I was visiting friends on the weekend who have taught their 3 year old daughter with this book by Murray Chandler called Chess for Children
http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Children-Murray-Chandler-ebook/dp/B00BUT8FT8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389646745&sr=8-1&keywords=chess+for+children

(use this link if you want to buy via affiliate link and make me happy:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1904600069/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1904600069&linkCode=as2&tag=aimhigh08-20   )

It is only $14 hardcover or $10 as a kindle version. They started by showing her all the different pieces, how to arrange them, how to move them and then started showing simple moves and how the rules work, step by step. She is almost 4 now and at least knows the basics of chess and can play a little. 3.5 or so seems to be a great age to start.

akalori, I love your tricks! They are smart but we parents always try to outsmart them :-). Your daughter sounds like my eldest, very proud and very stubborn. Has anyone here read "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom"? I always think of my daughter when I read about her second daughter Lulu. My daughter has actually learnt a lot from EL but often pretends she doesn't know. I thought I had taught her letters and phonics in vain but recently discovered she actually knows them all, she was just pretending she doesn't to freak me out.

lovely thread, I have just kind of taken a break for a month or so, although of course I still sneak in EL all the time ;-). I just feel I am very inconsistent and there are many resources I bought that I am not using. I am just trying to follow my kids' lead and they just don't seem to enjoy LR much nor do they want to watch Your Baby Can Read videos. If I really sat them down in front of these things they would follow it, but I've noticed there are certain things they love (music, dancing, socialising, playing with friends) and other things (mainly EL stuff) that they will tolerate but they are not enjoying, they're not laughing, they're not having fun, and even Doman says the kids should love learning and have fun. So I've tried to shift activities to what they love. My 1 year old loves climbing and walking and running (started walking at 8 months!) so I am encouraging her physical development a lot. She's to busy to follow LR program because she always runs away! My 3 year old loves dancing and music so we do a lot of Little Musician together and I always play classical music and she dances to it. I also let them socialise and play with friends a lot because they are really into imaginative play and I think it is great for creativity (and for me getting a break ;-) ).

I don't feel guilty about it. I feel like I am doing the right thing. Of course the pushy parent in me is a bit sad that they may not be as advanced as other EL kids, but somehow my gut tells me it's right to take a break when your children aren't having fun and don't want to do maths! But I still think being an EL parent in general that I probably still do a lot of EL even if I think we are taking a break, so they are always learning something!

Frukc, may I just add that I love your last post? It sounds so right. I have been thinking about what you wrote for days because it really hit home. My little one is very advanced but at the same time I have started to feel she is not enjoying the educational DVDs and LR at all. She loves singing with me, interacting, playing games, even flash cards, and listening and also all the physical stuff but she is so bored by YBCR/Monkisee DVDs and LR. Little Musician is alright when the clap along song comes, otherwise she shows no interest either. But she is very advanced now (started walking at 7 1/2 months, at 9 months now doing a lot of things that they aren't supposed to do till 18 months or so) but I had this gut feeling I should just forget about the software and DVDs and just play with her interactively because that's what she loves. I had this instinct but so many people here report success with the products that I didn't want to give up. Now after reading your post and thinking about it, I think it's probably right that the part she doesn't enjoy is a waste of my time, and if I focused on the parts she enjoys she will progress much faster. If you have any other pearls of wisdom to share, please do :-).

Hi Liesel, welcome, you have a nice mix of languages in your home (like many Londoners I guess ;-) ). It sounds like your kids are doing great. We are based in Central London. I think we're four or five relatively active Londoners here so definitely one day we should try to do a meet-up, would be fun! You ask about the UK system - I am actually quite happy with the UK system, as systems go in Europe it seems the most open to early learning and is also getting more and more ambitious. I think they are also quite good about tailoring tasks to the level a child is at, so the children are divided in groups, so a child that is 1-2 years ahead wouldn't be so strange in a good school. Then, especially if you both work, you also have a private system, which to be honest I am planning to use. I am in Central London and I think if you are into EL and your child is quite advanced, if you choose a really good pre-prep it can be an enjoyable ride and you don't need to homeschool. At places like Westminster Under and so on, all the kids are 1-3 years advanced compared to their peers. In know in the pushy nursery schools there are quite a few children who can read at 3.5 or 4, and I've met quite a few parents who do flash cards and educational videos and whose children know all the letters when they're 2 and so on, so it is quite good to be in an environment that is open to early learning. I am actually more in the group of people who think they can't leave London because of education. Elsewhere in Europe or England I think it would be much harder to find likeminded people! Will be curious to hear what you think!

TheyCan, I am so happy to hear things are much better. I was a bit sad reading your initial post because it sounded like your little one wasn't having fun and nor were you enjoying it, and it is such a precious time. And even Glenn Doman says if the baby / toddler is not enjoying there is something wrong. Your little one sounds a lot like mine in some respects, she was crawling at 5 months and walking at 8 months (actually, let's be honest, how can you have a walking 8 months old and say no sign of EL progress ;-), only an EL person would say that ;-) ). She is always on the go and hence impossible to read books or watch EL videos with her. What I do is when I show her stuff on the iPad I let her stand so she can cruise and hop up and down, or I put things for her to touch and explore in front of her, even if it distracts her from the screen. But physical development is also a big part of EL, especially in the first years, so it's great you now go outdoors more, see it as a strength not a weakness that your little one wants to move, that's great!

