Essay on Baby Reading
PDF Welcome to my new blog!
I started teaching my little boy to read beginning at 22 months, and by age four, he was decoding text (reading, in that sense) quite fluently at the sixth grade level, or above.
I’ve discovered that there isn’t a lot written about the subject of baby reading. So I have written a 45,000-word essay on the subject:
How and Why I Taught My Toddler to Read
PDF – DOC – HTML
(the PDF is best)
I’ve worked on this for two years, off and on. It is formatted as a 140-page book, which I’m presenting to the public free, under a Creative Commons (CC-by-nc-nd) license. Here is a video of my boy reading to me when he was two, then three, then four. At age 3 years, 10 months, he read the First Amendment of the Constitution (in the video at 2:47):
How’d we do it? We used a variety of methods: I read many books to him while pointing to the words, I showed him over 1,000 home-made flashcards (careful: 122 MB zip file) arranged in phonetic groupings, we watched the Your Baby Can Read videos, we used these (150+) PowerPoint presentations I made for him, and we did many other literacy-building activities. All of this was done in a completely pressure-free way; I taught him to say “that’s enough” and immediately stopped when, if not before, he got tired of any activity. (UPDATE: these flashcards are in the process of being converted into a high-quality digital version at ReadingBear.org.)
I hope that by publicizing our case, we will raise awareness of the methods available that can, in fact, teach very small children to read with about as much ease as they can learn spoken language or sign language.
Working on early childhood educational content and issues is now my full-time job; among other things, I’m planning a new tool that will emulate the best aspects of Your Baby Can Read, but it will be free. I’ve passed off leadership of WatchKnow.org to a new CEO, the very capable Dr. Joe Thomas. Expect to see regular updates on this blog about my work, and I’ll be asking for your feedback about my various plans and ideas.
Please use this page to comment on both the essay and the video.
UPDATE: if you want a copy of the essay on your handheld device (and can’t figure out how to put the PDF on your device), you can buy it for $2.99 from the Amazon Store. Someone asked for this, and I obliged!
UPDATE 2 (Oct. 3, 2011): my son is now five years old. He is now reading daily on his own, and has read himself a couple dozen chapter books, including The Story of the World, Vol. 1: The Ancient World (314 pgs.).
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About the author
Larry Sanger had written 96 articles for Larry Sanger Blog
I call myself an "Internet Knowledge Organizer." I started Wikipedia.org, Citizendium.org, and WatchKnow.org, among others. Now I am lucky enough to be able to work full-time on creating free materials for early education, which I am using with my two little boys and sharing with you.
70 Responses to "Essay on Baby Reading"
So, whatcha think?
Dear Larry,
This is just to let you know that your essay was read and greatly appreciated in Warsaw, Poland.
Dominika
I just happened on this website looking for a way to teach my 20 year-old daughter with multiple disabilities to read. What I like about your site is the uncluttered background, very big font sizes in clear and well-spaced letters. I’m going to try it on the TV using the Wii and hope it works. My daughter is also legally blind so having big, clear letters is helpful as well as the vocalizations of the sounds and words.
FYI – please fix short a – bottom left pics stay in blue (3 go around); also didn’t understand how “had” was matched with the picture of a dove being held.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Larry Sanger, Larry Sanger. Larry Sanger said: I have written a 140-page essay/book, posted free (CC-by-nc-nd): "How and Why I Taught My Toddler to Read": http://bit.ly/f7x6MH [...]
I am so pleased to see that your essay is now available to all. The video you have put together to show your son’s progress is great. It clearly demonstrates that he is not only reading, but comprehending too, which I think is important to note. I have noticed that some skeptics of early reading/education will say that a young child may read, but will not actually understand what they are reading. [Your son] has certainly proved otherwise (except maybe in the case of the constitution, but it is amazing that he can read it so easily). I love the way he changes his voice when a character is speaking. He obviously has a good understanding of what he is reading. Icluding what it means when he sees a full stop, quotation marks etc… Thank-you for sharing and all the work you have put into documenting your journey.
I look forward to seeing how you progress with [your son] and his little brother.
[...] was thinking about how my essay on baby reading hardly made a ripple on its first day out in the world, despite being announced pretty far and [...]
Thanks, Nbailey!
