From what I have learned, the early the better - as long as they are indicating - letting you know - that they are READY by showing pleasure and JOY in the activity (YOU must keep it ALWAYS joyous!!) - if they are frustrated or upset, take a break try again very soon - if they are often unhappy take more time before you try again.  With reading, the "pathways" have to be ready: eyesight gets better and better as newborns are both "LEARNING" how to see AND the physical anatomy - the eyes, nervous system, brain - is developing. But start with big bold fonts and huge EASY to read letters and THAT should help this development!! Please check out Glen Doman's work and the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential:

www.IAHP.org

James

They are almost all from "FANDEX GUIDES".  I buy EVERYTHING that I can USED from garage sales, craigslist.com, EBAY.com and NOW AMAZON.com has LOTS of used goods for sale (you'll see other prices - used and new selling price "OFFERS" -from other retailers on almost every Amazon page now). Everything that I can't find used I simply purchase at a discount through EBAY or AMAZON or from the original manufacturer or retail site.

Glenn and Janet Doman deserve almost all the credit - (www.iahp.com - I read ALL of their books and took their week long class) this is where I got the idea for these and they have an EXCELLENT selection and the profit goes to a great cause:

http://www.gentlerevolution.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=&Category_Code=FG

I hope that helps.
James

FLASHCARDS video play list link: Here is a link to around 26+ videos. The videos and play list are called "In a nutshell" - like a Glenn Doman "Gentle Revolution" Encyclopedic Knowledge or "bits of intelligence" series (www.iahp.org). Some repeat the same material and have the occasional mispronunciation- none are "perfect". All videos are of me quickly "flash carding" through all of the different Fandex series flash cards:

U.S. Presidents
50 U.S. States
World Explorer's
Old Testament
Modern (architectural) Wonders of the World
New York City
Washington D.C.
Insects and Bugs
Wild Flowers (scientific names...some slightly mispronounced perhaps...)
Trees: leaves, bark
Ancient Egypt: Mummies, Gods, Pharaohs
Africa
Dog Breeds

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLufsorRHlC-b8sUlmXRcTdyU-OU4M7CGs


I also have MANY, MANY valuable teaching and entertainment resources of all types - check out all of the play lists - on

my youtube channel
 
"EDU-TAINMENT"l:

https://www.youtube.com/JamesHGraff


Sorry, about all of the youtube ads.
I truly hope this is as helpful as possible.

Thanks!!
James

NJ: LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER (Jersey Shore): Jenkinsons Aquarium, Monmouth Children's Museum (ONE membership gives you FREE entrance to MOST of them!!!) on Brookdale Community College campus, Ocean County Planetarium, Play area and Carousel at Freehold raceway mall, Jackson) Six Flags Great Adventure (Safari drive through park and Water Park), (CAMDEN): NJ State Aquarium, ALL THE STATE PARKS (Allaire!!, the one in or near TOMS RIVER?!!!!...)

NYC: Manhattan: Children's Museum of Art (hands on!!), Sony Technology Wonder Lab (FREE!), Museum of Natural History (Pay what you want: 1 penny!) AND (three blocks up and west) Manhattan Children's Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art (awesome library and kids "tour") (Pay what you want: 1 penny!), Central Park Zoo and petting Zoo, FAO Schwartz, Ice skating in the park or at Rockefeller Center...

Brooklyn: ZOO, Botanical Gardens, Children's Museums, AQUARIUM
Bronx: Zoo, Botanical Gardens

PA-Philadelphia: PLEASE TOUCH MUSEUM, ZOO, Franklin Institute, Science Museum, Museum of Art,

Delaware Children's Museum

Maryland-Baltimore CHILDREN'S MUSEUM (one of the best - we toured many, many of them from NJ to Florida!), Aquarium,

VA-Richmond: Science and Children's musuem

NC-Charleston Children Museum AND CHRISTMAS/WINTER LIGHTS PARK!!!!

DC: ALL the museums on the MALL, zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens (Christmas time!! TRAINS!) Architectural childrens "Museum"?

FL: South Florida (I have to take a break and post ALL of these some other time - quick list: Ft Lauderdale Science Museum, West Palm Beach ZOO, Miami ZOO AND TRAIN museum, Childrens' Museums of Boca Raton, Boynton BEACH!!, ALL the nature walk PARKS!!! and WATER parks (in season), Boca Raton Childrens park, science museum and carousel -!!!!,....

