Essay on Baby Reading

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
PDFDOCHTML
(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 (here’s an enormous 862MB zip file), 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.).

UPDATE 3 (Dec. 16, 2012): at six, my son switches between “serious” literature which he reads with a dictionary app, including Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, and The Secret Garden, and easier literature including Beverly Cleary books, the Hardy Boys, and Encyclopedia Brown. If his answers to regular comprehension questions are any indication, he’s understanding what he reads pretty well.

UPDATE 4 (Mar. 26, 2013): I’m delighted to report that my second son, following methods similar to those I used with my first, is now 2.5 years old and reading at a first grade level.

UPDATE 5 (Aug. 25, 2014): my second is following in his brother’s footsteps, reading a version of the Odyssey (he’s crazy about Greek mythology—go figure) at age 3.5:

UPDATE 6 (June 4, 2020): for over a year now, my older son (now 14) has been studying a humanities sequence of my design (including history, literature, art, philosophy, religion, etc.). The texts are classics in English translation, including the Bible, Gilgamesh, myths and texts from ancient Sumeria and Egypt, Hesiod, all of Homer, selections from Confucius, Lao Tsu, long selections from Herodotus and Thucydides, plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, Socratic dialogues of Plato, much of The Republic, much of Aristotle’s Poetics and Nicomachean Ethics, other philosophy, Plutarch’s life of Alexander, and just now he’s getting into Livy. The younger son (now 9) finished Harry Potter a second time and is now reading The Lord of the Rings. Like his brother, he has read plenty of age-appropriate classics like Treasure Island and Tom Sawyer. Both have managed to get by without reading a single Language Arts text (I wouldn’t do that to them).


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132 responses to “Essay on Baby Reading”

  1. Neil

    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

  2. Nut

    thank you so much.I used this for my baby, she 1.4 years.

  3. Bess Richfield

    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!

    1. Thanks for the comments! Fascinating–it is always great to hear from parents who used Doman a long time ago.

  4. There is very little doubt that all children can learn to read well before schooling begins. Currently, all of the reading programs including Reading Bear use the same instruction methods used in our schools but add video entertainment. This formal instruction for learning to read contrasts sharply with spoken language which is acquired from birth onward by natural interactions with speech. It is possible that reading can also be acquired without direct instruction if print is constantly available at an early age. We have developed an Apple Read With Me! application, which modifies shared picture book reading to include print that is easily attended to by the child and is formatted to be easily perceived. Thus, the child is able to learn to read written text in a meaningful context of the narrative of the book, without formal instruction.

    1. I’ll try it out myself. I’m sure some children are able to learn this way.

      By the way, the use of pictures and videos isn’t “entertainment” in Reading Bear’s case, but essential to the teaching of vocabulary/concepts. It’s just a nice side-effect that children enjoy learning vocabulary this way.

      1. Thanks for giving it a try, Larry. I agree that the pictures and videos are critical for learning. The best learning occurs when the content being learned is embodied in the child’s direct experience. This is also a goal of our shared picture book reading app Read With Me!

  5. Hello,
    Firstly i would like to say Thank you for allowing us to read your essay online. Just to set the context – My son who is 2 and 4months – was playing in his nursery today when suddenly he said SH-O-P…SHOP – reading from one of his toys. I was very surprised as this is not something i’ve read to him before. what really caught me was his use of phonics to help him to read the work. the look on his face was amazing – like YES! I READ THAT BY MYSELF!!!
    I then went on to google how early a child started reading adn came across ur essay. i’ve been reading it all morning…skimming towards the end as it was longer then i expected.
    fantastic stuff – and to be honest i felt like i was reading my own work lol meaning – i’ve done many of the things you suggested – lots of books,environmental print etc…sounds… We used bee bright stuff by Justin and my son has watched lots of ‘something special’ which has signing. i am currently living in Saudi Arabia and the experiences i would have liked to give my son i can’t seem to do like i would have done in the uk. so these DVDs have been great – as they show everyday things where you pick up the words as well as sign. we reinforce this when we visit the uk every 6months or so.

