hi Tessa
My daughter is 18 months old and has been using LR almost every day since she was 12 month old and before that it was YBCR. The trick is to be consistent and to make reading and spotting word in your environment an every day activity. Words are everywhere and your child will be able to read the same words in different fonts and in different places, just turn it all into a game and have fun with it.
Ive written words all over my daughters toy block and she loves to go through them and show me that she knows what they say. Ive written words all over dolls to point out body parts. I stuck stickers on things like wardrobes, doors, balls, anything and everything.
Every kid is different and will go through different stages. This may or may not help

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/stages-infanttoddler-go-through-when-learning-whole-words/msg90795/#msg90795

Just whatever you are doing just keep doing it regularly and they will show you in their own time.

I have been watching your cub swimming in recent posts, Its interesting to watch how relaxed your cub is. I might have to try this with number two child. Will you send to New Zealand?

I love it, thanks very much.
I like how it has added the Dolch list words as sight words. I was just about to spend hours of my time adding those word in somehow so thats very much

I found my daughter did the same thing when she saw something new for the first time. The first time I noticed it was about two months after starting YBCR (she was 5 months old) and the DVD moved onto Circles and other Shapes. She cried at the same point of the DVD when ever she saw the circle. I turned it off at that point cos i wanted it to be fun for her. But i would then show her again the next day and we would get a little bit more past it each time before we would turn it off.
She still kind of does it when she sees something very new or unexpected, she almost protests to really new ideas but I still try and expose her to whatever it is but in a very positive way. I make sure there are things she does know before and after and it doesnt take long for her to relax into the idea of it and usually whatever made her cry then becomes one of her favourite thing for awhile

[Research on “Your Baby Can Read” (Part 1 of 3)]

Here I have cut and paste it for those that want a quick look (its quite long tho, three parts, part three is still on the facebook page)


Research on “Your Baby Can Read”
(Part 1 of 3)

Dear Interested Parties,

As a trained scientist in infant research, I have always encouraged other scientists to study our products or early literacy in general. We also have been open to sharing the results of the studies. Our little company, The Infant Learning Company, had research on its websites back in the early 2000s until we sold the rights to YBCR in 2007. There have now been 14 studies on YBCR, as far as I know, and the 14th study is still ongoing. ILC does not own all of the data and all of the reports, so I am putting abstracts or highlights from the studies here. As with most research, any individual study could be criticized for one reason or another, but all 14 of the studies show positive results and none show negative effects.

In addition to all of the studies on YBCR, there are also studies on early literacy showing the earlier a child is taught to read, the better the child reads – even when controlling for IQ and socio-economic status. Also, I have tested babies informally for more than 20 years with the primary objective of assessing the baby’s individual ability to read, so I could advise the parents about appropriate activities for their babies. These tests have allowed me to repeatedly see that babies can read. Obviously -- as far as evidence that the program works – in addition to the following studies -- there are also many thousands of babies and toddlers who can read who I have met in person or I have watched in videos.

Briefly, the following 14 studies show that more than 90% of parents who have used the program -- even those parents who don’t follow the instructions – when asked “How do think the YBCR program influenced your child’s ability to read?” say that YBCR “helped significantly” or “helped more than any other activity” and none said that it hurt their child’s ability to read. Additionally, when the babies were tested by teams of scientists, the babies who had used YBCR scored significantly higher than control group babies (babies who did not use YBCR) on every single measure: receptive language, expressive language, overall language abilities, and overall cognitive abilities. If you read highlights from studies 10-12, you will see that these are not small differences. Of the babies who consistently used YBCR for at least 7 months only about 15% ended up in the “average” range when tested on a standardized language measure with normative data. The other 85% of babies who used YBCR were in the “high average” (36.4%), “superior” (33.3%), or “very superior” (15.2%) ranges. A same-socio-economic status control group had 76% in the “average” range with 12% of babies in the “low average” range and 9% in the “high average” range and 3% in and the “superior” range. None of the control group babies were in the “very superior” range. Even on tests of overall cognitive ability, the babies who had used the YBCR program consistently for at least 7 months scored significantly higher than a same-socio-economic status control group. The control group had 3% in the “extremely low” range, 13%, in the “borderline” range, 31% in the “low average” range, 50% in the “average” range, and 3% in the “high average” range. The YBCR group had 45% in the “average” range, 19% in the “high average” range, 23% in the “superior” range, and 13% in the “very superior” range.