No video is going to convince people–they have to think it through, and most won’t take the time to do that, I imagine. Well, that’s OK I guess, I’ll just be another voice is the rising chorus, which will be harder to tune out as time goes on. Wait, am I sounding religious now?
Well, it’s not like that…
This is great that you have created a not for profit organization to promote this. That is very inspiring. It would be great help for many families.
Moms at the Brillkids discussion forum have been lucky as we have watched your and many other toddlers learn to read and more at a young age.
I and maybe others would also be interested in other curriculum that you are doing with your son to develop his critical thinking skills and the result of those. I have heard some of it from the Brillkids forum but blogposts here to document it all, would be great.
My daughter really enjoys the Flesch cards.
The essay is great. It is very detailed and full of information to motivate others to start.
Thanks!
Thanks for your kind words, Ariel. I didn’t create the non-profit, I just happen to be supported in this work by one. You can thank a certain southern gentleman, who doesn’t like to have his name passed around much, who was very much impressed by videos of H. (my first) that he saw. We were already working on http://www.watchknow.org/ and now he’s if anything more excited about baby reading.
Larry, congratulations on such an accomplishment! What a massive, epic work. Thank you for publishing this – I can imagine how intense the process must have been.
Any consideration of trying to make it available on Amazon’s Kindle store, or iBook, etc…? That would probably aid penetration by making it more pleasant and convenient to consume by a large & growing population segment.
If you’re still feeling disappointed with your perception of the splash this release made, keep in mind that Van Gogh was a commercial failure and only sold one painting during his lifetime. Some things just take a little time to sink in. Also, “the world” is weighing pretty heavily on a lot of people right now, just trying to hold on to their houses and jobs. Give them a few years, and keep up your good, important work.
Dear Larry,
Thanks for all your posts on TYBTR and Brillkids and for sharing your website! The video of your son is extremely impressive and I am motivated to keep on going with trying to teach my DD. I am looking forward to reading your essay.
mtb999
Totally, I want to put it on Amazon (the Kindle store if nothing else). I haven’t taken the time to figure out how to do it, that’s all. Anyway, definitely.
Also, thanks for your kind words and encouragement, Tyson and mtb999. It was a lot of work.
Wonderful contribution! Something strange though–I was not able to see the video using Firefox or Chrome–had to use I.E. before the video showed up.
Have you had to address concerns of a child reading material that may not be age appropriate? Or that reading early could take away from the experience of being a child? Or that a child far ahead of grade level would be bored in a classroom?
Kevin, thanks for telling me about the video bug. We’ll get right on fixing that.
Nobody has ever expressed “concerns” about age appropriateness of what I’ve read to H. As to taking away from “the experience of being a child,” I do have a section in Part 2 about early education vs. play; in short, I think this is a false alternative. My boy spends 90% of his waking, non-meal hours playing. The other 10% we spend on educational stuff.
If you yourself suspect that reading early could take away from the experience of being a child, I find that fascinating. Why do you think so? Can you articulate your worry?
As to being far ahead of grade level, that’s addressed in section 3 of the conclusion of the essay. Our family’s solution to that is: well, we’re home schooling, so it’s not a problem.
UPDATE: the bug is now fixed. How’s that for service?
Wow! Quick service indeed! Sorry I did not read through the essay before commenting, since you address the questions there.
I was mainly just vocalizing what I thought other people might have concerns with. As for myself, I think it’s wonderful! Our children have all read at a young age–not as young as your boy though! Our oldest, now 13, reads much faster than I can and simply devours books. Actually, all the kids love to read far more than I did as a child. And, as for being ahead of grade level, we home school too so it’s really not a concern.
Thanks for your great contributions–I was unfamiliar with WatchKnow.org before coming across your post, so I appreciate that as well.
I’ll ask you an interesting question that I was asked by a businessman in Turkey. He said they have literally hundreds of thousands of college students who could benefit from the freely available course materials available in English, except they don’t speak English. He then gave numbers for how many were in high school and grade school, then asked “How can we teach English to 3 million students on a budget of only $1 per student?” At first it sounded ridiculous, but I started thinking of some possibilities. I pose the question here because in terms of early childhood education, teaching another language would be ideal!
I just finished reading your essay. What a fantastic resource this is for the world! It has brought up an interesting discussion in my local homeschooling community when I shared the link. I think that you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the two main objections from our culture. The “natural education” idea is so pervasive in the homeschooling community, from the very people you would think could benefit the most from early literacy! Thank you for promoting awareness of this issue so eloquently. Congratulations on teaching your son so well, and on the birth of your new baby.
