Screen Free Early Learning

[mom2bee]

I have a friend who is interested in early learning for her 19month old, but she doesn't want to use TV's or PC's to do it because she's firmly anti-screen time for toddlers. She's also anti-whole word reading instruction, but she would love to teach her baby to read, do maths, etc. She doesn't mind using props and manipulatives or CD's and cassettes.

What can I recommend her to use for Reading and Math?

[Blooming_Brilliant]

Flash cards, and Hooked on Phonics CDs I believe there are some and they teach the alphabet and their soundt. Flash Cards Handmade/ Computer made she can teach the alaphabet by teaching the phonetic sound, and then put the sounds together on another flash card and teach reading that way. It may be a lot of work but it is one way to teach reading without the whole word and screen. Doman Math Cards for math I believe you can get them at gentlerevolution.com, I am not positive though if you can't find helpful stuff there then she can always come on here and download powerpoint presentations of Doman Math and print out the slides and teach them like that flash card method or hand make em. Hope this helps.

[kauaiheidi]

Maybe I don’t understand what you mean by anti-whole world – is she opposed to presenting words in word families or phonics groupings, such as looking at a group of words that rhyme or have the same beginning sound?

I recently got the Your Child Can Read, the companion to Your Baby Can Read and it has lots of creative ideas for introducing phonics groupings someone could do themselves without a screen.  For example, they have letter finger puppets, say 2 fingers on one hand will have A and T and then fingers on the other hand will switch from say C or H to make CAT, HAT etc.  They also hang up letters cut out of pretty patterned material on a clothesline and then change some of them, such as the beginning letters or vowel or end letters. They have bean bag letters, stamp letters, play dough letters, alphabet soup letter etc.  They have some catchy songs.  There is one with the words ending in AP that is great.  A kid is throwing off cards from a big pile of AP words and singing a song -  toes go TAP, fingers start to SNAP, now it’s time for everyone to CLAP CLAP CLAP etc.

We have a Hooked on Phonics game on the computer in which Pop Fox is doing magic tricks.  For example he’ll have a CAT and then the user selects a B or H etc and Pop Fox puts a cloth over the CAT and says a magic word and it changes into a BAT or HAT etc.  I tried doing that myself.  But it takes a bit of time to get all stuffed animals and other items together. 

We have a Leap Frog video that shows a word factory that puts words together.  The vowels are the sticky letters that hold the words together and get covered in glue etc.  The letters go down slides and get put together.  We made our own word factory and slid letters down little slides etc.   I like the way this Leap Frog video introduces the short vowel sounds.  For example for A, someone scares the A and it runs away going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  My kids thought that was hilarious so I had one of the kids hold a big letter A and the other do something scary and the kid with the A would run away going AAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  The letter i gets covered in itchy goo and goes iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Your friend could consider buying some of the reading programs and watching them herself and then using the ideas with her daughter (or there are probably lots of books out there).   I think I would do that myself if I had the time and energy – but most of the time it is so much easier to let them watch a DVD.  Now I’m feeling somewhat guilty.  Good luck to your friend!

[Skylark]

Wooden letters blocks with different words starting from that letter, different flashcards for vocabulary building, audio aids with catchy songs and then using letters to go along with those. She can do pattern phonics similar to how LR introduces it but she can do it with flashcards, and explain different words witty various visual aids. These are just some ideas....

[TracyR4]

Well if she's anti computer and tv. She could use frig magnets and make flashcards of her own. She is just going to have to get over her whole words phobia ( which it is) and know that a 19 month old isn't going to pick up on phonics. They really need an extensive vocabulary to pick up on the fact that those sounds make words that they've heard of.  I don't know of any 1yr olds who have successfully learned to read phonectially.  I say 2 is possible yet still hit or miss, 3 is a little bit better but again still hit or miss. Some 4yr olds pick up on reading phonetically , my 2nd daughter did. But I've found from all of the years of homeschooling that introducing whole words first then going back and teaching phonics is truely the way to go. 
She's really going to have to realize that with a very young child that reading needs to be fun. Learning phonics, sorry, is not fun for a child.

I know that Leap Frog has frig magnets that teach how to sound out words and blend them.
There are a couple of reading programs she could possibly use .. The Reading Lessons and How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. But these are geared towards children ages 3 and up. They take the parent step by step on how to teach them to read. I used these books with my girls , and my last daughter here I tried at the age of 2.5 then 3 and had zero success with it.

Really in the end she's just going to have to get over methods and use the method that works best for a young child.

I understand what it is your talking about. There are those that thinnk you should only teach children to read using phonics only. They are very closed minded people and are usually the parents on the homeschool boards that are complaining about their child being behind in reading because their child just can't get it. But they are so against whole word method or even combining the two that they continue to go on and torture thier child with phonics only because its suppposedly produces a more superior reader. I fell into that trap many years ago  with my oldest child and she struggled with phonics only so much that she wouldn't look at a book until she was 9 years old. Thankfully once I figured out that you can use both ,and get the best of of both methods that my child finally succeeded and she now reads at grade level.

[Skylark]

"She is just going to have to get over her whole words phobia ( which it is) and know that a 19 month old isn't going to pick up on phonics. They really need an extensive vocabulary to pick up on the fact that those sounds make words that they've heard of. " Good point Tracy! You put it really well, agree with you.

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