Awesome - that is just the sort of game I've been looking for - thanks!!

Good stuff - from both of you.

Love it - I finally listed my resources today in the other post. Sorry to take so long.

I am interested in resources for any language (including Romanian)

Nicely explained Tanikit.

[Resources]

I finally have five uninterrupted minutes to type my resources and schedule (knock on wood  ).

Resources

• IAHP - Doman Picture Dictionaries - These are great, I only have three because unfortunately postage to Oz is prohibitive. Otherwise these are fantastic value. Great for vocab building but not for conversation. Each CDrom has 10 categories with fifteen words in each category. You can view each of these in five languages - English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese. They flash really fast so it was difficult for me to learn from them but the bubs loves them
• Lyric Language - Music DVDs & CDs For $20 you get the DVD and CD. We have German and French. The songs are extremely well written (so catchy that my muso hubby and I walk around singing them). They are bilingual which has really helped us to understand the syntaxes. In particular we learned a lot of German - we never tried though it just sifted through. Excellent value, Sabian has watched these repeatedly for two years and it is only now that he turns it off - but still not straight away. I believe these are my favourite, except that the songs are the same for every language. Which has advantages and disadvantages I guess.
• Teach Me Tapes - Singalong CDs with Books - Also only $20 comes with CD and student book and teacher guide book. The books are ok, helpful I guess but not great. The CDs are good, the Japanese recordings were better quality than the Chinese though. Some cross over on the songs but not too much. Some songs are bi-lingual others are immersed. There are also some short conversations mixed in throughout the CD. As a baby and young tot Sabian got very very excited when we played these.
• Nursery Rhyme CDs - we also had a nursery rhyme cd from France that he used to really really love. Beautiful background music. He would giggle hysterically at one of the poems so he obviously enjoyed it.
• Leapfrog Little Leaps - These are great. Game console that works through the TV. DVDs games can be played in English, German, French and Italian. Typical leapfrog, good quality that the kids loves and just keeps going back for. It's great to watch your little one following instructions etc in another language. Good for conversations as well as vocab building.
• Wink to Learn - Dvds - speak and read Chinese and Endangered Species - I only have one of each but i want them all. Excellent value for money especially since no postage costs. The speak and read great for vocab and the other is great for syntax etc as well EK.
• Fun Learning for Kids - DVDs. These are quite possibly the worst product I've bought. Having said that for five dollars at Dick Smiths they are enormous value. Bubs will only watch one small five minute session from these because the presenter - well he possibly should have paid someone else to put his idea on the screen. I am now using these for vocab for ourselves to incorporate into the new program we're going to do so they're great for that.  They cover English, Spanish, German, French and Mandarin and are organised into categories eg one DVD is Transportation another in In the Zoo and there are hundreds of words. I've got five but I've no idea how many are available.
• Let's Learn Japanese - We're using this for our programming. It's pretty good actually, basically a text book for adults. Only cost me $10 though and I have so far (three chapters in) learned my lessons well and am able to use what I have learned so I'm pretty happy with it.
• Diego My boy isn't allowed to watch Dora (she drives me insane and I find it condescending) but Diego I can tolerate and he adores. Has helped with his Spanish words and he's learned a lot about animals from it. I actually don't mind this show. (high praise for a cartoon from me).
• Movies - swapping languages on normal dvds that he has watched multiple times. He never seemed phased by it so we just keep doing it. Doubt it can hurt

As for the schedule it has changed many times over the course of 2.5 years. He has always been exposed to two foreign languages a day minimum.

At our peak (which was between 1.5 and 2) he was doing one wink to learn a day  (he was never interested in only doing one of their sessions, had to do the whole dvd - after YBCR 8 minutes lessons are too short), two sessions of picture dictionaries doing two languages per session covering all categories (sometimes he cried so much when we stopped that we'd give in and let him do all five - I know I shouldn't but he was so upset and loved it so much). One other language tv activity so either little leaps or diego or lyric language or a movie. Cds put on in the background while playing and while travelling he could watch and listen to as many as it took to stop him going crazy on the 19 hour drives we were regularly doing at the time.

We will be starting our new schedule after xmas dies down. I will let you know how it works out.