Ice Skating!!, miniature and chip and putt golf (quail ridge, tinton falls, etc.), "paint and pour"!!, Little Gym!!, Gymboree!, YMCA!!!!, Firefly music, local theater and dance,

EDUCATIONAL/SKILL-BUILDING TOYS from Craigs List, Big pickup "garbage" day, garage sales (Belmar, Point Pleasant, Spring Lake Heights - most towns have town-wide sale days or weekends!) GOODWILL!!! www.shopgoodwill.com!!

I will try to post more later...

LIFELONG BAD HEALTH: One of the biggest and most important problems with TV/DVD watching: the horrible habit of spending too much time (more than half an hour a day) SITTING in front of ANY passive entertainment device AND the bad health that will result. Many, many studies show how highly detrimental a sedentary life is for any age person. And plenty more studies link these life styles back to TOO MUCH PASSIVE ENTERTAINMENT (TV) per week (more than a few hours TOTAL).

Obesity is a real life long threat and can always be traced back to a passive, sedentary life style. Heart disease, diabetes, depression all start somewhere.

Always remember that EVERYTHING you do with your child at such a young and impressionable age may effect them for the rest of their lives: books OR video...video OR exercise...they will usual take the easier and less educational/healthy way!! (We don't even have a TV and we still worry a great deal about any video watching - which is mostly all passive watching even when they are reading along - silently or out loud...)

We live in Monmouth County by the shore. Joe is 22 months old and counting and reading out loud in several languages!!  We would love to hear from anyone in the U.S. or Estonia or the Canary Islands...

James

I ordered all four of the complete sets of DVDs from BabyBit and they are very well made - but expensive for what you get. They offer four languages: English, French, Spanish and Catalan. Each set of DVDs is set up to be shown 3 times a day, five days a week - Domain style.  They teach math quantities as well (each lesson starts with math quantities and progresses all the way through multiple equations, numerals etc.) Excellent, no non sense, easy to use system. Definitely worth a try (especially for me since my LR and LM have been crashing almost constantly for many months now...)

I want to try the Little Leaps and Lyrical Language Learning!

Has anyone heard of any other children's "computer" that teaches various languages - because I found one on line - Fisher Price or Leap Frog or...?? - and now I can't find it again.  It taught many, many different languages - not just 5 or 6 but a whole assortment. I will keep searching for it online...Thanks! 

Hope I have helped.

James

Always keep in mind that you should really teach enjoyment, love, fun, respect, joy, etc. - when teaching anything to anyone. The rest will come. You should teach your children to LOVE to play all the instruments you can get them access to. Teach them to LOVE math, reading, etc. That is almost all that will be required for them to take over from there! (Obviously, you can and should "teach" these "skills" from the earliest age possible (before birth even!).

As far as being able to tell when they are ready to start learning the actual technical skills that will enable them to play more "sophisticated" music (hopefully of their choice...or yours...): try every so often to demonstrate very simple tunes that they have hopefully heard before (or not). And do occasionally show them - if they let you - physically how to play with one two fingers OR occassionally steer them into the proper techniques involved (proper drum stick handling for instance). But easy does it and always keep it as fun as possible - no pushing, no expectations - until they are ready and willing to exert their own expectations upon themselves. Teach them what the want to learn - the instruments, songs, etc. - and hopefully you can lead them to the most joyous use of their "talents" - a different instrument, more sophisticated tunes - whenever they let you know when they are ready. Time spent enjoying the instrument is what you are looking for not progress. Progress will come after they have decided to take the instrument up as one of the great loves of their lives!

Best of luck

James

"Will the child learn phonics??" Show them enough words and OF COURSE they will learn - and INTUIT - ALL the rules of phonics (and hopefully semantics! and syntax/grammer) - in ANY and EVERY language set (that you show them) - and way better than you would ever hope! It's really up to you and how much (and perhaps how clearly and well) you show them: a sponge that GROWS with USE!!

Please stop second guessing your child's ability: it is unbelievable!  I propose that the more complicated the material you throw at your child - in a clear, concise and comprehensible way - the better your child will be - in the long run - of learning more and more complicated material!!

Teach him ALL the musical instruments, ALL the languages you can, ALL the scientific data you can present logically to them!! His brain will work that much harder to comprehend and make sense of it all. He may not pick it ALL up, but he will become better at making sense of more and more complicated material - that's the idea isn't it??

