PokerCub Update

[mybabyian]

Do you still use "Talking from Infancy"?  If so, how do you do it or what does a "lesson" look like for you guys?  I kept a list of my sons words too until he reached a hundred and then it was pointless.  We did signing and it doubled his expressive vocabulary.  For some reason some words he could say and not sign and other words he could sign and not say.  Other words he would do both like "more".  Have you considered signing with him too?  Just curious.  Thanks for the update.

[PokerDad]

I don't really set aside separate time for talking from infancy work. For those not familiar, Dr Fowler would spend purposeful time with a child and bring a play kit with specialized toys for the sole purpose of language work while playing. I do that on occasion, but nothing systematic and it's really infrequent. However, knowing the methods, I'm able to emphasize and label quite a bit just randomly. I think Cub is getting to the point, however, where I need to do more complex language work with him and perhaps need to actually take time to do more of that systematic play time.

FYI, Fowler found that spending (not sure on actual minute time, but guessing 10-15 min) time 3x per day was enough to erase any environmental disadvantages. Therefore, in his testing daycare, they purposely tried to get to each kid a few times per day and used a checklist.

I believe Cub learned "eat" from baby signing time. We haven't done a whole lot of it, but we like to sing the songs and he enjoys the videos. He does sign "finished" but conflated this with waving bye - so he'll often just say "bye" and wave whenever he's done eating. 

Back to the Fowler stuff, one thing I've noticed is that I've gotten better at it as time has gone on. Some of that was to be expected, but some of it was simply from watching YBCD and patterning from it. There's so many good things in those videos and they are his favorite (I'm pretty sure this is where his fascination with "bees" comes from (disc 1)). I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself narrating an action with him and then saying something like, "and there you have it, a nice ____" then I think of how much I sound like those videos ha ha.

[Kristiina]

Thank you for the update! We are already waiting for the next one!

We have been following Fowler's advice after first reading about it in your blog. Our baby is now exactly 12 months old and is using just over 10 words with purpose and he seems to be learning one new word each week. We are also in day 144 with Little Reader. I am very excited to wait for the next year if he would show us that he has learnt any English while watching it! 

Please keep posting to your blog!

[PokerDad]

I will do. 

Our baby is now exactly 12 months old and is using just over 10 words with purpose and he seems to be learning one new word each week.

This is a great outcome! I don't think Cub had that many at one year and the ones he had, he sort of stopped using for a while there. I'm sure that very soon, 1 word per week will turn into 1 per day. Cub's vocabulary is exploding right now. I'm going to get some video to post soon.

[mybabyian]

Yes, I think your post on Fowler was influential for a lot of us.  I am using his techniques now with my new baby.  She will be 7 weeks tomorrow and she is just beginning to converse with us with coos.  It is so sweet.

[PokerDad]

While I'm lying on the floor icing my back for a few moments before bed (using my new laptop), I thought I'd give a quick update here in the thread.

Two days ago PokerCub turned 17 months. He's doing phenomenally well in my estimation, though I'm not sure how he'd measure up against some of his predecessors (kids that we looked to for inspiration), such as Owen, Henry, Cayden, Joey, Cammie, Robert, Eddie, et al (there are definitely others). Those superstars I doubt Cub could compete against, and thankfully, it's not a competition. 

On Cub's 16 month birthday, I was getting something out of the basement while Cub was eating breakfast in his high chair. I was heating something in the microwave, and as I walked up the basement stairs, I could hear Cub. He was counting back "three.... two.... one...." then the microwaved beeped signaling that the items were done. I was stunned really. He was watching the numbers pop up and then read them (or even anticipated?). He hasn't done this since, but he knows his numbers and likes to count a lot (though I never really hear him go past three too often, I've heard him go to five before). A month ago was his number phase.

Lately he's been on a letter phase. He likes to sing the alphabet song, but he mostly skips around the alphabet unless one of us is signing a long. Perhaps letters were last week. This week he's into animal sounds, and he knows more than we thought he did. PokerMom was quizzing him today in the car and he was coming up with the sounds faster than I could think of them myself. This was sort of scary to me. Then her and I started talking and he got upset! He wanted more quizzing!

I've always thought Doman was wrong about the whole "never test your kid" - Cub loves to be questioned so he can show off. Further, if you don't start early, then they just might become averse to it.

Unfortunately we haven't been able to do nearly as much as I'd like due to my ailing back condition. I cannot sit up for more than a minute to two without having issues. I had started making my own videos for him to watch, and he really seemed to like the first one I did. Since then, I've had my video camera with us whenever we're out in hopes of capturing interesting things to put onto a video for him later. I'm hopeful that next week I can resume some of that production because he's soaking up more than I can give him, and sadly, I haven't the energy or wherewithal to keep up with him!