Also it's very harmful to compare siblings in that way, especially when one comes out more favourably, and as others said, surely your child feels everything that you think. EL is very important, but there are differences between children in how they respond and their learning style (maybe you read the story of Sophia and Lulu in Batlle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)? Some kids are more independent explorers, others enjoy being taught, so maybe with the first one your style simply suited better and it doesn't work with the second one. I am sure you are doing great and there will be results from all the EL you're doing, but definitely make sure you are both enjoying your time together and there is laughter every day. I sometimes get nostalgic during the day and ditch EL, because I think I could play games and chase my little one through the apartment and make her laugh, or we can do flash card which she finds interesting but they don't make her laugh, and I want to hear her giggle and enjoy life. Not 24/7 obviously, but laughing together, jumping, running around is the most important part of the day. Reading we just sneak in during the quiet moments like bedtime, early in the morning, maybe nap time or mealtime. You got lots of great advice here. I hope it continues to go better!

you can also do tummy time on your leg or in your arms in those cases, then it's more fun and cuddly and less frustrating for baby. Just pick a time of the day when the baby is not tired or cranky, there should be a time like this every day and always better to do many short sessions that a long mega session. Keep it up!

Hi there, your baby is very young, maybe still a bit too young and just gets confused. I purchased my software around the same time (for my older child) and at the time my baby had no interest, but around 5-6 months she started enjoying it. I'd just take a break and do physical flashcards where you sit in front of the baby and baby can see your face, it's more interesting for them than the screen at that stage. It will probably just be a month or so till you baby starts showing an interest, so just take a break and pick it up again soon.

I highly recommend the books by Dean Radin on ESP, "Entangled Minds" and "the Conscious Universe", he summarises all the scientific evidence regarding ESP. Long story short is that there is some evidence for the existence of ESP, especially among people with a strong connection (e.g. twins). If you are sceptical (like I was), you can just download those two books as free samples on kindle, read the first chapter and see for yourself. His point is that it is nothing paranormal but effects which cannot currently be explained by conventional science, but that more and more effects in physics / chaos theory suggest that particles are connected beyond physical form. As an analogy, think of certain animals who can feel a tsunami is coming - this is nothing paranormal, it is just that a certain part of their brain intuitively picks up vibrations or the smell of the wind or whatever it is that makes them aware they're in danger and have to move. So you need to see ESP as a certain intuition we have inbuilt like other animals that we fail to listen to because we are so focused on the visible and whatever can be captured via words.

Chris, it is true that the right brain / left brain distinction is very simplified and you have most functions located in both hemispheres, however if you take it as a concept and not so much as a physical statement (i.e. you accept we have visual/intuitive and verbal/logical/explicit functions) then you can still use it. I studied cognitive and experimental psychology and I distinctly remember certain experiments they told us which suggested the visual memory is near perfect and it was not the linked memories method. I don't remember the authors because I studied this a decade ago and I'm sure I could dig it out, but in one experiment, they flashed about 1,000 photographs to normal students and if after they asked them "what colour was the car?" and all those sort of verbal questions that required conscious recall, the recall rate was near zero, however if after they instructed the students to say just if they had seen the picture before yes or no and showed some new pictures and some that had been shown, recall rate was something like 90-95%. So that suggests we may not be able to answer any question consciously about something we saw, but we may actually be able to remember thousands of pictures in a very short time frame in the sense that we know we have seen them or not (suggesting there is a trace in our memory after all). Also read up on subliminal images and the behavioural effects they can have.

I'm not trying to defend Shichida and I'm sure there's a large element of pseudoscientific marketing, but I would like to correct the view that all his claims are made up, there is actually lots of scientific evidence for many of the "right brain " effects that he quotes. Also, keep in mind there is no accepted scientific evidence that babies can learn to read or that Glenn Doman was right but if you interact with people on this forum, it will be really hard to maintain that babies can't learn to read. So sometimes I think anecdotal evidence is so strong that you have to question what scientific evidence is out there, especially in such a young field.

robbyjo, this is exactly why I bought the books - to see if there is any evidence or research. As you will see when you read it, this is my main criticism of the book as well - there is no research on his stuff as it is. But as I am a cognitive psychologist, I was familiar with quite a few studies that focus on right brain capabilities and if you know about flash anzan, mind maps or mnemonics then you know that visualisation can be really powerful. It certainly seems to be a big business and you won't find much research for his specific methods, you will also see when you google that it says he holds a PhD but I couldn't find out from which institution, and in any case his PhD is apparently in education, not in cognitive psychology, which would be the field where you would expect actual scientific experiments to be done.

