I’ve had some more thoughts on the important points that DadDude brought up in the Defense section of his essay, but since they also fit under this new section I’ll post them here.

Different cultures are different I’m sure.  Some cultures or communities may value as much instructional/educational time as possible, whereas other communities may value creative play.  Websites from private schools in my community claim to promote: academic excellent, of course, by also,  imagination, creativity, critical thinking, compassion, enthusiasm, ability to think for yourself, love of learning, mutual respect, environmental awareness and responsibility, individual accountability with a social framework, cause students to realize their responsibility to community.  I think these values and skills are deeply rooted and legitimate in many communities.  Anecdotally, there are countries where the kids at McDonalds are all studying, and I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, just that my community has different values/priorities etc.

Communities that place a high value on imagination and creative play may be turned off by videos of babies strapped in highchairs reading flashcards.  Also there is a stereotype of very early readers as pale, thin, with poor eyesight – seriously!   My own feeling is that early reading and development of imagination and creativity, critical thinking, physical heath etc etc are not mutually exclusive.  However, for communities like my own, I think very early reading needs a complete image makeover.

I think YBCR did show some video of Aleka on monkey bars, but this could be expanded.  I’m not a reading specialist or marketing specialist or philosopher etc I’m just a mom, but if I was designing an info commercial targeting communities similar to my own, I’d show some early reading in say an outside context with “robust, healthy” kids.  I remember when I was planting seeds in the dirt with my kids outside and Amelia was 13 or 14 months and was saying dirt and kept signing book and after a bit of confusion, I realized she wanted me to write the word dirt on the sidewalk with the sidewalk chalk.  This really happened and it has such a great “planting the seeds” metaphor, as well as child directed and creative aspects. I also write words in wet sand at the beach, could be in the mud or snow.  And my kids really do bring books over to their tree house sometimes – cue cello sonata – child reading Winnie-the-pooh to his stuffed bear in treehouse –  camera pans to bees or rabbit. Presented properly, early reading could fit perfectly with a romantic and nostalgic view of childhood, such as that evocated by Winnie-the-pooh (and what with the new movie coming out soon this would be perfect timing). 

And this doesn’t have to be fabricated.  What about kids reading recipe while messily making cookies.  Showing activities that are child directed, showing the child understands at least some of the material, creative activities?  Children picking out their own books at the public library? Child and parent making a book together, child telling a story and helping illustrate while parent helps write text and then the child reading story.  Or child and parent doing a simple science experiment and working together to record observations, child probably illustrating and parent writing what the child observes and then child reading results.  Say kids at park arranging their bodies into the word “Hi” on the ground and kids up on a play structure looking down reading the word?  Parent writing “ I love you” with alphabet soup letters. Most of these activities would involve somewhat older kids, but a lot of parents have seen little babies recognizing words and it might be helpful to show some slightly longer-term results, within an imaginative, creative, child directed, social context.  Also, at least for my family, these types of activities are totally compatible with also using YBCR, LR, ppt etc, so I don’t think it would be misleading for an early reading program to show other reading activities or results of having used an early reading program. 

Hello DadDude

Thanks for sharing your essay.  You bring up some interesting questions – like why hasn’t baby reading gotten more serious attention by reading experts? Would it be possible to develop a very early reading program that gets 80% children who started a program under 2 reading phonetically by 3?  Or, possibly, 80% of babies who started under the age of 1 reading phonetically by age 2?  Does such a program or combination or programs already exist?  How would phonics be taught in such a program?

We may have to wait for scientific studies to answers some of long-term benefit questions, but I do hope you’re able to find time for the online survey you’ve mentioned.  Forum readers may not be representative of all families using very early reading programs, but it would still be interesting.  How many parents have had success with their children enjoying and responding to a very early reading program?  How many are recognizing words? How many are sounding out new words – and if so approximately how many words could they recognize before they started to sound out new words? What percentage, if any, of the words were presented in phonetic groupings, were individual letters sounded out and blended?  In cases where children learned to recognize words but did not readily make the leap to sounding out new words, did the children keep reading and learning new words, or did they lose interest?  Is there a specific aspect of a given program that causes a child to lose interest?  Short-term or long-term expectations etc?  How do parents feel about their culture’s image of very early reading programs? Do they feel defensive or proud when they tell other parents in their communities that they are using a very early reading program?