As for reading, we usually do 1 to 2 little reader sessions per day. We stopped doing little math for a long while, I just wasn't in love with the way the curriculum progressed, so we do a little custom one-off stuff in the numbers tab. We started back up during his number phase, and I'm needing to customize a numeral presentation for him so he can get all his numbers 1-100 down. He's really eager to learn right now. We do LMs perhaps every other day. I believe perhaps him singing the octave (or hearing it perhaps) got him interested in letters, though that would be difficult to attribute to a single particular thing. I do think maybe his love of the alphabet song might have been due to hearing the octave all the time. We usually do about an hour of video per day, but this is getting difficult because we've ripped through so much of it that's out there. I try to get one reading bear session in the morning, and am cycling through about the first 12 of them at the moment.

The monkisee videos are great, but in the later DVDs she didn't separate out the music videos which make great transitions from one topic to the next.

I've been hoping to do a full review on all the videos out there, because I certainly have some opinions, and strong ones at that.

Would you believe that 6 weeks ago, Cub was deathly afraid of going into the hot tub? We took several weeks off over the summer in large part because of my back and in larger part because it was too hot. The big pools we visited were too cold and wavy to really do solid work. I'd estimate that within 6 weeks or so, he lost his abilities, memories, and confidence. At first I thought it was just that he didn't remember, but then I noticed his procedural memory seemed to fail also. I think this has significant ramifications for EL. You cannot assume that your child "has it" and move on from a skill at this age without periodically revisiting that skill (or EK knowledge, etc).

The good news is that I knew he'd get it back and get it back faster than it took the first time around. It took about 3 weeks of solid work for him to get to where he was.... though he no longer cruises around the tub like he used to; he's mostly inept at that now. A few weeks ago he became intensely curious and started sticking his face underwater by himself and looking around. He experimented relentlessly. He even demanded that I make him float and then put himself into a roll. Then he tapered off a bit for a few weeks, and the last two times we've gone out there, he's wanted to swim/float independently the entire half hour working on his kick, etc instead of standing on the side playing with his toys.

In the last week, he's become adept at stacking his foam bricks/blocks. It's amazing to watch him balance the various shapes. When he gets it tall, he'll declare, "I did it!"

I'd say he's doing very well. I'm also open to any suggestions or ideas on what to do now.

[Korrale4kq]

First I want to say I am sorry about your back. Back pain can be the worst.

While it is fresh in my mind I want to agree with you about how easy it is for them to forget! I have found that there is no such thing as mastery for the young. Even at almost 4 James still needs constant spiraling through work of he will forget chunks of it.

I would focus on fine motor skills. Threading beads on string. Putting coins in slots, playing with playdoh. Using chopsticks. All of that leads up to writing.

Cognitively I would work on some matching games with cards. If he knows his animal sounds you make a sound and have him find the animal from a set of cards laid out. Start with 3, then add more and more.
Have him match little forms of animals with the cards. Have him match shapes to cards. We had some shape blocks. And I just traced those and drew them on cards. Match colors. So on and so on. Shadow matching is good too.

Work on honing the senses. Montessori covers this like no other. I will find a link in a little bit.

Those are a few of the things James was loving at this age.

http://www.infomontessori.com/sensorial/introduction.htm

[Nida_A]

@PokerDad – I agree with your statement “You cannot assume that your child "has it" and move on from a skill at this age without periodically revisiting that skill (or EK knowledge, etc).”.  I have a few instances to share about this from experience with my own child.  He is now 6.5 and I used to avidly do all the EL when he was around 2 or so (you can see some of my earlier posts dating all the way to 2009).

I will tell you some things I was happy about and some things which I wished were a bit different. 
First, I’m very happy about his reading progress – there is no doubt that getting a head start in reading will make things SO much easier later on (he is in 1st grade now).  Had I taught him how to read later on, I can very well imagine how much he would have resisted me teaching him - I think it would have caused a battle between us, with me trying to teach and him running away from me!    I think reading is a skill that most EL kids will demonstrate very well.

About his math – this is one skill that I had hoped he would have showed better results for.  I did the traditional Doman red-dot math with him where I would show him the math facts via the red dots.  I was consistent but didn’t see any significant results.  He could never ‘demonstrate’ to me that he knew the addition/subtraction facts.  There is only one exception to this I have seen (there may be others that I’m not aware of) – About a few years back, there was a lady by the name of DomanMom (or something similar, I may have the name of bit off) – her son was amazing – he knew all his math facts only based off the traditional Doman Math approach.  But that was the only case study and the only 'success story' I have ever seen myself.  I tried to make my son achieve the same results, but didn’t succeed.  What I found helpful was that at the age of 3 or 4, I had to personally teach him all his addition/subtraction facts.  And I can tell you that this is certainly helping him right now when he is having his timed math quizzes at school.  But if I could do it again, I would go straight to teaching the MATH FACTS and not do the red dots, as the actual FACTS are actually helping him in school right now. 