Dr. Bob Titzer




Research on “Your Baby Can Read” -- Studies 1-7
(Part 2 of 3)

1. TITZER, R. (1998, April). Case Study of an Infant Exposed to Written Language. Presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies. Atlanta, Georgia.
Case Study of an Infant Exposed to Written Language

PURPOSE

To determine the long-term effects of a baby’s consistent exposure to written language.

METHOD

The participant began the program at age 3 months, 8 days and her progress was followed through six years of age. The baby viewed words on paper plates, word cards, books and a prototype of the “Your Baby Can Read” videotapes using a multisensory, interactive approach. Through these activities, the baby was allowed to see the words, hear the words, see and hear what the words meant, and often perform physical actions related to the words, such as clapping or waving. The baby viewed words daily. She watched the videotape nearly every day for seven months. She watched the tape one to three times a day but she did not watch any entertainment-based television as a baby. The amount of time spent playing with words and looking at words varied from day-to-day based on the baby’s interest and
the researcher’s schedule. On average, she spent about an hour a day watching the videos or looking at words on cards or in books until the age of 12 months.

RESULTS

3 to 7 months

No indication that she recognized any of the words; however she enjoyed the interactive activities. New words were generally added a few times a week

7 ½ months

First demonstrated that she recognized a word – she touched her foot when she saw (but did not hear) the word “foot”

9 months

Demonstrated that she recognized 30 consecutive words by saying the word or performing an appropriate physical activity for each word

10 months

Consistently recognized more than 100 words visually

12 months
Consistently recognized more than 400 words visually, showed some generalizability of learning by flipping novel word cards from upside-down to up-right positions

14 months

New words were learned quickly by the parents simultaneously pointing and saying words in books, reading Go Dog, Go! By Dr. Seuss, favorite books – Word Bird ™series by Moncure, books with Tweety ™

18 months

Could phonetically read most words (including nonsense words), read first grade level books from the library that she had never seen, often generalized lower case learning

19 months

Used character voices when reading stories

24 months

Read an average of around 20 books per day – favorites included The Ladybug and Other Insects™ , The Earth and Sky™, and the Frog and Toad™ series

3 years

Preferred non-fiction books about dinosaurs, archeology, and geography; Read the 314 page The World of Pooh book by A.A. Milne in less than 2 hours

4 years

Continued interest in non-fiction books – mostly science related topics; Favorite series – The Magic School Bus, also had a high interest in fiction

4 years, 15 days

Was tested by an independent clinical psychologist using the following tests with the following results:

Woodcock-Johnson –Revised Tests of Achievement (for reading skills)
Test Grade Level Percentile
Letter-word Identification 5.8 Above 99.9
Word Attack 11.9 Above 99.9
Passage Comprehension 4.2 Above 99.9
Comments: (She) demonstrated very unusual skills for a child her age in phonics, and she was very capable in decoding a variety of nonsense words that were shown to her. She also did very well on the Letter-Word Identification subtest, for which she was asked to read actual words. Similarly, her score on the Passage Comprehension task was very outstanding for a child her age.

4 years, 15 days
Received a perfect score on a standardized IQ test administered by an Independent psychologist. The probability of receiving this score was 0.00003 or 1 out of 33,333.

5 years

Preferred fiction, especially mysteries and Winnie-the-Pooh stories

6 years

Preferred mysteries, fantasies and classics

DISCUSSION

This study detailed the remarkable progress of a baby who was allowed to see the language from the age of 3 months, 8 days onward. This illustrates that it is possible for babies to learn to read at high levels at the same time they are learning to understand and say words. This exposure appears to have enhanced her overall language mastery as was evident in the testing.

