What brought you here?

[Tamsyn]

I'm just curious.  By that, I mean, what made you be interested in early learning to begin with?  Why were you curious instead of dismissing it like so many others do?

Me?  Three things.

In high school I learned of a family that always crushed it at the regional sterling scholar music competition.  Their child always won by a landslide and rightfully so.  That was when I first realized that being gifted isn't hereditary.

Second, oddly enough, a guy I dated was very down on the idea of homeschooling and I was adamant that I wanted to do it.  It was a hard sale and I really liked him.  In our many discussions he finally admitted that he would be supportive of homeschooling if they had nothing to gain academically from attending public school.  If they already knew everything they needed to learn academically in Kindergarten before they were kindergarten aged, sure, I guess homeschooling would be okay.  At that point I started planning on early education and accelerated schooling for my own kids, as a defense to my desire to homeschool.  I just realized this correlation this week.  Well, we broke up, but a few years later I married one of his best friends. 

Third, I was researching elimination communication and somebody likened it to teaching your baby to read and I started googling.   I found Glenn Doman, the yahoo group, and finally BrillKids.

And I lived happily ever after...

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Love this post!

I was an early reader. My uncle taught me to read the very "hard" way with spanking and all but I love reading. Reading makes learning a lot easier for me. When my son was born. I wanted to teach him to read but didn't know how. There was no way I would teach him to read the way I was taught when I was a child.

An early learning community in my country was talking about Doman Dot cards and his method. I started researching and buying Doman books. I tried his methods with my son but my little boy was not into paper cards. So.......I started searching again and found Brillkids. 

[baz]

I was browsing at a bookstore when I saw GD's how to teach your baby to read book. Bought it and the rest is history.

[verita]

I learnt about Doman very late in a way, which is sad for me. But then I'm happy I did before my oldest turned 6! He is now 4yrs old. Two other kids are younger.
First I read in a homeschooling forum on facebook (PL) about reading Doman style. I got interested, got in touch with sb who knows a lot about Doman and hence found more about early learning, got myself a book about reading and so got started. But at some point making paper flash cards was too much for me (what with doing English too and Encyklopedia) so I searched the Internet for PPS in Doman discussion. And I got here.

[kiwimum]

Love this idea of a post Tamsyn, I also wonder why some jump and go with the EL idea and some run the other way.

I think I was first exposed to EL about 4 years ago when a friend of mine start using YBCR with her 3 month old. Back then I was interested in what was involved but thought that it was too crazy for me and surely that it wouldn't work. 
But then about a year and a half later when I was pregnant with my first child I saw my friends 18 month old again but now she was actually reading two or three words together. She was loving it and doing it with ease. My mind was changed, from then on I decided I would give it a go and I did.
When my daughter was 11months old I felt like she was about to grow out of YBCR so I started looking on the internet for ideas and thats when I came across Brillkids and Doman.
So glad I did,   

[Stodd]

Thanks for the post. It's exciting to read about how others got here.
My story started when I got pregnant and with my husband decided that he will be bilingual. After my son was born we started to use both languages. And then one of our friends told us that they bought the YBCR for their little one. I didn't know if it would work or not but I just couldn't stop thinking about it and also that that would be great if I could teach him to read in my language so he could not only speak but read in two languages. So I decided to give a try. He was 13 months old at that time. And exactly 1 month later he started to recognize the words. I will never forget that moment, and I am happy that my husband was there too. First I just couldn't believe it!  And of course I was searching on line for articles about how to do it, about opinions if I'm doing the right thing here and that's how I found this website and I couldn't be happier. I still am and feel very lucky because I 've got the support and help I needed an could never get from anybody else since they think...but you guys know exactly what I'm talking about.
My son is 4 years old, speaks and reads in 2 languages, the English is a lot better though, about 2nd-3rd grade level. I love that he loves reading and how excited he is when I bring home new books from the library( we can't go together as much anymore since he's in school all day). We are working on our third language (spanish) and math and started violin a few months ago. We still do Mandala almost every morning and play chess with "No stress Chess" a lot. Since he is in K 3 all day it makes us more difficult to do everything I want to but we do our best and can't wait for summer when we can do even more like we used to. Sorry for the long post.

