Very interesting - one more item to add to my list to research.

Momtoo - Thanks for the note about Montessori. There is a Spanish Montessori in our area that I am thinking about sending my daughter to when she is 3. I was thinking of it more as a preschool option, and as a way to expose her to another language when she is still young.  I have heard that quite a number of Montessori teachers discourage early reading. I have not yet interviewed the ones in my area, but should put that on my list. 

Welcome Kathy!  I am also relatively new to this forum and have very much enjoyed going through the information that has been posted and reading the messages from the other members.  My daughter is 13 months and we are going through the trial version of Little Reader and Little Math - I was making flash cards, but this sotware saves so much time!  If you have not yet tried them out I would recommend downloading the trial versions and seeing how your grand daughter likes them.

This is such a fun post. I, just like all the rest of you, and very proud of my daughter.  At 4 days old she crawled 5 feet down the crawling track on an incline - how is that for a great beginning! And that was after staying in the hospital for 3 days because she was born with a fever.

She is now 13 months old, she runs and climbs on everything, says many words and strings a few together and can communicate almost everything she wants to say.  She feeds herself and when she wants something when we are at the table she asks for it politely - most of the time.  She has been peeing in the potty since 3 months old and pooping in the potty since about 6 or 7 months.  Two weeks ago she started reading words out loud - I have words pasted up around my house and she runs around the house and reads the words, with new ones every day.  She can count to three. She puts her toys back in the toybox after playing with them - a skill that very much impressed my uncle and aunt when we visited their house and she played with their grandchildren's toys.  She chooses books at the library and will pull them off the shelf and tell me what is on the cover (bear, owl, dog, etc.) She loves looking at art and can page through art books with great interest.

She does the absolute cutest wink - still two eyes, but a very deliberate wink - her granddad taught her that. She also blows kisses, says hi, and waves to everyone - a very sociable little girl. She LOVES to dance and will start bopping up and down anytime music comes on. One day we were at the grocery store and a catchy tune came one and she started bouncing up and down.  She was so cute and the other 4 people in the same isle also started dancing - my little girl has already led her first group dance!  She has the sweetest smile that melts my heart.  I could brag more, but I'll leave space for the next person...

This is great information about the Shichida math program. Thank you to all who have posted.  Does anyone have any more information that can be used by parents at home to teach other aspects of the Shichida program?  I have not been able to find any Shichida classes in the United States - does anyone know if there are any?

Great article. It seems like the approach to teaching a Visual Spatial Learner should be different from the norm. How are you planning to tailor the way you teach your grandson to enhance his abilities?

Welcome Lin. There are a lot of great resources here, especially ones that will be useful if you want to teach your 9 month old to read.  Take a look at the shared files.

Thanks for sharing this.  I signed up and tried it out. It may be my internet connection, but it seemed like the videos were quite slow. I am used to clicking through the slides much faster.  They do have a nice selection of videos already made up and it is great for variety.

My daughter is only 1, so I'm not sure what I will do about school for her when she gets there - but yes I assume that I will challenge the age if we decide to send her to public school. From what I gather from neighborhood moms our school district is very unwilling to let a child into first grade early, and will only test them at the end of first grade, and perhaps let them skip a year at that time (once they have already made friends in their class and the year ahead of them has already bonded...)  I would really prefer not to home school, but I am open to it as an option if I can't get her in early (well, I think it is really on time versus late) and/or I think that her amount of bordom may cause her to lose interest.  I agree with momtoo that the school district's resources are dedicated to the children who are lagging and not the ones who are excelling.  My other option is to put her in a Montesorri or other private school - I have not yet done enough research on those options to know if they are viable.  But yes, the general attitute of moms seems to be anti-early education which just astounds me, and which I why I am so happy to have found this forum.

I have to add my vent to this string.  I attend a neighborhood Mom's Group once a week.  When I first started attending I was new in the neighborhood and was asking them about the local preschool and elementary schools. My daughter's birthday is 17 days after the cutoff date to start first grade when she is 5, so basically she will have to start first grade when she is 6 and one month into it will turn 7 and will be 7 for her entire first grade year. So I expressed my concern that she would already be really bored if she were 5 since she will already be able to read and write and do math and holding her back an additional year is just absurd.  So the response from all the mom's in the group was "if you don't want her to be bored then don't teach her to read before she starts school".  How insane an answer is that!  Obviously not an option for me.