About the EK knowledge – personally, I would have liked to have my son more interested in the subject of history.  My ideal was DadDude who taught LOADS of history to his son - starting from a very young age.  DadDude used to say that his son knows more history than he did when he was in the higher grades.  I used to constantly compare my son’s progress to DadDude’s son I must admit.      But I wouldn't say that comparing is necessarily a bad thing – I think it's actually quite helpful because it inspires a parent to do better and set higher goals for their own child. 

Although my son is just a bit advanced in some things, I am sure their are other kids more advanced than him.  I remember how I had seen a kid almost his age skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade.  I thought of doing the same with my son and discussed it with the teacher.  She said that even if academically he was advanced, she thought its best to keep him in kindergarten because he needed to develop social skills.  And let me tell you, keeping him in kindergarten was the best decision ever!  I saw a different kind of change and maturity in him.  I saw that he was HAPPY and as a mother, that’s my primary goal.  So yes, it’s not about the ‘competition’ – it’s about making sure that our kids are happy also and know how to deal with life situations. 

For example, right now I’m teaching my son about ‘anger’.  I’m teaching him that if he gets angry and says something, he will most likely hurt somebody with his words – So I have made it a rule in our house that we will only have a ‘discussion’ if he is calm, otherwise we won’t.  I told him that if speaks passionately out of anger and says something he doesn't mean, he will look like a fool later (he thinks I’m very ‘mean’ for using the word ‘fool’, ). 

But I would say that my ultimate goal (and hope) is for my child to be a respectful and helpful boy - somebody who is going to go and interact with people, help them with their problems and get a sense of satisfaction from that.  Ofcourse I also want him to be highly educated and know what he is talking about when he talks – so EL was a must for that.  Reminds me of the quote “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”  So that is the other side of EL that I think is equally important.  A lot of my focus with my son is teaching him how to deal with his feelings, how to act in different situations at school/home - making sure that he is doing okay - both inside and outside.  I tell him that he doesn't know what experience life is going to give him - he may have to face many difficulties in his life, who knows?  But that he must be strong and positive and face those difficulties in a good way - I think it's good to tell the kids while they are young, because one day a peer's opinion may matter more to him than mine - So I think it's easier to have him 'soak up' all these principles at this age! 

Now that I have given some insight about my personal experience, let me say that for a 16month old, your son is doing quite well!  I remember that my son didn’t start speaking until he was about 2 years or so.  If you feel that he is ‘forgetting’ something, don’t get discouraged or think that he doesn’t know.  As long as you are being consistent, you will definitely be stimulating his mind the right way - and he will continue to amaze you in all sorts of ways.     And I think it’s wonderful you are teaching swimming to your son.  I actually taught my son too late (at the age of 6).  In school when he was asked to write about 3 things he disliked, ‘swimming’ was one of them.      He even drew a picture  of that! 

and by the way - I AM 'LittleMamaChamp' (just so you don't get confused).  This is actually my old account which I used to use 4 years back.  Altough I was quite active in reading the forums, I was always a bit 'forum-shy' - so I didn't used to post all the time.  I had even made some powerpoints for the sight words back then.  Now that I have developed the reading system, I came back to this forum to get in touch with some of the parents.  You can read some of my older posts about Doman Math dating all the way back 2009 (wow, time flies!)   
Best of luck,
Nida

[PokerDad]

Thank you for the responses and ideas! I will take them to heart. If anyone else wants to comment, please feel free.

No need to feel shy. 

It's interesting Nida that you mention DadDude & forgetting in the same post. It was for this reason that he started using daily software (supermemo) to help his child remember the content they were learning. Along those lines, I just posted an article on his infobitt site and will post here as well:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0079774

Basically, it's another study that didn't need to be done, LOL, because it proves the obvious.

I'm glad you both commented about the forgetting part of my post, because I've thought for weeks that it could be its own thread. There are many parents in EL that are under the impression that a child can review a bit of knowledge once or twice and then "it's in there." Unfortunately, this is not how the brain works. So you fired a neuron once or twice. Big deal. That connection will get pruned. The only time this rule doesn't hold is if there are strong emotional connections causing oligodendrocytes to kick into high gear.

Cub not only forgot that he used to cruise around the tub endlessly, but he also lost procedural memory which is the most rock solid type of memory we have. Ignore my mistake at your own peril I'm afraid.

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