    Anyhow, i’m going off sorry! I’ve worked as a primary school early years teacher for 10years! i was always told and to be honest believed that children shouldn’t be taught phonics until 5 or 6. now ive had my little one i think this is completely RUBBISH! Your essay hit the nail on the head! you covered most aspects and i particularly liked how you stressed on no force as well as the homeschooling. I agree totally – if your child ends up reading early or mastering anything early be prepared for ‘school’as its prob not going to be good for them. i’ve seen many children turn to bad behaviour because their needs have not been met i.e. not challenged enough – the work is too easy…bored. i’m all for homeschooling and i hope others will consider this option if they are able.
    Thank you again so so much for sharing with us.
    look forward to reading more and learning more.

    I want to write so much more but not enough time right now.
    Anyhow – i run a toddler group in KSA from my own home. its completely free and i have about 15mums who attend with their children. i’ve emailed the link to them so they can have a read too – they are all eager to get their children to ASAP too.

    just remembered, sorry to go on. you mentioned that your child wasn’t writing when he learned to read other then capitals. well i really believe that children can still write very earlier on maybe not as early as reading but def. before we are TOLD they can…and esp BOYS! my son has been markmaking from about aged 7-8months. weve done lots of mark making in different mediums too e.g. flour, sand etc… chalk outside is a big one. my son can now write the m a and almost the letter t. he can write the numbers 1 and 2 and draw many shapes. I think the main reason why he has picked up so well is because i’ve role modelled with him – most times we mark made i had my own paper and pencil and did my own writing and drawing/colouring. i think this has helped in his reading too as most things that i drew i labelled. its amazing how things are so interconnected.
    okay i’m going on again.
    i’m soooo excited about this esp to get started with flashcards!
    thanks again

  6. […] How and Why I Taught My Toddler to ReadFree essay from Larry Sanger who started teaching his son 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. […]

  7. jess

    amazing… he does not seem to be stressed!

  8. Yoland J

    Australia
    Hi Larry, I read your essay with interest some time ago but did not see this blog. I taught my son to read commencing at two and a half years using a combination of phonics and sight words. We used short, play based lessons usually twice a day, 10 minutes each “lesson”. By three and a half he was reading simple texts fluently. He is now aged four and a half years and is a proficient reader and lover of books. I hope your work goes some way towards turning around the negative attitudes and folk lore that seems to prevail out there on the subject of very young readers. It seems that, for some, the idea of a non-reading five or six year old is more acceptable than a reading two or three year old. So many people are very wary of the young reader! The very subject of toddlers reading seems to whip up such emotional dialogue. It has been such a positive and rewarding experience for us… it never involved forcing the child to sit at lessons or anything like that. The result is an avid reader and many books shared happily. There is little research out there on very young readers ( I am searching at the moment) and the dialogue around the place that says that very young children cannot or should not read, is not based on studies of young children reading. Thank you.I am a fan of your work!

  9. Sharon Toji

    Larry, from a fellow Reed graduate, avid reader, and former teacher. I’m the mother of 8, grandmother of 9. My own natural children (four of my children were adopted when they were a little older, and one child with severe disaiblities died at age 2 1/2) learned to read quite easily and naturally, and essentially without any such “lessons,” before they went to school and became skilled and avid readers, reading ahead of their grade levels and for pleasure. My own mother was a skilled “master” reading teacher who taught first grade for 35 years, and i believe was able to teach just about every student she ever had, to read, and to read quite successfully. She had deliberately not taught me prior to starting school (I was in her first grade class) so I wouldn’t be bored. However, she had done, since I was born, all the things that are necessary, I believe, to create a successful and avid reader. Consequently, while helping her set out the pre-primers and name tags on the first day, and asking her “what’s this word,” I learned to read in approximately an hour or less and proceeded to read every book in our small town library, essentially withut further instruction. She used a combination of whole word and phrase reading, along with intelligent phonics where it made sense, mostly relying for that on poems and rhymes. For instance, every night as we did the dishes, she recited poems, dramatically and from memory, to my sister and me.

