lack of interest

[Wishful]

I started my son( now 3yrs and 2 months) on Your baby can read videos last March. Since then, I do word flashcards and math flashcards. I am using the trial here for teaching your baby math, but he refuses to look at the screen for more than a few seconds. (We've already explored all the different settings, colors, icons, etc.) It seems like he ignores me on purpose. I keep our time brief, fun and light hearted. I have made math cards (w/ block icons), so that I just don't do the computer. We work on his numbers a good amt, but he still does not seem to know them. We play a game where I hide a small piece of candy under 1 of 3 number cards. He has to find the number card that I tell him the piece of candy is. But he never gets it right. He just starts looking under all the cards until he finds the candy. Currently we are working on numbers 35-45. I feel I have been wasting all my time.
It is very discouraging to hear and read about all these same age children learning to read books and my son is not showing any signs of retaining. I feel like the whole "their brains are like sponges at this age and learning is so easy for them" is not true, even though I know that it is.
Please anyone help me help my Nicolas.

[Kimba15]

Do not despair, He may not be showing any interest because he ALREADY KNOWS and is bored.

Why don't you stop flashcards and maths for a couple of weeks and see if he shows you that he knows. Maybe he is ready for a new routine and maybe he needs a break. Also one of the golden rules is never to test. I made this mistake with my daughter and she started turning away from flash cards and stopped wanting to learn. When I stopped asking her questions do you know this word and do you know that word she wanted to show me that she knew. I have a box of words that I put out of her reach and she asks for it almost daily and sits and plays with it. As i watched her pull out each word she would do the action and then look at me for praise. After that I vowed I would stop testing and it has paid off ever since.

Do not feel discouraged by the other children who are reading and doing maths, all of those parents have had moments where they have felt as if their child is not learning or not wanting to learn and then all of a sudden as if by magic they decide to show you that they know. ( I have been one of them)

Hope this helps
Kimba

Hope this helps!!!

[Krista G]

You say your son is over 3 years old and from what I have read they lose the ability to recognize quantity shortly after their second birthday.  Instead of teaching him quantities like that why don't you teach him to read the number words and then show him a quantity so he can grasp it, not necessarily know it at a glance.  There is so much you can teach him about math such as learning the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts.  There are many songs available that teach these.  You can sing them and show your son the matching equation as you go.  You can teach him to recognize patterns and teach him ordinal numbers such as first, second, third and so forth.  You can talk about fractions, geometry, temperature, decimals, and on and on.  Broaden your horizon and you will see there are many other things you can teach him that are math related and will give him a strong start in understanding the language of math.

[Wishful]

Thanks for the advice.

Regarding doing flashcards that show the quantity ( grid pattern) and also the word (one, two, three), should I do that first or teach him the actual number, like show the quantity and then show 1,2,3, etc?
Lastly, I have absolutely NO CREATIVITY and really rely on specific products, websites. Or even reading/math workbooks geared for 3 yr olds.
Thank you again for all your support. You know, when I tell people that I'm teaching my son to read/and do math, they look at me like I'm crazy. Even my babysitter told me that he is too young to teach him. It's so frustrating trying to "teach" these people why it's exactly the opposite. All I can say is that I wish I had done this w/ my 2 older children (9 and 7). If only I had seen the infomercial for Teach Your Baby to Read 9 yrs ago!. I'm glad I'm at least doing this w/ my Nicolas now.

[Nikita]

I understand your frustration. My 6 month old wont look at the screen either, (though more so for maths than words) but seems more interested in physical flashcards as she can try to reach for them. My 25 month old doesnt sit still in front of the computer much other. I find she is most interested in the flash presentations that have music attached. She loves dancing to the "flags with national anthems" presentations...thankfully she can still see the flag while dancing as unlike words, they take up the whole screen. I say just persist with it, but try lots of different methods and ideas. I recommend a book by Ken Adams "your child can be a genius" which gives ideas to use for each age group, particularly for mathematics. Trying those on-screen games cdroms and online ones, and things like fisher-price smart cycle can all reinforce learning. That reminds me...I better get one of those this year, if the range is educational, and not too young...I mean, if the level of difficulty grows quite a bit...There are other sorts of physical plug-into-Television early learning games. Like Vmotion looks good. A bit like an educational Wii.

[Krista G]

You can do it any way.  I made a book of numbers and quantities for my kids.  I had the word on one page, the quantity on the next page and then the numeral on the third page.  Since your son isn't a baby anymore you can do things with magnetic letters on the fridge or use a dry erase board to write stuff.  I just got a set of workbooks for my youngest from Rod and Staff.  They are the preschool books and I love them!  I used them in the past for another child and they are exactly what I wanted.  You can get one workbook or all 7.  I got the whole set and my almost 3 year old loves them.  She asks to do schoolwork when the whole family is watching a movie or involved in another activity.  They have writing, tracing, shapes, colors, cutting and pasting....They are not boring, since each page is a different activity.  My daughter loves to cut and paste and she is practicing writing her letters and numbers.  It reinforces stuff you are already teaching.  The link to view them is http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/item/1-10020-G/?list=Rod_and_Staff_Preschool

I wish I had known about this stuff with my first as well.  Even though I didn't, instinctively I knew that babies are smart and I always started my formal homeschool when they are 3 years old.  So don't fret.  My kids are all about a grade ahead of where they would be if they went to school.