2. TITZER, R. (1998, April). Evidence that 2- and 3-Year-Old Babies and Toddlers Can Visually Discriminate Written Words. Presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies. Atlanta, Georgia.
Evidence that 2- and 3-Year-Old Babies and Toddlers Can Visually Discriminate Written Words

PURPOSE

This study investigates 2- and 3- year old babies’ and toddlers’ abilities to visually discriminate written words.

METHOD

Thirty-two children (ages 24 to 40 months, 18 African-American and 14 Caucasian) participated in this double-blind study. Half of the children viewed an interactive videotaped segment from the “Your Baby Can Read” video which displayed six words and video images representing those words for two minutes prior to beginning the test. First, the children viewed the word. An arrow moved from left to right under each word as the word was verbalized. Next they viewed images that represented the meaning of the word. The following target words were used: crawling, eyes, ears, smiling, clap, and gorilla.

The other half of the participants did not view the “Your Baby Can Read” videotape prior to being tested.

During the test, children viewed the target word and a novel word that were presented simultaneously. The target was either above or below the novel word in one test, and to the left or right in the other test. Children were asked to point to the target words. The children were tested two times on each word. The order of the positioning of the target words (right or left, up or down) was counterbalanced. For the first three words, the target word was displayed on the TV monitor while the child was tested. For the final three words, the monitor was turned off before the test words were presented.

RESULTS

The control group of 16 children did not recognize the correct words above chance. Both the two-year-old and three-year-old participants in the experimental group could recognize the written words above chance p < .05). This was true even when the TV monitor was turned off.

DISCUSSION

Children are able to visually discriminate words much earlier than what is currently accepted. This study suggests that 2- and 3-year-old babies and toddlers are capable of visually recognizing words. This is an age range that is about 3 or 4 years younger than the current age at which reading is taught in the U.S.

Other studies support that very young infants may have the perceptual abilities to recognize written words and that exposure to language while the brain is rapidly developing may influence the effectiveness of brain connections.

There is much evidence that acquiring language skills in early childhood affects the long range performance of those skills. For instance, syntax ability (Coppieters, 1987), grammatical ability (Johnson & Newport, 1991), speech production (Oyama, 1976) and sentence processing skills (Mayberry, 1993) are better when learned in early childhood rather than in adolescence. Children who learned to read at age 3 and 4 read a couple of grades above same-IQ children who learned to read at later stages – this advantage continued throughout childhood (Durkin, 1970). In contrast, language deprivation during early childhood has lasting negative effects (Curtiss, 1977).

3. TITZER, R. (1995). Pilot study to determine if other infants could learn to recognize written words from a video and to determine an optimal pace for the video. (Unpublished pilot study).
Eleven parents were given one VHS “Your Baby Can Read” pilot video and detailed instructions. The infants’ ages varied from 8 months of age to 12 months of age at the beginning of the study. The pace of the video varied from relatively slow to relatively fast. According to the parents’ reports, the fast paced parts of the video held the infants’ attention better than the slow-paced parts. The parent instructions appeared to be too complicated. In order to follow the instructions, parents had to rewind the VHS video to a particular point on the video and stop the video at a different point. The starting and ending points changed as the babies were supposed to have new words on the video introduced weekly. Most of the parents did not follow the instructions. All four parents who followed the instructions reported that their babies could “act out” at least one word when they saw, but did not hear, the words within three months. This study showed how important it is to make a program that is easy for the parents to use. It also verified that it is possible for babies to learn to read words from watching a video.
4. TITZER, R. (1997). Case Study of a Second Infant Learning Written Language. (Unpublished study on Keelin Titzer). Keelin began viewing her reading video on June 15, 1994 at the age of two months, 0 days. On average, she watched the video for about 45 minutes per day. Keelin did not watch any other TV programs or videos in early infancy. Keelin could demonstrate the meanings of seven consecutive written words without hearing them when she turned 8 months of age when given recall tests. In other words, when the word “clap” was shown to her – she consistently would clap. When she saw the word “wave” she would wave her hand. By 12.5 months of age, Keelin would generally turn her head upside down when shown a long word (five or more letters) that was upside down. This appeared to demonstrate that she had learned a general pattern of what words look like and she recognized when the individual or groups of letters in a long word did not fit that pattern. Keelin became skilled at matching toys or objects with the written words that represented the toys or objects. By 15 months of age, when four words were scattered on the floor where she could see them and she was handed a small toy/object that matched one of the words, she would take the object and place it on or next to the corresponding word. By 18 months of age, when Keelin was given two novel written words – for example “newspaper” and “computer” – she would consistently point to the word that was spoken. This appeared to show that Keelin had learned some phonetic patterns by 18 months of age.