    As I listen to your little boy read, which appears to be a sort of rote exercise in “translation,” I wonder what the purpose is. Will he enjoy reading and get more from it than my children have, or I have? I can’t imagine that he will. I think that you certainly prove that it is possible to take a very young child who is chemically “wired” to be able to sit still and have that kind of attention span and auditory function to read, but would his time, at that age, perhaps be better spent sitting on YOUR lap and listening and participating as you read, or even tell him, stories, infused with great drama and side discussion? That is what my mother did. As a matter of fact, I came home from kindergarten the first day to tell my mother that my teacher was not very smart, because she had to look at a book to tell the story of the three bears. My mother’s stories were like mini-dramas, and children sat enrapt by them. I think it led them to have a greater interest in reading stories for themselves. Her stories also led to discussions about the motives of the characters, and to the consequences of their actions. Very early, she taught me and other children to think of others before we acted, and it was almost always based, in those early years, on the stories we listened to and then read.

    Or perhaps he would benefit from more time spent playing with other young children, setting up transactional rules as young children learn to do, getting into a “dress-up box” to take on roles, make up plays to put on for parents, or maybe he could use more time with tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, farms, doll houses, railway stations — setting up, experimenting with connections, tearing it down and trying something new.

    Larry, I’m quite sure this is not your intention, but this appears to me almost like a performance by your son, like the tiny children who play profound music on their violins without a thought or understanding of the emotions that the music engenders. It’s an excellent technical trick, but surely reading is not just a technical accomplishment, the ability to pronounce a string of words — indeed quickly, as phrases and sentences — correctly.

    My mother always noted that the children who came to her class able to count to 100, sound out words, quickly and correctly say the alphabet — whatever they had been taught by proud parents — were virtually exactly at the same place they would have otherwise been, and in relationship to their peers, by the end of the year. Indeed, all the children in the class could do all those things, and everyone could do more, with some children having progressed on to read several grades above first grade level. And those children were not routinely those who had come “ahead of the game.”

    It will be interesting to see how much your son enjoys reading in later years, or if he merely uses his skill to perform his job, and how his other “life skills” have developed.

    In the Reed Way, with respect for your position!

    1. Sharon, thanks for your perspective and the opportunity to explain a practice that so few people really understand.

      I’ll just quote you and add replies to a few points.

      “She had deliberately not taught me prior to starting school (I was in her first grade class) so I wouldn’t be bored.”

      Fortunately, I haven’t had to worry about my boys getting bored later because I knew we’d be homeschooling them. I knew they wouldn’t slow down suddenly when they hit school age, which is what happens to a lot of early-educated kids.

      “Consequently, while helping her set out the pre-primers and name tags on the first day, and asking her “what’s this word,” I learned to read in approximately an hour or less and proceeded to read every book in our small town library, essentially withut further instruction.”

      Well, probably you were exposed to alphabet books, and many other books, before this, which made it easy. I don’t at all doubt that what you describe here is possible, if a child is well-primed for it. But I would doubt it for other children who don’t have that preparation.

      “As I listen to your little boy read, which appears to be a sort of rote exercise in “translation,” I wonder what the purpose is. Will he enjoy reading and get more from it than my children have, or I have? I can’t imagine that he will.”

      The question is what the purpose of early reading instruction is. You can’t really determine that–or what his comprehension level was like–from the video snippets I’ve posted. You could get a better idea from my essay (not that I’m asking you to read it; it’s pretty long).

      No, it has nothing whatsoever with developing a greater enjoyment of reading. I think that’s orthogonal to when you start learning to read. I’ve heard of early-educating kids who absolutely love reading to themselves from a very early age. And then there are kids like my boys–who love me reading to them, and who know how to read to themselves, but don’t really like doing that (or rather, my first didn’t like it until he was five or so). But when they do start reading to themselves, they’re far ahead of their age peers.

      As I explain in the essay, the purpose of early reading instruction is simply to enable a child to read and take on board more advanced texts sooner, and thereby ultimately learn more while he is still a full-time student. I think knowledge is important and (very roughly speaking!) the more, the better. Yes, I know this is contrary to so much educational theory; well, I think a lot of educational theory is anti-intellectual, so put that in your pipe and smoke it. As I see it, it’s ultimately simply a matter of efficiency. If he had learned at the age that I learned (five years old), then chances are that he might not have been able to understand or even decode the sorts of things he can read for pleasure today. And yes: he does read for pleasure, which he evidently does enjoy.