You can also look at workbooks for Kindergarten and First Grade to get ideas of math concepts that you want to teach.  Kids can learn earlier and faster than most people give them credit for.  It just has to be fun.  Best to you.

[DadDude]

To be totally honest, my little boy lacks interest in most of what I would like to teach him.  It can be discouraging, but you don't have to let it be.  I constantly find that new or different materials have a good chance of capturing his interest.  So even if I can't plan things out for him in advance, we are never lacking for educational experiences...

My method has been to do lots of what works and avoid, or change, what doesn't work.  Just keep hunting and trying new things out.  Have you tried Starfall.com and Literactive.com?  WatchKnow.org is a good source of videos.  The number of resources out there is staggering, so you just have to keep hunting...

If your son doesn't like Doman math, that's OK--I haven't heard many people saying their kids love Doman math.  I gave up on Doman math for my son (3 years 7 months) like a year ago.  Instead, we have played with beads and shells, we've played "War" with dice and playing cards, and various other things.  We're going through a workbook as well, although only a few times a week--I feel I shouldn't push that sort of thing.  He can't "subitize" but he's developing basic math skills, which is the important thing.

[PY]

That is right, we need to be creative, change our tools everynow and then, so they don't get bored of the same stuff. Sometimes is good to have a break if they feel like it.And after a week start again, sometimes they get more involved after a break.
What I recomend you to do is:
-Work with real stuff(besides flashcards) I mean stuff he can feel,count and learn the differecences, you can do math with anything in the house,spoons(at lunch time or dinner time),get a mat for the table with numbers and he can count while he eats, for bath time maybe some little cars or what ever your son likes, put them in the bath tub and start counting and playing at the same time. Don't forget most of the kids learn while playing, they don't need to know they are working, they just need to know they are having fun.
After three years old kids love  concret stuff, little stones,little balls,little bells,felt food,small books, everything they can touch and feel.
You can try some Montessori method on math, like sand paper numbers or make him to draw the number in corn starch or baking flour, jello,rice,sand.
A good one is baking some cookies, make number with cookie cuters.
Here is a good montessori blog: This lady has some good ideas.
http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com/search/label/preschool%20activities

Take  a look and you can get ideas from her depends what your child likes.

Hope this help, good luck my friend, Do not be discourage, the best gift you can give your child is a good education.

[LDSMom]

I get discouraged off and on as well - my son started YBCR at 14 months - 2 months later he was reading his first words. He got up to about 15 words and then refused to read more, or even show that he knew the original 15 - by the time he was 20 months I stopped asking him about the words because I didn't want it to turn to a negative thing. I still showed him YBCR and other Educational shows/ LR, etc, but he hasn't shown me that he knows how to read at all since. He's now 27 months.  Occasionally it will seem like he's reading. For example last night he pointed to the soda bottle and said 'shasta' which was the brand written on the bottle. I dont know if I'd been calling it Shasta and he thought that was the name or if he actually read the word shasta from the bottle. Also the other day I was telling my husband that our son needed a B - A - T- H (spelling it out so he didn't get excited about it if we could'nt give him a bath RIGHT NOW) my son looks up at me and says "get in the bath?" I couldn't tell if he actually figured out what I was saying by my words or if he spelled it out in his head and knew it meant bath. 

Anyway. who knows. I just keep plugging away and trying not to be discouraged.  I will say that at about 20 months, he started going to Spanish class (playgroup) 5 days a week for 2 hours each. he is now understanding extremely well and starts to say more and more words in Spanish which just makes me so excited! So maybe it's a trade off. He's learning 2 languages and how to read and frankly I'm just going to keep showing him stuff and if he's learning it, great! if not, he will learn it eventually, and in the meantime we'll have had some great bonding time.

One other thing - I finally bought the bath foam letters that stick to the sides of the tub. My son really does love playing with them and I feel like it gives me a good chance to spell out a few words for him or sing the abcs and he loves it. Makes the "learning" really fun!

Hang in there. We all feel discouraged at times, and really, its not necessary. Just take a deep breath and knowing that doing something is better than nothing. So just don't give up. Take a break for a week or two, get re-energized and go about it using a different approach. It does no good comparing to other children.

Take Care!

document.getElementById('recent_loading').style.display = 'none';document.getElementById('recent_page_box').style.display = '';

Page: 1/4  

Loading...

Members

• Total Members: 214713
• Latest: JesseDee

Stats

• Total Posts: 110526
• Total Topics: 19136
• Online Today: 179
• Online Ever: 826
• (January 22, 2020, 12:09:49 AM)

Users Online

• Users: 0
• Guests: 117
• Total: 117