About the experts claim that learning to read decreases your childhood - my mother taught me to read and I was reading 1st and 2nd grade books when I was 2 years old. I started school when I was 5 (did spend most of my first 2 years in the library because the teacher didn't know what to do with me because I already knew everything and I wasn't socially ready for being advanced a grade).  I was a very social child, had lots of friends, experienced everything children should experience, excelled in school and sports, graduated at 16, by 20 had a degree and had travelled the world and started a career.  I am very thankful that my mother taught me to read (and many other things) and would certainly never trade it.  I plan to give my children the same advantage.

Thanks for the laugh. That is cute!

That is a fascinating article.  I had never heard that babies cries differed based on their mother's language. Thanks for sharing it.

I did read and implement Tracy Hogg's approach in the Baby Wisperer. She also advocates carefully listening to your babies sounds and identifying the differences.  But I have not seen the video of the different cries.  If anyone has the Dunstan Language DVD I would love to borrow it and hear the different cries distinguished.

My daughter is 13 months. She has been sleeping in a crib/cot in her own room since she was 4 months old. She is now starting to climb everything and I think that she may be able to climb out of the crib, and possible fall from the railing.  I am also trying to decide whether to convert her to a toddler bed, move her to a mattress on the floor, or put a net over the crib to keep her safe. My primary concern with moving her out of the crib is that she will not lay still long enough to fall asleep. She usually tosses, turns, sits up, and lays down a lot (for 30-60 min) in the process of trying to fall asleep. I don't want her getting up and running around the house, but I'm not sure how to contain her in a toddler bed or mattress on the floor.

I am also pregnant with our second child due in 5 months and by that time I need to have her falling asleep in her own bed by herself, not me lying next to her until she falls asleep, as I will not be able to do that with a new baby. 

I am interested in hearing some more experience from those who have moved their child out of the crib without needing to lay next to the child in order for him/her to fall asleep.  Thanks.

I have found that potty training is a very sensitive topic.  I attend a weekly mom's group and all the mom's in the group are trying to potty train their children and they are all struggling.

My experience is a bit different.  I grew up in South Africa and there it was common for children to be potty trained by the time they could walk (around 1 year) as opposed to in the U.S. most children are only potty trained when they are about 3.

When my daughter was 3 months old each evening when I would undress her for her bath and wait the couple minutes for the bath to run she would pee.  Since I was not about to get peed on every day, nor was I about to let her pee on the floor, I went right out and got her a potty. I started off by just putting her on the potty before bath time and she peed in the potty every day since then.  I did that for a month or so, then when she was 4-5 months old I started putting her on the potty more often - right after waking up from a nap, and soon after eating or drinking.  By 5 months she was peeing in the potty about 5-6 times a day.  We went through a little stage when she was first able to stand that she was not intereted in sitting and I could not get her to sit long enough, but I found that if I keep a stack of books next to the potty and read to her while she sits she will usually sit long enough to go.  At around 10 months she also started pooping in the potty.  I give her A+'s everytime she uses it.  She is now 13 months and has started talking and will now sometimes say poop when she needs to go.  She is not quite at the stage of putting herself on the potty, but it has been a few weeks since I have changed a poopy diaper.  I think the reason for her sccess was that I started when she was really young. She got used to using the potty and didn't develop a fear of it that I see so often in 3 or 4 year olds.  I don't have any advice for those with older kids who are struggling, but I would strongly advise anyone with a child less than one to start putting them on the potty - with no pressure. Just let them sit and get used to it and figure out what they should do on it.

Good luck!

[LR]

Fanh,

I am also a new member and it took me a while to interpret the abbreviations used on this site.  LR stands for Little Reader - the software that you can purchase from Brillkids. Sem 1 refers to the portion that you go through in the first 6 months.  There is a trial that you can download of both the Little Reader and the Little Math that will give you lessons to play for your daughter for 9 days. I highly recommend downloading the trial version and playing it for your daughter and seeing if she is interested in it.  I was using flash cards and recently downloaded the trial and have found it to be so much easier to use. My daughter is 13 months and she always sees me typing on my computer and is very interested in my computer and she is now very happy that she also gets her time at the computer. I am planning to purchase both the Little Reader and Little Math when my trial expires.