[rixu]

i was a working mother at the time, so busy at work n don't feel like i do best for my little one. i started searching for activities that i can do with my six month old to make bonding. lucky me, i came to know about brillkids at the very early stage of it. we enjoy the EL n my 2 year old too is speaking in 2 languages n my 5 yr old is better then grade 2 level

[Korrale4kq]

I came to this forum 6? 7? Years ago.... LM didn't exist and LR was still in its infancy I think.  I had previously  taught 2 kids to read by the age three with 2 different methods. Then one day I was at the library and I found the Doman book How Smart Is Your Baby.  I was intrigued. I did an Internet search and I came upon Brill Kids. . I read the forums a bit. But I never really followed or posted. At that time a lot of the people were from asian countries (presumably) and the posts were focused around Chinese language. I vaguely remember. The only poster I remember was Lappy and Shen Li maybe.

Fast forward 3 years. I had a son of my own. I couldn't remember my old account information so I created a new one. I read the forums here and there but never really participated until the last year or so when my son became a reader. I didn't do too much with strict early learning. I  followed the Doman physical program advice, did the lights for the eye, sounds for the ears etc infrequently.
We did sign language. I made dot cards with stickers, made big word cards. But didn't use them much. I couldn't afford Little Reader. And I avoided screen time.
I planned to introduce reading earlier, but we hit a snag with speech regression and autistic red flags. So we halted for a little bit to focus on those things.

At almost 3.5 James is a reader, mathematician and rambunctious little boy. We have Little Musician and we love the product.

As for early learning.... I was taught to read and do math and things early by my mother. I knew it was Possible. So why not? I did it with all the kids I took care of over the last decade. I had a higher investment with my own son because of birth and early infant issues we were told he had an extremely high chance of mental retardation. I believed in early intervention. He is a normal boy now. Maybe he was destined to be, or maybe it was the early learning.... I will never know.

[MamaOfWill]

About 6 years ago, I wanted to have a baby very badly but my hubby wasn't too keen, so I just read a lot about the topic of raising children.  During that time I first found GD's "Teach your baby to swim,"  then went on to buy "Physically Superb" and "Increase Your Babies Intelligence."   Before I gave birth I imagined myself teaching my baby everything!! But once he was there I realized I knew nothing about raising babies and I found it to be very time consuming and exhausting (also rewarding but that bit I was hoping for from the start.)  The hole first year went by and I felt like I didn't do a thing EL related. (Looking back I wasn't doing too bad, I think my goals and expectations were just way too high.)  Then when my baby turned one, I found BrillKids, bought LR, started reading all you-guys' posts and things, and finally started to feel like an EL-mommy.

[BTBVEN]

Hi

In Indian mythology (Mahabharat), there is a part where the son of one of the protagonist's son (Abhimanyu) learns things from his father whilst in his mother's womb. It emphasises that a baby is capable of learning from the moment they are conceived and that they will imbibe all the positive qualities that are taught to them even before being born. I was very fascinated by this idea and did not really know anything about 'early learning' in the formal sense, but that idea was what made me pursue with wanting to teach my daughter even before she was born. I used to listen to lots of classical, jazz, flamenco music and lots of indian spiritual tapes, read lots of interesting topics and basically spent time discussing those out loud with my husband. I decided to take it a bit further when my daughter was born, by showing her flashcards, educational apps (Sparkabilities was one of them) that I found online and then I found this amazing blog by ShenLi (figur8) and that brought me to knowing and learning all about brillkids, tweedlewink, rightbraineducationshop, wink to learn etc.

I am so glad that I pursued this path, my daughter loves to learn and both my husband & i love that we can teach her and really there is no limit to learning/knowledge. All my listening to music etc. has paid off, because my daughter absolutely loves music and is very curious about everything.

I continue to learn so much from this forum and have read about so many amazing parents teaching and raising wonderful kids.

[ashlymcgee]

Great topic, Tamsyn!!!  I started EL with YBCR.  Tony Robbins sums this up with his statement: We run from pain faster than we run to pleasure.  I was a very poor student, academically. The only saving grace for my overall brain health came from extensive dance classes.  My family and I didn't know that at time, but I am super grateful my mother had the resources to provide that for me otherwise .... I don't even want to think about what horrible shape I would be in.  Fast-Forward.  My oldest was 3 months old (She's now almost 5) I was at my parents' house, and I caught the tail end of a YBCR infomercial. Literally just enough to get the website address.  I bought it that day with ZERO research/consulting with hubby/talked with no one about it!!!   I was over the moon with the concept of the product and could care less if I ended up eating $200 if I was wrong.  I was determined to not re-live any pain from academics again!  