Thanks very much for the positive review!
UPDATE: I just submitted the book to the Kindle store, so it should soon be available to download to hand-helds. This is for people who, for some reason, can’t download the PDF from this page.
Your essay is certainly worthy of a much wider audience. I am SO glad that you decided to eventually publish your essay via the Kindle bookstore.
A great article! Though sad that it has not received a wide audience or the ripples that you expected. Currently I am trying to do something on similar lines in my local community, well, the same disappointment. No one is ready to understand it fully though they could see the benefits. I was perplexed about their behaviours, but after reading some of the comments here and in brillkids, I come to understand. Still I am in a dilemma if I should continue the plans or not.
I appreciate that you are not giving up. Your posts and articles are inspiring and keeps me(and many) truly motivated. So keep posting.
Cheers
arvi
did you see the today show on Nov. 11,2010. Some 10 universities were cited saying children couldn’t read at an early age that they just memororised the text etc. and that Titzer was a charlatan. Why can’t people see? Every country could teach English as a second language to children when they are 2 years old.
Charles, welcome to the blog. See my latest blog post on that program!
arvi, I’m glad to help. You really need motivation? I think of teaching H. and E. as being just one of the nice things that is simply expected, like making good food. I call it a hobby, but maybe it’s more than that; I think of it as a duty. I’m not saying others have a duty to do something they’re not even convinced is necessary or beneficial, but since I am so convinced, that’s how it seems to me. I also try to keep it fun and really, I don’t feel obligated to do that much. We read at mealtimes and after breakfast, we usually do something after his nap, and I read to him at bedtime. Some of this is “down-time” or “break-time” anyway, so it’s not like it’s such a huge sacrifice.
I just wanted to say, Larry, how much I appreciate you and what you do. Many people would have sought to profit commercially from such a book and there’s nothing wrong with that but I can see that you are motivated by a desire to help humankind, not just to profit yourself. That is a rare and precious thing in this day and age, often not acknowledged enough in a person’s lifetime. I do hope you are aware of how much you are appreciated by others, both for the things you do, and for the person you are.
I really appreciate this, Mark. It really made my day. I didn’t reply right away because, well, what can one really say to such a thing? Thanks, anyway.
I took the liberty of uploading the essay to Scribd (at http://www.scribd.com/doc/46089066/How-and-Why-I-Taught-My-Toddler-to-Read). The service provides the ability to transfer documents to hand-held devices including AmazonKindle, iPad, iPhone, Android and several others. I hope that’s OK. If it isn’t, please let me know.
Thanks.
Thanks so much for this. I haven’t yet put this version on Amazon, but I will.
Larry,
Thank you for ALL of your information. I found you on childandme.com and use very much of your absolutely amazing and generous materials. I have a question for you. I’ve started doing the phonics set (prior we did glen doman, and baby can read). My daughter sounds out all the words in set 1 but doesn’t always say the whole word after. So for instance, she will sound out Mmmm—aaaa—-ttt (mat) but not always say “mat” when I ask “what word is that?.” I don’t want her to get bored so I am thinking that I should move on to set #2 because I believe she knows the answer, but just isn’t verbalizing it all the time, what do you think? PS shes 2 yrs 4 mths.
Not being a reading expert, I can’t really give you definitive advice in such a case. But if I were in your situation, I would say, “OK, let’s change the game. This time, I will sound it out, and you say the word. OK?” Then use the method I used with H.–you sound out the word, then let your daughter say the whole thing. If she can’t or won’t, I am wondering if it’s too hard for her, and she needs a little more hand-holding. Maybe you need to say the word again blended, but very slowly. Then ask: what’s that, fast?
It’s very possible that your daughter really doesn’t know how to put the letters together. It might seem obvious to you and me, but I assure you it isn’t obvious for first-time learners. I remember that H. definitely required help with it.
Hi, I have read your essay and watched the video several times. I did not know it’s possible to teach some toddlers to read without any pressure so this is quite fascinating for me. My son is only 6 months old at this time. Since I plan to homeschool him at least for the first number of years, and hope to do so without insisting that he sit at a desk for hours each day, your essay was extremely interesting to me. Whether or not he reads at two, I think the early exposure to phonics and words will give him a firm and fun foundation for a lifetime of reading.
