I don't have many other specific memories.

I just wanted to write this out to say that reading "late" at age 6 or 7 was not a bad experience for me, I never struggled, and I became advanced very quickly after my family got involved in teaching me. I just don't want to be "alarmist" about early reading. I think reaching fluency by 1st grade is more than an adequate early start, and that working with your kids by exposing them them to print early on will help to achieve that.

Mini Marvel Monday

A Fox News Report done by Dawn Stensland in Philadelphia on Glenn Doman's Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, an organization that provides normal children with programs that speed their neurological development. Stensland explains that any baby can be a "genius". For more information, go to:
http://www.iahp.org

This is the "original" place that pioneered methods for teaching babies various skills, such as reading, math, physical skills, and encyclopedic knowledge. I am more interested in teaching some skills, such as reading, math, and music. However a full time professional Mom can homeschool her baby and likely do all of the programs that are available. I just want to clarify, even though they speak about the making of "genius" in this program, I do not believe that early education means that a child will be a genius, but will end up very capable in the skill areas that the parent concentrates on.

Progress Report #2

TJ has been watching the Your Baby Can Read Starter DVD for about 2 weeks now. I figure, he has watched it almost 28 times. Each word is shown on the DVD anywhere from 2-5 times. This means he has seen most of the words somewhere between 56 and 140 times! Wow! In Glenn Doman's book "How to teach your baby to read" he recommends that babies be shown words (on flashcards) 3 times a day for about 5 days, or about 15 or so times. Now I see why many parents are reporting that their children get horribly bored and cannot tolerate the DVD for the full 4 weeks, and moved to the next volume after 3 weeks. I will be playing it by ear for the coming week. As of now, TJ clearly loves the DVD but only certain parts. He actively participates in the DVD the FIRST time the word is shown consistently. However, when it is shown later in the show, he rarely participates even if I encourage him to by doing the activity myself (ie clapping, pointing to body part, reaching). He loves the Eentsy Weentsy Spider, and is sort of into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, so the music really helps us get through the DVD. I am thinking he will be up to a "test" some time this week. I will show him two cards and ask him which card says a particular word, and if he picks the right one then I will know he is absorbing some words. I have tried showing him flashcards, but that has been sort of a pointless exercise because he decided he wants to touch and hold the card, and slide the picture in and out. He really really likes items with moving parts. It's not so much that I don't want him to play with the cards, but he will figure out a way to destroy them. I kind of want to keep the materials in decent condition and he's already folded several of the regular flashcards so we will try to work without them until he can understand how we use them.