TITZER, R. (1998, April). Infants’ and Toddlers’ Abilities to Visually Discriminate Written Words. Presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Atlanta, Georgia.

Infants’ and Toddlers’ Abilities to Visually Discriminate Written Words
Robert C. Titzer, PhD.
Department of Kinesiology, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA 70403 U.S.A.

Presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, April 2-5, 1998, in Atlanta, Georgia

Converging evidence in the areas of reading education, language acquisition, brain development and infant research indicates that most of our nation’s reading problems could be prevented by teaching reading during the window of opportunity for learning language. Developmentalists have discovered that young infants have remarkable perceptual abilities (e.g., Baillargeon, 1986, 1991). In these studies, infants as young as 3.5 months old visually perceived differences in complex events. Additionally, infants can also perceive figure-ground relationships (e.g., Bertenthal, 1993; Craton & Yonas, 1990). In a related area of study, neurobiologists have revealed that infants’ brains develop differently based on the age at which they learn a second language (Posner, 1997). Children’s brains were able to adapt and become more efficient when they learned the language before the age of four compared with learning later in life. Moreover, other studies suggest that infants learn language faster than older children (e.g., fast mapping).

Combined, all of this work suggests that infants are capable of learning to visually discriminate written language much earlier than age six and that learning to recognize written language during infancy may allow their brains to develop more efficiently for recognizing written words.

Two studies will investigate infants’ abilities to visually differentiate words.

OVERALL CONCLUSION

Study One demonstrated that children are capable of visually differentiating written words several years earlier than school age.

Study Two suggests that babies and toddlers who are frequently exposed to written language may learn this aspect of language at the same time as they learn auditory and spoken language. This study indicates that it is possible for an 18-month-old infant to read at a level that is higher than the average seven year old American. Neuroplasticity in Broca’s area appears more efficient when the child learns language skills in the first four years of life compared to age five or later (Hirsch, 1997). It is possible that the baby in the case study similarly developed efficient pathways for reading because she learned to read as an infant. Rather than utilizing a separate area of the brain for reading, it is possible that babies develop more efficient pathways more closely connected to spoken and receptive language areas.


5. TITZER, R. (1999). Five-month-old infants’ abilities to discriminate written language. Invited guest speaker. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA.
This study used common looking time measures to determine if 5 month-old infants could visually differentiate written words. Twenty-eight 5-month-old infants were habituated to written words. A double-blind procedure was used to investigate whether 5-month-old infants could visually differentiate the word “clapping” from the word “wave.” Looking times decreased over trials, then leveled off, for the word “clapping.” When the novel word “wave” was introduced, looking times increased significantly indicating that the babies could visually differentiate those written words.

Completely independent
6) In 2002, a master’s thesis by Eileen Downey (a student I did not know) was completed and published as a thesis using part of the YBCR system to successfully teach children with autism language skills. She found that YBCR worked about as well as an individual therapist to help children with autism do certain physical skills.

Completely independent
7) In 2009, Annette Perkins, a student (whom I did not know at the time), conducted unpublished work using YBCR and reported success when parents used the program consistently. The parents who used the program had babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who were reading words.