Thanks very much for the note!
Frankly, I’m finding that “pressure” of one kind or another is becoming more necessary as my boy gets older; he’d rather be playing with his beloved Legos. It would be a lot harder to do now what we did when he was one or two years old. When the little ones get a better idea in mind how they want to spend their time, persuading them to do anything else becomes more difficult. When they’re tiny, they don’t care so much, they’re “easy”–or mine was, anyway. Same way with my 3-month-old. He just loves interaction, of any kind.
Hi Larry, it was great finding your blog!
My son is 5 month old and I just stared using flash cards with him. Do you have any idea about ideal age to begin reading program? I think he is too young for phonetics but maybe he can enjoy the flash cards. of course, in this stage I have no way to know if he is learning anything… What do you think?
I really don’t have a clear idea about when to begin a “reading program.” If reading board books & baby books counts as a reading program, then it can start as soon as your baby starts paying attention to books. I am showing my 3-month-old a lot of iPad flashcards and a few powerpoint presentations as well. We have even watched YBCR as well. But I didn’t do any of this with H. (my first), and as you can see in the video, he’s doing quite well. With him I started reading books sometime between 3 and 6 months, and then did that quite a lot (an hour or more per day). We also looked at flashcards, which I think of as baby books without a spine. (A lot of baby books basically have content that is little different from flashcards–it’s just words and single pictures.) Occasionally I have read words with sentences to my babies, but they didn’t seem to capture their attention nearly as well. It’s also an excellent idea at this point to start simply talking a lot about what they are paying attention to. This morning, E. was paying attention to my electric razor, so I told him what it was, showed it to him in different angles, repeated the name, told him about what it does, etc. This is conventional language-building advice given about babies, and I think it’s perfectly solid.
Hope this helps!
Thanks, it was indeed very helpfull!
Are you at home with both your children? Do you get any help in order to do your own things?
I work from home, and so I can do educational stuff with my boys at mealtime and during breaks. Do I get any help? Well, sure, I’ve benefitted greatly from different tools others have made (found, for example, on BrillKids.com). Their Mama reads to them sometimes as well, and otherwise helps with their education; I think they benefit by being spoken to in her native language, which is not English. I’ve also benefitted a great deal from lots of advice gleaned here and there…
Thank you so much Larry.
And one more question- is it OK if I’ll translate some of your power point presentations into Hebrew and use it for my son and publish it on my blog? (with credit ofcourse…)
@Yael: of course, no problem!
Yet again, thank you very much Larry for giving us such an invaluable information resource – I read your essay and have no doubt that it will inspire many parents to think more deeply about the importance early education.
Thanks, Lappy!
I have a 2 year 1 month old that we have been teaching with various methonds including YBCR and Doman’s flash cards. We are having similar results to what you report at the same stage. I know that my mother used a similar method with me in the 60′s – Doman’s flash cards and the Hay and Wingo Reading with Phonics. I very much appreciated your essay. From what we have been doing with our daughter, I belive that starting with flash cards and then teaching word decoding is probably the better approach. I did start teaching our daughter the letter sound when she was a little over a year, but its very hard for her to integrate it into a word. She learns whole words with ease and I can see her starting to apply the letter sounds that I have taught her.
I have so much to say on this subject that it is more than I can put in a comment here. But, I want to again express my appreciation for all that you have put into this site. There is a lot of useful information here.
Hi Charles, thanks for this very interesting mail. If you want, I would be happy to host a guest blog post from you, or two, in which you explain what it was like growing up as a very early reader, how you react to the people who say it can’t be done (when it was done to you in the 60s), and what you’re doing with your own child. I personally would be fascinated.
Larry,
I really enjoyed reading your essay. I decided to teach my first daughter to read starting at 9 months. I did a combination of YBCR, Starfall, PowerPoint slides and I made my own YBCR type videos. Plus, I read a lot to her. I became aware of the fact that she was reading phonetically at 21 months. By this, I mean, she was reading words I had never shown her. She read her first book aloud a few weeks after her second birthday. She is almost 6 and will read 80-100 page chapter books in a couple of hours. Luckily she enjoys reading the same books over and over because I think we would have a hard time supplying her with enough books, if she didn’t. Weekly trips to the library help. She is in Kindergarten now through an online public school. But they put her into 1st grade phonics and LA. They would have put her directly into 2nd grade if I had asked, but I chose 1st grade for spelling and grammar.