I've always tried to find more Shichida resources in English on the web but found them very limited (apart from a few fantastic blogs), so I ordered both his books on right brain education in English because all available resources on the web seem to be in Japanese or Mandarin. I want to provide very detailed summaries of the books in English on my blog so others don't need to order the books from Japan, saving you thousands of yen :-)!

The first review is ready, it's of Children Can Change through Right Brain Education. You can find it here:

http://www.geniusexperiment.com/2013/07/shichida-right-brain-education/

Overall, I would have wished for more detail about exercises and research but I think he gives just enough detail to make you want to attend Shichida Academy but not enough to replace the courses, and that's why you don't actually get enough out of the book. See for yourself.

I'd love to hear more about the Shichida courses from families attending one of the academies! Infants solving complex equations?? Sounds a bit too good to be true! What is your experience?

this is great, don't forget motor development is very important at this stage and if he wants to explore his surroundings that's a very good thing! My 6 month old is the same and I let her stand while watching, now she is always cruising and trying to stand so I put the ipad / pc on the coffee table and let her stand holding on to the coffee table and the screen is in front of her. I also do less pattern phonics with her but just go straight to the "categories" sections and play multisensory sessions like kids' things and wild animals and transport which she likes best. Just check what parts he is interested in and play those! Don't worry if he doesn't care about pattern phonics or sight words, there's no rush.

for what it's worth, I often think my kids aren't watching half the time but I realise often by chance that they can read a lot of words already. As Glenn Doman says, even if they only watch half the time they still pick up MUCH more than any kid who never does EL, and just think you have 3 or 4 years with your 8 month old, even if he just picks up a word a week, by the time he's four he would have mastered all the high frequency words considered first or second grade level. Here in the UK, they do 45 high frequency words in the first grade (when they're 4-5) and another 100 in the second grade (5-6 years), and after about three months of very inconsistent LR sessions and some flash cards that my toddler shows little interest in (only wild animals/transport - she hates pattern phonics), it looks like she recognises about 30-40 words already so I know she is far ahead. Just enjoy and  let your little one explore!

that's really interesting, mybabyian. I wonder if maybe when you thought you had no results when he was a baby, he was actually learning a lot, maybe you just couldn't see the manifestation and it now comes out as his ability to pick things out really fast when he is 2.5. I do believe these things somehow stay subconsciously and help kids recognise and memorise things later. For example, with my "unteachable" (as it seems) 2.5 year old who I said above doesn't like LR, she is actually learning a lot I think, she just doesn't want to be tested. But sometimes when the Games part comes up in YBCR or LR (I usually switch it off before because I don't want to test her), she answers and it looks like guessing but at the same time she probably gets 80% right. And sometimes now she stops me when I am reading her a book and she wants to read. And she can read a few words like school and toys and shops and her name and her sister's name and quite a few others. And even with my 6 month old even though it is impossible to tell, every time I take the flash cards out her face lights up, and I notice that when her name or her sister's name comes on the cards she smiles much more than for the other words, and when I introduce new cards usually she looks at them intently without a smile, but the cards I have shown her many times she will laugh or smile when she sees them. So I am sure there is some level of recognition, even though it will take 6 months or a year till I can be sure if there are results.

It's great to hear your little one is doing so well at 2.5. It's so exciting to watch. Kids are so amazing. Even with all the wild animals in LR and in books, isn't it amazing that one year they can barely say more than daddy and mummy and the next year they know words like porcupine and aardvark and antelope and skunk and flamingo? Simply incredible!

hi jenfaizen, I am actually facing the same problem with my 2.5 year old, I think LR is really better for younger children. She has all the vocabulary already and now she's savvy enough about the ipad that she just swipes forward to the pictures and doesn't want to see the words. I have a trick though, because I have a little baby I tell her the baby needs to learn to read and I watch it with my little one and then she wants to have a look, too. She is much more into LM.

With the 2.5 year old it seems videos work better somehow, she loves the Monkisee videos and a bit of Your Baby Can Read videos as well. We do LR once in a while but I think LR doesn't work for every older toddler on its own. I would just do it here and there whenever it happens to be the right moment and do flash cards, lots of real books, some videos. Around 3 one can also start with phonics reading.

Glenn Doman actually wrote in his book that it is much easier to teach a baby to read than a 2 year old and at the time I wasn't sure if that could be right, but then I tried and it really does seem to be true, it is much easier with a baby because they love everything that is new, whereas  2 - 3 year olds already have a strong independence and a way of doing things.

So in answer to your question, I think it would have been easier if you'd started earlier, but it's not too late, you just need to do more other things, pick the right moments and be a bit more creative. My daughter often wants to play other stuff on the ipad and then I say it's enough and the only thing she is still allowed as a last "treat" is little reader and then she often wants to do it. It won't be her favourite but if the choice is mummy takes ipad away or little reader and then ipad away, she always chooses Little Reader :-).

perfect Lappy, thanks! I was waiting for the right moment to switch from trial LR and LM to full version, it seems like my time has come :-).