That is so exciting, Im so excited for you and yes to be doing that at 14months is really really good I think.
At 16 or 17 months my daughter read "nutmeg" out loud after the packet fell to the floor, I asked her to say it again and she said it twice. I was amazed as it was a word I had never shown her before, she has done it since to a few other words since. Its exciting to know it all going in and clicking!!
Keep up the good work, babies can do anything!!

 

Thanks for a update, we love the improvements already

I found this very interesting on the Your Baby Can Read Facebook page
Read more http://www.facebook.com/YourBabyCanRead


Research on “Your Baby Can Read” -- Studies 1-7
(Part 2 of 3)

1. TITZER, R. (1998, April). Case Study of an Infant Exposed to Written Language. Presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies. Atlanta, Georgia.
Case Study of an Infant Exposed to Written Language

PURPOSE

To determine the long-term effects of a baby’s consistent exposure to written language.

METHOD

The participant began the program at age 3 months, 8 days and her progress was followed through six years of age. The baby viewed words on paper plates, word cards, books and a prototype of the “Your Baby Can Read” videotapes using a multisensory, interactive approach. Through these activities, the baby was allowed to see the words, hear the words, see and hear what the words meant, and often perform physical actions related to the words, such as clapping or waving. The baby viewed words daily. She watched the videotape nearly every day for seven months. She watched the tape one to three times a day but she did not watch any entertainment-based television as a baby. The amount of time spent playing with words and looking at words varied from day-to-day based on the baby’s interest and
the researcher’s schedule. On average, she spent about an hour a day watching the videos or looking at words on cards or in books until the age of 12 months.

RESULTS

3 to 7 months

No indication that she recognized any of the words; however she enjoyed the interactive activities. New words were generally added a few times a week

7 ½ months

First demonstrated that she recognized a word – she touched her foot when she saw (but did not hear) the word “foot”

9 months

Demonstrated that she recognized 30 consecutive words by saying the word or performing an appropriate physical activity for each word

10 months

Consistently recognized more than 100 words visually

12 months
Consistently recognized more than 400 words visually, showed some generalizability of learning by flipping novel word cards from upside-down to up-right positions

14 months

New words were learned quickly by the parents simultaneously pointing and saying words in books, reading Go Dog, Go! By Dr. Seuss, favorite books – Word Bird ™series by Moncure, books with Tweety ™

18 months

Could phonetically read most words (including nonsense words), read first grade level books from the library that she had never seen, often generalized lower case learning

19 months

Used character voices when reading stories

24 months

Read an average of around 20 books per day – favorites included The Ladybug and Other Insects™ , The Earth and Sky™, and the Frog and Toad™ series

3 years

Preferred non-fiction books about dinosaurs, archeology, and geography; Read the 314 page The World of Pooh book by A.A. Milne in less than 2 hours

4 years

Continued interest in non-fiction books – mostly science related topics; Favorite series – The Magic School Bus, also had a high interest in fiction

4 years, 15 days

Was tested by an independent clinical psychologist using the following tests with the following results:

Woodcock-Johnson –Revised Tests of Achievement (for reading skills)
Test Grade Level Percentile
Letter-word Identification 5.8 Above 99.9
Word Attack 11.9 Above 99.9
Passage Comprehension 4.2 Above 99.9
Comments: (She) demonstrated very unusual skills for a child her age in phonics, and she was very capable in decoding a variety of nonsense words that were shown to her. She also did very well on the Letter-Word Identification subtest, for which she was asked to read actual words. Similarly, her score on the Passage Comprehension task was very outstanding for a child her age.

4 years, 15 days
Received a perfect score on a standardized IQ test administered by an Independent psychologist. The probability of receiving this score was 0.00003 or 1 out of 33,333.

5 years

Preferred fiction, especially mysteries and Winnie-the-Pooh stories

6 years

Preferred mysteries, fantasies and classics

DISCUSSION

This study detailed the remarkable progress of a baby who was allowed to see the language from the age of 3 months, 8 days onward. This illustrates that it is possible for babies to learn to read at high levels at the same time they are learning to understand and say words. This exposure appears to have enhanced her overall language mastery as was evident in the testing.