      In the last school year (at the age of six) he finished reading three books that weren’t exactly for pleasure: Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, and The Secret Garden. The first two in particular were challenging, but with a dictionary (app) and plenty of follow-up questions and other aids, I’m confident he understood most of what he read. For fun he reads Harry Potter, Encyclopedia Brown, the Hardy Boys, etc. The point is that he is capable of not just decoding but understanding books that are far beyond his age level. If he had started learning to read at age five, all these things would now be far beyond him. They certainly were far beyond me when I was six.

      “I think that you certainly prove that it is possible to take a very young child who is chemically “wired” to be able to sit still and have that kind of attention span and auditory function to read, …”

      That’s not quite what I claim to have proven. In fact, my second doesn’t have the attention span of my first, and indeed he doesn’t have either the motivation or the patience to sit down and read a book by himself (not that I’m happy about this situation). But he has learned to read as well as my first did at this age (2 years 9 months or so).

      “but would his time, at that age, perhaps be better spent sitting on YOUR lap and listening and participating as you read, or even tell him, stories, infused with great drama and side discussion?”

      That’s the main way that I taught my first to read. I read enormous amounts to both sons (my older one still), with lots of expression. As Timothy Kailing in Native Reading explains and argues, an effective way to teach children very early is simply to read a lot to them while running one’s fingers under the words. That’s the main way I’ve done it. So my second has even made lots of progress even when we weren’t doing anything remotely similar to flashcards. But I think my first had a bit more facility because he went through the phonics rules fairly systematically, albeit in a fun and visual way and at his own pace.

      I think maybe the reason my boys have not wanted to read to me is that they want me to read to them. They enjoy it so much that they don’t want to put the experience in jeopardy by demonstrating that they don’t actually need me in order to decode the words. Obviously, there is more to full-fledged reading than decoding.

      “Or perhaps he would benefit from more time spent playing with other young children, setting up transactional rules as young children learn to do, getting into a “dress-up box” to take on roles, make up plays to put on for parents, or maybe he could use more time with tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, farms, doll houses, railway stations — setting up, experimenting with connections, tearing it down and trying something new.”

      I see you take the “play is children’s work” line. My boys have both played a lot. The time I spent reading and (occasionally) teaching them stuff before the age of five was much less than the amount of time they spent playing. But I also maintain that a certain kind of conceptual (call it academic if you want) work is also very much part of children’s work and it’s a mistake to leave it out. It doesn’t hurt kids not to get it, but I’m convinced that it’s a mistake to think they can’t benefit profoundly from such early training.

      “Larry, I’m quite sure this is not your intention, but this appears to me almost like a performance by your son, like the tiny children who play profound music on their violins without a thought or understanding of the emotions that the music engenders. It’s an excellent technical trick, but surely reading is not just a technical accomplishment, the ability to pronounce a string of words — indeed quickly, as phrases and sentences — correctly.”

      You don’t know whether it’s just a “technical trick,” do you? The fact is that he was able to comprehend at a few grade levels below whatever level he was decoding at, so that by the time he was decoding stuff at the 7th grade level (when he was five or so), he was able to read and comprehend (even for fun) stuff written at the 4th or 5th grade level.

      The point of posting the videos was precisely to demonstrate that the “technical trick” of decoding is possible at a very early age. It’s silly to dismiss this as unimportant, however; it’s precisely the technical trick that most kids that struggle with reading have trouble with. And once the technical trick is mastered, kids can read whatever they can comprehend; it depends on their vocabulary and their experience with similar sorts of books. If you’re thinking that my son, and the now thousands of others like him who have used “Your Baby Can Read” and other such systems, are only able to decode, and not capable of understanding–well, why assume that?

      “My mother always noted that the children who came to her class able to count to 100, sound out words, quickly and correctly say the alphabet — whatever they had been taught by proud parents — were virtually exactly at the same place they would have otherwise been, and in relationship to their peers, by the end of the year. Indeed, all the children in the class could do all those things, and everyone could do more, with some children having progressed on to read several grades above first grade level. And those children were not routinely those who had come “ahead of the game.””

      She sounds like she was wonderful teacher. How great for those children. But as to the claim that the better-prepared ones didn’t do better by the end of the year, I have to wonder: did she differentiate their instruction, so that the better-prepared Kindergartners were actually challenged to learn more? Because, well, everyone who works with children knows that while children learn quickly, they forget quickly too. If they weren’t challenged to improve faster than those who didn’t have their training, there’s a good chance they’d just coast while the others were working harder.