The product came and her and I got to work. My husband was very supportive and didn't mind. The product was not very well known yet and people (family) thought it was nuts but were happy to see all the attention I gave my daughter.  She read her first word, Baby, out loud at 9 months old. She started talking shortly after that and by 13 months, she could read over 50 cards out loud and could say simple phrases AND sing songs!! Being my first baby, I had no idea that talking and singing at that age wasn't a common thing.  She used to just trip people out!! They would jump when she would speak to them.  I think mainly because they weren't expecting to understand her.  Kind of like when you meet someone and you assume they don't speak your language and all of the sudden, you understand what they are saying. "Wait! Do I speak Spanish? Oh, no, duh, they are speaking English."  Hasn't happened to me personally but I have seen the reverse happen when my husband spoke Spanish to a man and he grabbed his chest and gasped. Then he interrupted and told my husband he had a 'flash,' he thought he had died, and then he laughed so hard he almost fell over.  Anyway, back to the story.  I very quickly understood that the program wasn't enough and I was bothered as to why Titzer didn't have a whole library of DVD's!! Didn't he realize how great his own program was and that we need a place to go after we are done with the first 5 DVD's!!!  Then, I found Brillkids. I learned of Glenn Doman from brillkids, and *then* the real research and dedication began. I came across a great blog by a favorite lady of mine, Tamsyn.  I bravely commented on her post and left my number and we have been EL mommy friends and more ever since.  Many things brought me here, but my relationship with Tamsyn, brings me here the most!!  

P.S. Titzer has made more DVDs and I dream of the day when all forces of  EL Producers come together and make an ultimate curriculum that can be bought in one giant program and is placed in homes and daycares all around the world!!!

[GeniusExperiment]

great thread! first a question for ashly on the new Titzer DVDs - yes I saw there were the original 5 DVDs and the newer versions - are they really different in the sense that it would make sense to purchase all 10 or just updated versions? The stories here are amazing. I am only at the beginning of the journey and it's so inspiring to read stories of those who are a few years ahead.

I found this forum by googling Glenn Doman - I heard about him by sheer luck. Another mummy moving here was asking about kindergartens using Glenn Doman methods and I thought "how crazy is this!!". I thought it's a total scam. But I was still curious enough to have a look at GD's books on amazon, there were all these reviews of people who said early reading at worked for them so I got curious. I downloaded all the kindle samples of his books and was really surprised I agreed with so many of his observations and ideas. He was lucky to mention Maria Montessori favourably because thus he won me over ;-). Then I bought the books, read them and was convinced. I started experimenting with physical programme on my then 2 month old (now 4 month old) and the results were amazing, she is so far ahead of where her older sister was physically at the time.

What I really love here is how much everyone cares about their children and their happiness. I always thought EL was too pushy but looking at it further I was convinced that you can do it in a loving fun way and also that I would really let my children down if I didn't make sure they develop lots of skills. I am really excited to get started with everything and see how things go. I am learning so much here!

[Skylark]

Don't have the time to write my story yet ( we are traveling at the moment and taking care of the family member in the hospital   ) but it is coming, I love to see how different paths brought us all together!

GeniusExperiment, Yccr and Yccd ( your child can read and your child can discover) are very different from your baby can read. They are excellent and really worth the investment.

[ashlymcgee]

Great question, GeniusExperiment!!  The DVD's are not updated material. The material builds and all of his DVD's are beyond amazing for teaching.  I love so many things about it and I also love so many things about LR.  LR is great to really enforce, *everything. And Titzer really lets you get the dishes done guilt free The DVD's are 20 mins with minimal parent involvement while LR is in front of a delicate computer and needs someone to work the mouse. If you are looking to cut some corners to save cash (totally understand), then don't buy your kid anything else!! Lol! Clothes and toys are overrated compared to the joys and freedom of an early reader. LR and the first series 1-5 YBCR kit with parent DVD and parent booklet are incredible, life changing, and family tree altering investments.  Good luck!!

[teachingmykids]

I discovered this forum late. With my oldest I listened to everyone and didn't really focus on what she knew. Whenever I worked with her she didn't really care and everyone told me that the most important thing was too play. "Hothousing" was looked down upon and I thought that intelligence was mostly heredity too. By the time she was 4 I got worried that she didn't know letters yet and what I was trying wasn't working. A year later when she was 5 I was thinking of homeschooling and started a kindergarten curriculum with her. I started teaching her to read and the process wasn't easy. On a homeschooling forum there was a thread on teaching toddlers to read and early learning a few months later and while most talked against it Larry Sanger who used to participate in the forum mentioned his story and him and someone else made a lot of good points that made sense. I was already regretting waiting so long to start teaching reading to my oldest. I didn't really come here until a while later but I did start working with all my kids on learning from then piecing together mostly free stuff. None of my kids were babies when I started but I did get a lot from coming here and I now work with my kids. If I have another down the road I will do early learning from the start.

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