I used a whole heap of resources - as young baby mainly community radio and SBS tv on in the background. CDs with nursery rhymes in different languages etc.

I'm running out the door will post my full list later - but honestly I don't think it would have mattered what we used as long as we did something.

Don't be downhearted DadDude.

Look at how much Doman and Titzer have achieved and yet they are still ridiculed and thought of as tricksters and accused of being con men etc.

The only thing I have found that people don't object to children learning is swimming. Go figure that one out, I'm surprised they don't think it encourages drowning or something. Actually - hang on Kindergym is okay too, because that's climbing and social. But the Doman Physical program isn't because it's too structured and un-childlike for people to accept.

I sometimes think that the problem with introducing early education is actually the terms we're using.

Education, lessons, reading, flash cards. All of these things have negative connotations for more than half of the population. More than half of the kids at school are not enjoying reading, they don't enjoy school (and therefore in their minds education) and flash cards are just another extension of all this hard work. And the generations that are now becoming parents had it worse.

We are fighting peoples' memories of learning themselves. How many people have truly wonderful learning to read experiences when they learn at six? I mean I can't tell you as I was taught to read early but I know my friends hated school, hated homework, hated the readers etc etc etc

What we need to find is an approach and terminology system that is radically different from the way we label school education. So that people don't have those negative associations.

I think also the benefits need to be tweaked as well. People tend to focus on the outcome instead of the journey. Being able to do something that you would have learned any way in a far more acceptable environment with everybody else like the sheep they try to make us is not enticing.

It's not just the reading or the maths - people are scared of what their kids will turn out like and trying something radically different could mean your child turns out radically different and who wants to be radically different? How will they fit in etc.

There is nothing wrong with with your how and why. Just the world.

The early educator who manages to find the system that breaks away from these stereotypes will do well.

Any way I ramble. You have done a good thing, give it time people will notice and keep trying to work on ways to give people a way of imagining early learning that is nothing like the tedious learning they remember.

When children come into the world they want to make sense of it.

In fact that's pretty much what we spend the rest of our lives doing - trying to make sense of a pretty much senseless world.

I had been planning to be completely honest and truthful about Christmas (we are non-religious and do not lie to our child about anything no matter how silly it might be). It has always been my belief that lies create more lies and create a relationship you can't trust. I also despise doing things simply because that is what is done.

However, I have had to change my mind as a direct result of my research on imagination, how it develops, it's uses and how to encourage it.

The fact is that working out that Santa is a lie is a massive developmental step for children who are making sense of the world. Working out how does he fit in the chimney, how do they visit all the houses on one night, how does he know if we're naughty or nice, how does he know if we're on holidays etc requires huge intuitive leaps of logic that they have developed by observing the world around them. Santa doesn't obey these rules and it actually helps children to understand the truth of reality. The same goes for the tooth fairy etc.

So our decision has been this - we will create an imaginary and magical xmas, easter, toothloss, whatever. He will experience the magic and have the opportunity himself to see flaws in the system and work out what goes against the nature of the world he is beginning to understand.

I will never lie to him when he asks me a direct question. I will instead give him more fanciful questions to answer in the hope that this wonderful magical imaginary experience helps him to push his imagination to extremes and bring him back to think logically and to separate fact from fiction etc.

Of all the areas of intelligence we can work on imagination is the most important. Far more important than reading and maths.

This is how we understand that things could be different - by imagining other possibilities, how we make changes, how we invent things and so on and so on.  You want a child who is good at science? - they need imagination, good at maths? - they need imagination, good at cooking? - they need imagination.

It is our imagination that allows us to tap into our genius and excel at any given thing.

I have to say though I know where you're all coming from. The media and marketing industries of the world have tainted Santa, I never wanted to encourage my child to believe in something that had virtually no basis in fact.

But I have decided that as with God and religion, this will be his choice. All I can do is provide him with opportunity and information and help him develop a brain that knows how to exercise logical thought.

Good luck to you all - it's a tricky tricky situation.

Hi All,

We've had a little breakthrough here and I wanted to share it with you all.