You raise some interesting issue in your Defense of Teaching the Very Young to Read. I know a lot of parents who have their 2 year olds in dance, gymnastics, swimming, music, soccer, play groups etc, etc, and who are aware of Your Baby Can Read, but chose not to use it.  Part of this may have to do with a perceived need to prioritize time based on personal interests so that there is still time for creative play.  But for many parents in my community I think their idea of a perfect childhood doesn’t include babies reading.   While I chose to use YBCR with my kids, I appreciate that other parents might not want their kids to learn to read as babies. 

My experience:  Both of my kids picked up word recognition (from YBCR and PowerPoint, with very little phonetic grouping).  Personally, having my kids sign words before they could even say them was a huge thrill for me.  As far as I was concerned they were reading - and loving it too.  I didn’t have any real expectations of them learning to read phonetically, as I assumed Aleka must have learned to recognized lots more words before she naturally figured out phonics.  I was happy with YBCR and think it can even be an excellent foundation for eventually learning to read phonetically, as my daughter did.

Why didn’t my son transition to reading phonetically? Would he have benefited from a more phonetic grouping of words?  I suppose there is always going to be a difference in general aptitude even among siblings (my fraternal twin picked up reading faster than I did), and also my son started when he was a year older and soon had many more competing interests.   And when my daughter was born I had little time and creative energy for continuing a reading program in an engaging way.  My daughter soon started watching YBCR, but my son had long outgrown the program.  I was not inclined to pressure him if he wasn’t interested and while he still loved to have books read to him, he essentially stopped reading for a couple years.  However, recently he decided he was interested again and picked up a Dick and Jane book and surprised both of us by being able to read much of it.

When Amelia was learning to say new words she would often sign “book” or hand me a piece of sidewalk chalk and say the word until I wrote it for her.  I would also add her new words to PowerPoint, until one day she just started repeating absolutely everything and I couldn’t keep up anymore.   I added pictures  of family, favorite toys, whatever she was interested in, often letting her select her own online image of whatever it was (as with YBCR the word showed up before the image).  When Amelia was 19 months her brother got model planets, so I added some of the planet names to the PowerPoint and read them to her.  Then I change the order and showed her again and was surprised that she remembered and read them.  The next day I was even more surprised that she still remembered and read them.  I thought she must have some sort of unusual memory, but when I tried our matching picture pairs with her she couldn’t remember more than 2 pairs.  So I think at that point she may have been beginning to intuitively understand phonetic rules.  She liked to watch phonics alphabet songs and the Silent E song on YouTube, which may have helped.  When she was around 2 she would occasionally surprise people by reading words on their T-shirts, even words she hadn’t seen or heard before. 

my kids, 2.5 and 5.5 years old, like watching the free Rock N Learn clips on YouTube, but I haven't actually bought a DVD.  The graphics and sound isn't really my taste, but it does get the kids' attention.  They'll start off watching something else on YouTube and before long they'll have made it to Rock N Learn sample clips.  They really do seem to prefer lessons with songs and video.  They have no interest in straight phonics pattern flash. when the LR phonics pattern slides come up my youngest will push the escape button and start looking for something else to watch.

Hi

I'm new to LM, and teaching early math in general.  I bought LM last Fall, but my girl, Amelia, always wanted to watch LR (or YouTube) instead of LM.  Today I finally downloaded some new math icons and she really likes them.  She just turned 2.5 years old, so I'm not sure if I should be showing her the icons in a random pattern, or grid or both?  I'd love to hear some success stories - are kids younger than 2.5 really able to subitize large quantities?  Even when the patterns are random and new each time, ie not the same flash cards?  Amelia immediately recognizes 0, 1, 2 or 3 items.  She understands more and less with small numbers.  However, when I show her piles of, say, 9 vs 10 items and ask which has more she says she doesn't know and starts trying to count them. Does that mean she isn't subitizing larger numbers, or just that I'm confusing her?  Thanks for any advice!

this forum was the first place i heard about the YBCR lawsuit. it motivated me to finally get a Youtube account and upload some video of my daughter, Amelia, reading.  she started with YBCR at around 3 or 4 months.  now at 2.5 years she surprises people by reading their t-shirts (though i haven't got a video of that yet)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/CxmS1nQVsno&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/CxmS1nQVsno&rel=1</a>

Heidi

Hi  - Anyone on Maui?