I don’t know her reading level. It’s probably about 4th grade. But her decoding ability is probably high school level. I’ve tested her on college level books, and she decodes some of them almost flawlessly. But some big and unfamiliar words trip her up, especially science terminology.
Teaching my second daughter has been more effort for me. YBCR did not work but I have ideas as to why. She is almost 3 and she has made huge progress in the last few months using the Brillkids Little Reader. I printed your flashcards and she loves them. Since I got Little Reader, she is actually asking to do “baby reading.” I expect that she will be an actual reader by 3 1/2.
In terms of why to teach your baby, I’m a big advocate of pressure-free early learning in the home. For me, it’s about giving my children a solid foundation. My hope is that I can give them a knowledge foundation that will allow them to become whatever they want to be. It isn’t about being better than other kids. It’s about ensuring that they reach their full potential.
I was also surprised to read in your essay that some “experts” say children aren’t capable of learning to read before the age of 5 or 6. I come from Ireland originally and learned to read in both English and Irish starting at the age of four. Learning to read at 4 is the norm in Ireland and Britain. I’m sure a lot of kids start at 4 in other countries as well. I’m surprised that experts would not be aware of the fact that many children around the world are easily learning to read at 4, often in more than one language.
Joan, thanks for your very interesting response! It sounds like we’ve had very similar experiences and we have similar views on the subject as well.
It’s possible that I misstated the expert position in my essay. Whatever I did say, what I should have said is this: they (American educationists & reading experts) think that the vast majority of children are not really “ready” to learn to read before the age of five or six. They know, of course, that some children can learn before that, but they explain this away by saying that those children are statistical outliers. This, in fact, is exactly how Jane Healy described my boy; I guess she would say that our experience, the experience we had with our children, is due to the fact that the children were exceptional, and most parents couldn’t possibly do what we did and expect to have similar results. Frankly, I disagree, and I don’t think they know what they’re talking about when they say that.
[...] details on this study as well as some other studies can found in Larry Sanger’s essay “How and Why I Taught My Toddler to Read” which I highly recommend [...]
Hi Larry,
I enjoyed reading your essay and think my experience teaching my son to read is probably quite similar to your own. So I was wondering if you could give me some advice?
Just before my son’s second birthday I began teaching him to read with the Doman method, very quickly he was reading 50 words but I realised after a short while that although it was an excellent primer for learning to read (and improving memory skills) I felt a more eclectic approach would be better in the long run. So I started using flash cards that were phonically grouped at about 2.5 years, as you did and that’s when his reading really kicked in. I then started with some little phonic readers which he loved, and he was also using the Starfall website independently at that age. He asked for all the Harry and the bucketful of Dinosaurs books for Christmas this year, and was also able to read those independently.
He is now 3.5 years, he’s reading chapter books more regularly now with excellent comprehension, but he still enjoys picture books the most.
He has obviously picked up the phonic rules, because if he attempts a word he doesn’t know you can see his phonic logic, even if it isn’t correct.
My problem is that occasionally he makes the most bizarre guesses, although after one or two attempts he’s usually back on track – or close at least! And sometimes he’ll read a simple word backwards or rearranged, admittedly it isn’t very often. I do have an idea what the problem is; he had never sounded out words aloud (until very recently) even when I sounded out the phonically grouped cards he wasn’t keen, so I didn’t push it. So I’ve now gone back to the phonic basics and made up a game of sounding out the words, I’ve already seen an improvement and he’s able to write simple words by listening to the sounds without my help now.
My question is; did you have this problem of word guessing or inverting (if you see it as a problem) and if so, do you have any advice or suggestions?
Thanks! =)
Sounds like your little guy is doing extremely well. Fascinating that we used similar methods!
Of course H. guessed wrongly from time to time, but other than that, if he was prone to a inverting problem like what you’ve seen, I’m not sure I would have known it. I did most of the reading to him, and while he did read a little to me at that age, it was usually simpler stuff. When he read to himself at that age, he did so silently.
Anyway, my guess would be similar to yours: if he’s inverting letters within words very much, that is possibly because he never had much sounding-out practice (or was not exposed enough to you sounding things out for him). This is a common problem for kids with insufficient phonics training.