Since birth Sabian has been constantly exposed to as many languages as I could possibly get my hands on. As a young baby we didn't choose between languages. Our aim was to keep his ear open to all the sounds of all the languages. I'm sure we missed a few but we did our best to keep the pathways open.

From around six months we started to concentrate on three languages - German, Japanese, Chinese. We also kept up, with less focus, Spanish, French and Italian then on odd occasions any other language we could expose him to. We never spoke these languages and never really made an attempt to learn with him. We picked up words obviously particularly from the songs but that was about all. We were frightened of influencing his accents.

When he started being able to talk I started a very basic (and really quite slackly didn't stick to it very well or very often) of each of the languages. The reason I didn't persist with these much (besides having a million other things to do with him) was that he kept translating. I knew he could read the words - he got too excited about some of them to not be knowing what picture was going to follow or whatever and a few times I thought I heard him read things off the IAHP picture dictionaries. I knew he understood the languages because he was following instructions in them for his Little Leaps games. I just couldn't get him to read them for me.

We recently realised that when we weren't in the room he would read the word in its written language and when we were he was translating. I had thought the he knew "erdberren" meant "strawberry" but couldn't say it.

I was wrong - he knew I didn't understand German!!! 

So we changed tacks and decided that despite our complete lack of talent for languages and our atrocious accents that we would start trying to learn alongside him.

That was a few weeks ago in that time we have done no more than learn a few words in each language and use them in front of him to each other.

All of a sudden my boy is running around talking in who knows what language or combination of which languages!!!!

It's amazing sentences in German with the correct syntax!!!! The german is easiest for us to pick up on but we've noticed the Spanish and Chinese and Japanese as well.

Once things settle after xmas I am going to use the Doman "teach your baby to write" as a method of teaching the foreign languages to all three of us. I will let you know how it goes.

I hope this helps other people who have been worried about teaching languages you don't know - it's easier just to remember that your kid is smarter than you and no matter how badly you teach it something will manage to sink in!

I don't get it - the majority of people in our generation and previous generations hated school. Very few reached their potential and most came out hating the learning process.

Then they're surprised that we want to try a different approach to schooling and education.

great site thanks

Good stuff DadDude,

One of my main motivations for teaching my boy to read (there were so many) was that I liked the idea of his reading ability being on par with his receptive language ability or at least close, I've found it tends to lie somewhere between his receptive and expressive language - now that gap is closing everything is becoming equal.

By age five or six, the book a learner reader is capable of reading is very different to the books they are capable of comprehending. This makes instilling a passion for the joy of reading difficult. How exciting can "A fat cat sat on a mat" be when they are capable of composing much more detailed narrative on a subject like dinosaurs during play?

Reading is an extension of language, so whatever language your baby is learning from birth, it makes sense to teach them the different forms the language can take.

If I had my time over (my son will always be an only child) I would have started brail and signing simultaneously rather than trying to fit them in later.

I too was taught to read and do maths very early. It meant a whole heap of things throughout life were easier for me (extra curricula activities and homework were never a problem I was able to cope because I had such good foundations). I want the same for my son.

Hope that made sense - I'm a bit tired.

As for the how - as long as it is stress free, non results-orientated and a time of joy and bonding the method comes close to being irrelevant, except..... I really feel the media has to be well thought out and tailored to the parent and child together.

A parent who has no time would be perhaps not be able to do a program at all without using the tv or computer. There are those who have no tv or computer. We must choose that which is within our means and abilities so as to make sure the entire process is joyous.

There are many cases throughout history of young children learning to read and their caregivers all used different methods, but were successful. It is timing and demeanor that will make it work I think.

Definitely interested.

Immediate things that jump to mind -
 
How much
payment method
what media
group lessons or private or both
What time zone

It's a great point you're making DadDude.

If they really wanted to research what we do, how we do it and what the results are this would be their ideal playground.

And yet....

Good luck with your essay - hope you shake things up a bit.

You're not too late - it may be a little harder for your daughter to sit still than a four month old so maybe just be really aware and in tune and follow her lead with the length of the sessions.

The tip to success is lots of fun between the two of you and not expecting the program to do all the work. The parents who are most successful are the ones who follow it up.

Have a great time with it, there are few things as precious as watching your young child read, read well and love reading.

Best of luck