I just use masking tape and cover the smaller text a couple of times so you can't see it through the tape and then write on it bigger and bolder with a black marker. The good thing about masking tape is that when she gets older i can always pull off the masking tape and there hopefully will be no damage to the book.
The "spot" book are quite basic and have clear words, but i took it a step further and added lables to the pictures eg "dog" "hat" "ball" etc and used signing while i pointed out the added words in the book. This worked really well.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think.html

here is the link to the ted talk

We were on the edge of our seats watching this. Your cub is obviously relaxed and trusting. You are doing an amazing job. wow

mum2tiger -  thats interesting, before your post I think i thought it was more the parents decision what method to follow but i can now see that you noticed where your child wanted to go and you did the right thing and lead him there. That make me feel even more confident in what I am doing as my dd is defiantly into whole words with comprehension, she turns away at the last phonic part of Little Reader cos the words are too new and don't have pictures.
You should write down your own chart from your own personal experience and share it here with us.

Korrale - that is so cool and interesting thanks for sharing

[This is in a rough order and some stages overlap and never end, But its interesting to see the learning develop.]

This is in a rough order and some stages overlap and never end, But its interesting to see the learning develop.

Start reading to your child, showing and developing an awareness of written words as young as three months old, once a infant has eye tracking control.

Infant may not show interest in the written word for quite a few months but they will be interested in the adults voice and touch that comes along with the process so keep going and keep it short and fun.

Infant may start to show interest in words written in their home environment.

Parents might notice the infant is interested in written words outside of the home environment, they may turn their head or lean out of your arms when you walk near big bold signs, if so stop and read it with them.

They recognises their first word, eg Parent asks "what one is .." child pick the right one most of the time. Keep this short and fun, you dont want it to feel like a test and have negative effects on your infant/toddler

The childs participation alongside words and songs increase eg clap their hands, touch their toes etc

They are slowly recognises more and more words

Understanding how to turn pages in a book and holding the book the correct way up.

May use gestures or sign language to show they can read words that they can not verbally speak yet

Being able to read various font sizes (which is partly related to age and partly to exposure and sometimes requires teaching)

Fast mapping stage, pick up new words very quickly form only seeing and hearing them only once or twice

Child points out words everywhere and any time expecting you to inform them of what that new word is. If you were keeping track of the words your child knows, this is where you start to loose track

Being able to read both capitals and small letters (depends on method of teaching)

Child reads new words they have never seen before or have ever been taught - extract the rules of phonics and apply them to new words.

Knowing to read from left to right and top to bottom.

Fluency with reading as well as age related pronunciation issues of various speech sounds.

Guided reading with a parent vs independent reading (this can vary greatly from child to child)

The ability to handle increasing amounts of print per page.

Teaching a younger sibling to read (variable)

Requesting longer and longer picture book read alouds and later chapter book read alouds and eventually reading these books alone

Learning to read becomes reading to learn (this can also begin almost simultaneously with learning to read and is more likely to happen faster in younger children/babies learning to read)

Keep adding to this list if you think there is something we have missed

KristaG - Did you make your own home made books to encourage reading phrases and sentences in books or did you just mostly help out with unfamiliar words in sentences and allow them to read our loud the words you know they know.
Some people judge "comprehension" by asking a reading child questions about what they have just read and then see their comprehension from the childs answer. I think answering questions is more advanced then comprehension of phrases/words as I know my DD knows the meaning of each word by itself but I'm still unsure if she understands when there are three or more word together. So yeah i guess there is different levels of comprehension depending on the age.
 "We did not stop learning new words, as you mentioned above, they were still learning  more difficult words but.." Krista G - I never said they stop learning new words, Im not sure where you read that.

Tanikit -  Yeah no child is the same, as no teaching and environment is the same. Although in saying that it would be interesting to see how twins get on learning to read with whole words. Are there any mums out there with twin that anyone knows of
Tanikit -Thanks so much for you input and extra stages I will do some modifications so the stages shortly.