WatchKnow Reader is going to do the sounding-out appear systematic and very clear, similar to Starfall (but better!), and with phonetically-grouped words. I’m going to be very curious to see how it works with my #2, who is now 5 months. Anyway, by the time it’s available (this fall, I hope), it’ll be old hat for your son.
Hi Larry. I love your website and absolutely love your video of your son reading! It is a-mazing. I have recommended your website to many of my friends who are interested in early child development.
I was wondering if you were going to publish an ongoing list of books that you and your son are reading? I am particularly interested in the book about the two stroke engine your son is reading in the video. Where did you find such a beautifully illustrated book for children?
Al, thanks!
The book you asked about is [i]Mighty Machines.[/i] Definitely recommendable.
I’ve posted various lists of books I’ve read to H. on BrillKids.com (where I am “DadDude”). You can see my Amazon reviews here. This is a very small sampling of what we’ve read. I wouldn’t want to make a full list. I guess it’s time to update our “read chapter books” list–I can post that.
Hi larry,
Thanks for taking the time to reply! =)
Well, it took less than a week to eliminate the problem(hopefully), with a daily sounding out game and review of letter sounds.
The WatchKnow site looks great, my little boy has already been exploring. I’ll look forward to seeing WatchKnow reader, and how your #2 progresses with it!
Fascinating that it seemed to work!
Hi Larry. I love your website and absolutely love your video of your son reading! A friend of mine recommended your website to me and I absolutely love it. I actually wanted to know exactly 1. HOW MANY BOOKS DID YOU READ TO YOUR SON PER DAY/WEEK 2. HOW MANY BOOKS DID YOU READ 3. DID YOU READ THE SAME BOOKS FOR A WHOLE WEEK OR DID YOU CHANGE THEM UP? 4. did you read chapter picture books to you son or was it just picture books.
Hi Dangervil, thanks so much for your positive feedback. It means a lot.
To answer your questions:
1. Books per day, well, it depended entirely on what age he was. As a baby we read at least a half-dozen board books, sometimes we read a stack of them all at once, and read more during mealtimes as well. So, lots, as a baby. The books we could read when he was two were longer, so it then dropped down to an average of 2-3 books per day, perhaps, sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the books. But since he was three or so, and definitely now that he’s almost five, we *finish* reading a book maybe once a day, or every other day, since most books we read are longer. Occasionally of course we still pick up relatively easy or short books and can get through them over lunch (as we did an Usborne Young Reading book yesterday).
2. How many books, TOTAL? I’ve never counted them up, though I’ve wondered. We have many hundreds of books on our shelves, probably well over 1,000, and we’ve read the vast majority of those, so probably over 1,000. How much over, I don’t know. Of course, many of these are very short and can be read in 20-30 minutes.
3. I’ve been wondering this myself, now that I’m reading a fair bit with my second, who is now 6 months. I think I tended to read the same book daily for several days in a row, then put it down for a few weeks, then pick it up again, etc. I tried to pay attention to what excited my son. I seem to remember putting several books in front of him and letting him choose by reaching/pointing. He often wanted to read books again and again, especially when he was one year old. This habit stopped rather abruptly sometime when he was two.
4. I read many different kinds of books–basically, if there is a kind of book for a little kid, we read that kind, probably a lot. I didn’t start reading chapter books of any kind to him until he was two, I think, or maybe 20-24 months–and the first one was Winnie-the-Pooh. I now know that there are simpler chapter books than that. We didn’t actually finish a chapter book until shortly before his third birthday. Other people read lots of chapter books to their babies, but I don’t see the point. If you’re going to spend the time, why not read something that they have some prayer of understanding?
The youngest graduate of Washington State University learned to read at 18 months. The mother said she laid out flash cards and her baby daughter learned them after two months. This is another case that suggests early reading may be an important factor in developing academic abilities. Early readers appear to be able to read faster and to remember more. These reading skills make it easier to achieve academics. We also need to learn how much reading books during the early years influences academic abilities.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42772396/
I finally sat down and read your essay. I should be sleeping but I was captivated and there are so many things that I wish to respond to. I am sure I can’t remember them all now but I wanted to share a few of them.