      This, by the way, is something I absolutely loathe about schools, public and private. Children are forced to learn the same things at the same time, rather than speeding up and slowing down and choosing more appropriate books for them, etc., etc. How many gifted children have been stunted by this practice? One wonders. I think I was.

      Suppose I had sent H. to Kindergarten at age five, when he was starting to read about Henry Huggins and other stuff for third or fourth graders. Suppose, too, that at that age I stopped teaching him, as most parents do, and simply read to him at bedtime as usual. (By the way, if I had done this, H. would have screamed bloody murder. It would have been terrible.) Then while I’m sure he’d be farther along than his peers by the time he was in the second grade (which he’ll be in nominally next year), I am very sure he wouldn’t be capable of reading the sorts of things he can read now after two full years of homeschooling. Sure, if you put kids in public schools that by necessity teach kids pretty much the same thing, they’ll regress toward the mean. After all, you’re taking away something that gave them an advantage in the first place.

      My essay refers to some interesting studies longitudinal in which so-called “precocious readers” (those who arrive at Kindergarten knowing how to read) are followed through their schooling. It turns out that while their age peers catch up with them after a few years in decoding ability, they remain ahead of their age peers in comprehension ability, some of them even gaining (“the rich get richer”).

      “It will be interesting to see how much your son enjoys reading in later years, or if he merely uses his skill to perform his job, and how his other “life skills” have developed.”

      I’m giving my boys a liberal arts education in a way roughly similar to The Marva Collins Way. It’s hard to imagine that they won’t be highly intellectually curious and capable.

      No need to speculate. Many people have already lived through the consequences of very early reading, albeit with virtually no attention from researchers or the media. Go to BrillKids.com or the Glenn Doman organization, and ask some of the parents, whose extremely precocious readers are grown, whether their children love reading. My impression is that, yes, they remain avid readers and they become intellectually curious professionals.

      But, obviously, it depends. Having observed my boys and discussed reading with many other parents, I’ve come to the conclusion that regardless of what parents do, some kids will love reading and some won’t. Already I see that my first–who FWIW received more early education in his first three years than my second–likes reading more than my second did at his age. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first becomes a book-loving sort while the second becomes more athletic. They’re both already very thoughtful, lively little guys.

      And of course, these things aren’t settled only or even mainly in the first five years of life. Why think they would be? It depends on later experiences of all sorts as well as natural proclivities, surely.

      In sum, while one can’t help but respect your experience, I don’t think there’s anything in your experience as you’ve described it that indicates we’re on the wrong path. And, considering some of the rather closed-minded things you’ve said, I suspect that there are facts that you weren’t familiar with that might slightly change your outlook on these issues, if you let them. Or are you saying that, with your substantial and impressive experience, you’ve got it all figured out?

  10. Carroll

    I haven’t read all the comments, so I apologize if someone already pointed this out. Your reasons for teaching a young child to read are certainly compelling, but I think you missed the biggest reason. I was drawn to research this topic because I think my toddler will enjoy learning to read. And, I am willing accept that in 3 months he may no longer be interested.

    At 18 months, reading books together is his favorite activity, and he asks to do it all the time (probably 2+ hours each day, mostly at wake ups and bed/nap time). He can pretty reliably read about half the alphabet and it occurred to me to start teaching sounds since he loves animals + their sounds. (Tip for others: He loves foam bath letters. Our set includes some aquatic creatures as well.) He says at least 200 words and enthusiastically learns new words everyday. He delights in pointing out associations, and is probably approaching the formation of sentences. I think teaching him to read is simply an extension of something he already enjoys and pursues on his own. Now to see how it goes!

    Thanks for sharing your essay! It is a good start to this path.

    1. Good points.

      You’re probably right that there are some children who would enjoy learning to read very early, but that they become harder to teach later. That would be an advantage. But it’s also the other way around: some kids do not like to have books read to them at age 18 months, but like it when they’re 2 or 3. My boys, both of them, went through phases in which teaching in one way was difficult but teaching in another was easy. Basically, you do what they like (e.g., use Reading Bear, YBCR, read books to them, play with fridge magnets and foam letters, play other games, etc., etc.), and they’ll stay happy and learn a lot.

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