1. My son will be 18 months in a few weeks and I will be teaching him to read, early. Not just so that he can get ahead, or for any elitist reasons. I just want him to be able to get a little push start in the hopes that school (I plan to homeschool) won’t be a struggle for him. I want him to develop the same life long love of learning that I have. I also want him to get a post secondary education, even if it is a tradeschool. I excelled at school, to a point, I reached 10th grade and became bored and refused to do any work and skipped classes to go to my school library to read Encyclopedias. I still have the same lust to know everything. I am sure you can relate.
I learnt to read at an early age, my brother, who is 4 years older, was in remedial reading classes that my mother tutored when he was in 1st and 2nd grade. I got to be there at the time and I learnt to read at 3.
My husband on the flip side struggled all through school and it is a miracle that he graduated. He had tutors and was in special education for learning disorders.
I have to concede my son is half him and half me so I have no idea what his take on school will be. But if I can give him some tools now to ease the burden of learning to read when he is 5-6 I will. My son was also failure to thrive for 6 months and some studies say that over 80% of FTT infants have mental retardation or a learning disorder. Currently he has a speech delay. As his mum I will try my hardest to help him any way I can.
Here are 2 anecdotal stories of early reading sisters. I taught both girls to read by the time the were 3.
Sister A was average all around, a little emotionally immature, but she hit early childhood milestones in the middle of average. She too loved to read the Magic Treehouse books. She devoured them. In kindergarten she was reading beyond a 5th grade level. She was taught with a similar approach to your son. I garnered my word list from S. Blumenfeld’s “How to Tutor” It was hard for her to understand the more pure phonics approach. Hooked in Phonics was very popular at the time, and very frustrating for her. However by using these word family cards in a flash card, whole language approach she learnt to read with ease.
Sister B… She was literally the most astounding toddler I and many other people had ever encountered. She talked at an early age. At about 13 months old she could flawlessly sing ABCs, and count 20 one on one correlated objects. She climbed out of her crib at 9 months and walked the same month. She was 10 months old and would walk to the computer turn it on and ask to play ‘puter. She potty trained herself by watching her sister at about 16 months. At 3 she would play on the same level as 8-9 year olds when she went to the park. At 22 months she talked on the phone to my mum and explained in detail the water cycle. Even with the accent barrier my mum could understand her clearly. At 3 her and I had some wonderful debates using the Socratic Method. I was reading her a college text book on World Religious and she became obsessed asking me many questions about Buddah. You see where I am going? I am sure you have heard of many brilliant kids like this. She had a mind that was able to take things apart and put them back together. The quasi whole language phonics intense approach did not work for her. She was able to decode pure phonics with easy.
Skip forward 8 years: Sister A is in 7th grade, top of her class and has been accepted to a magnet school, she entered kindergarten a year early much the the worries of school officials. She loves school and is obviously thriving.
Sister B just finished 5th grade and has struggled for years, she had a tutor but to my understanding she will be repeating 5th grade again next year.
Just wanted to share my examples of 2 early readers, in the beginning it is just so hard to know if there is a benefit or not to early reading. However I figure it doesn’t hurt to try.
I think that the struggles with Sister B is that she is not a child that can sit still. She needs to be constantly challenged at a high level. I think that the public schooling system just didn’t do her justice.
Hello mr. Larry,
I will start to teach my 5 months baby to read next month ( need to prepare material first and also I want to do more research and fully understand this science). I bought Dr Doman book ( how to teach your baby to read) two days ago and have already finished it, I am so eager to start! However, I have a question and maybe you could have an opinion. My husband and I are Brazilian but we leave in the UK with our little man. My husband although Brazilian he loved in France while a toddler so his first tongue was French ( he does not have an accent like I have with English). Well my question is: in which language should we do the flaschcard? Portuguese, English or French? I would be fascinated to see my baby read the three language but I don’t know if it is possible this early… Any thoughts? Many thanks
You should go to brillkids.com and ask on their forum. The issue of teaching reading in more than one language does come up from time-to-time.
[...] also sometimes do the YBCR slide-the-picture-out cards. Haven’t yet done my Fleschcards. I don’t expect we’ll have to, because Reading Bear is going to cover the same [...]
Teach young children how to draw.
This worked with my son when he was young. He learned to draw cartoon type drawings. I think young children can learn other drawing skills depending on the type of drawing books you give them.
Instead of giving your child a coloring book where the fill in the colors, give your child a drawing book along with some blank paper. Let them have some fun scribbling pictures from drawing books that illustrate how to draw. Your child will gradually learn some drawing skills, as long as they have fun drawing. If you are a little more ambitious, you can draw along with your child and encourage them. Always keep it fun.
You can find many drawing books on eBay by doing a search of
draw lot
or
draw set
Here are some of the many types of drawing books your child can have some fun:
Animals or pets
Cartoons
Funny faces or caricatures
People
Monsters
Airplanes, cars, trucks
Dinosaurs
Maps
Plants
Scenery
You don’t happen to know about William James Sidis, child prodigy of the early 1900′s, do you?
His parents had very interesting opinions on child rearing. Here’s a snippet from the wiki:
“Sidis’s parents believed in nurturing a precocious and fearless love of knowledge, for which they were criticized. Sidis could read the New York Times at 18 months,[2] had reportedly taught himself eight languages (Latin, Greek, French, Russian, German, Hebrew, Turkish, and Armenian) by age eight, and invented another, which he called Vendergood.”
If you don’t know about this, I suggest you digest some of the interesting reads from this website:
http://sidis.net/boris_sidis_archives.htm
http://sidis.net/
In my brief personal opinion, most, if not all, children can learn just about any skill set/intellectual area, and whatever catches their eye they will gravitate towards.
I hope this helps you in your exploration of early learning.
Haven’t heard of William James Sidis. There have been many prodigies that were ultimately “created” by their parents, haven’t there?
Doman, too, has said things like “children can learn just about any skill set/intellectual area.” I find this too vague to evaluate. If interpreted broadly, the claim is very obviously false. Most children cannot learn quantum mechanics tomorrow. No child can learn any but the most rudimentary facts about history before the age of two or three, though they could parrot without understanding. And if the claim is admittedly vague, the interesting question is then: what exactly do we want to say here? By failing to articulate more clearly what children are capable of learning, and how, we have arguably made the case for early education harder to make.
I think you are doing great work. The free part is super! The technology you are using is good for Reading Bear. I noticed you called ending blends suffixes and beginning blends prefixes. Work with prefixes and suffixes is helpful in decoding words. Here is post with some free resources about root words, prefixes, and suffixes. http://beginningreadinghelp.blogspot.com/2010/07/teaching-root-words-prefixes-and.html
I’d like to promote and use your site, but blends would need to be defined as blends for me to promote your site. I’m pulling for this program. If you need any help please contact me. You can find information about me at my Beginning Reading Help blog.
If you’d like to connect, I’m in a few forums and groups.
We Teach Children to Read – http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-Teach-Children-to-Read/103519196359196
We Teach – http://www.weteachgroup.com/
Beginning Reading Help BlogFrog community – http://theblogfrog.com/1501335/forum
Best wishes and keep up the good work!
I’m curious to know which ipad apps you use for flashcards with your young one? We used a similar method (Doman) for my oldest when she was an infant, and she was a very early reader as well (before age 2) and continues to be an advanced student. We also used a strong phonics approach instead of strictly flashcards (sight words). Thanks!
This needs to be updated, but here is a list from last April: http://larrysanger.org/2011/04/reviews-of-educational-apps-for-little-kids/
Dad Dude! I was just on the brillkids site last night and I wanted to thank you for all your incredible work you’ve put into your resources Larry
My daughter loves them.
I’ve downloaded your 122mb (WOW!!!) resource and we’l be starting with them next.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful material Larry
From one dad to a true dude of a dad
Neil
Thanks, Neil!
thank you so much.I used this for my baby, she 1.4 years.
About thirty-five years ago, Glenn Doman came to our attention. He made so much sense that we started teaching our toddlers (two and three) to read, largely based on the critical components of his method. It was a huge success. They took to it like ducks to water. They had only a start from us, and took it further themselves, both were biligual, and taught themselves to read a second language early. They are both now multilingual.
They were allowed to read what they wanted. By age six they were going throught the whole series of the Narnia books by CS Lewis – just an example of their capabilities and interests. Both spell impeccably (although in my experience that is largely inherited) Both parents spell well, and at five the eldest spelled “haberdashery” correctly from hearing it in a conversation.
Before age eight they read science fantasy (the Broken Sword) with some dodgy below-the-belt stuff, but it passed over them, as we discovered later.
I would do it again, but earlier, if I had to go back. Highly recommended! Teach your baby to read!
Thanks for the comments! Fascinating–it is always great to hear from parents who used Doman a long time ago.
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