Confuse them a little - every once in a while - make them "work" a little harder to figure things out. Let them succeed as often as possible, but let them be confused too!

You are teaching the JOY of everything under the sun and the JOY of learning or at least appreciating everything under the sun and stars - so present VAST amounts of data once in a while - boggle their minds once in a while - or as often as possible. Let them experience EVERYTHING on a given topic - if it can be done: let them look at and hear EVERY language - if you can! Let them see ALL the art that you can interest them in!

JOYOUSLY show them EVERYTHING that you can! Try it - it ought to be an awful lot of fun!

They WILL surprise you!

Start ASAP!! ASAP!! Reading is one of the most important skills you will ever teach your children and you should begin teaching this skill as soon as possible - from birth really (from birth you teach the ability to see black and white and then shapes - but you still show (and speak) very BIG, BOLD, basic important words to the newborn child!  Do you want your child to have the ability to "speed" read?? Then teach them very, very young - while the brain is still growing at it's fastest rate! Very few skills are more important (eat, drink, move, express themselves,...)

Hopefully, some day NOT attempting to teach very, very young people to read and do math will be a crime!! Would you deprive them of physical nourishment and stunt their physical growth??

Teach and show them just about EVERYTHING (positive) you can think of - whether you can do it yourself or not - and do it ASAP - and remember to ENJOY every single moment!!

Unfortunately I don't see or a have a "cog wheel" to click on next to my "Override" button (the override button seems to be hogging the entire space as only one button.)...??

(I do have a cog wheel button next to my pointer ON/OFF button...but not next to my override button...so...???)

The world is a drum (in other words you can "drum" on anything that makes a sound: everything makes a sound). And rhythm is the most fundamental of the four qualities in music (rhythm, pitch, tone, harmony). (And by far the most complicated and beautiful part of music can be rhythms!!) However, the voice is an instrument as well and teaches rhythm, pitch and tone. But the easiest instrument to teach all the qualities of music - the actual mechanics of music - is the keyboard.

The keyboard layout IS music theory - the white keys are a major scale from C (or any of 8 "modes" C Major or Ionian mode, A Natural minor or Aolian (sp?) mode, E phrygian, etc. starting on any of the 8 keys) the black keys are any of the five pentatonic scales (mainly F#/Gb Major or D#/Eb minor) AND this leads to almost all of music harmony being laid out before your eyes and hands!!

 Anyone can play a chord almost instantly on a keyboard (skip every other key and play three keys at the same time and you are playing a proper chord - any three notes is a chord by the way).  Anyone can certainly play single note instantly on a keyboard (violin takes a lot of training just to produce any proper note at all - which makes it good for training the ear - voice is great for this as well!)

EVERYONE should learn to drum, sing and play keyboards!! Playing with two hands is bi-dexterous and great for developing both sides of the brain - spatial, temporal, language - almost everything comes into play when singing and playing keyboards. After that, you can learn or teach ANY musical instrument with relative ease.

I teach and play ALL musical instruments.

James

I just ordered the ALL of the babybit DVDs - it looks like a great all-in-one educational system that teaches four different languages quite thoroughly. (I also bought all 10 tweedlewink DVDs today as well!)  I will report back when I have the DVDs in hand!

I purchased two or three little pim video downloads - I find them very, very slow going - even for me!! Our son must be bored out of his mind. The DVDs I found at the library - for adults - were way better - but still a bit slow going (even for me!)

James

You still can teach your children languages, violin and just about ANYTHING you or your child wants!! That is the main message from the Domans!

I would tell you that you can teach your children BETTER than the IAHP would. For example: they DON"T teach piano/keyboards, but you could very, very easily and this would do more for your child musically AND developmentally than teaching any other instrument. You could teach your child any or ALL the instruments! IAHP teaches mostly Japanese (as far as I could tell - I never heard any other language from the students - although they did talk about one of the Doman kids studying for a year in Mexico - but they don't really talk in depth about how well prepared he was for that...) You could teach many, many languages...if you wanted to and had the inclination...

Best of Luck

James

I took three different DVDs out from our local library - all schoolhouse rock DVDs. The first - and best for our son so far, at his age, 16 months - was the Multiplication with 10 videos (plus "bonus material") which teach most of the times tables and beyond (it even gets into base 12 a little!). The other DVDs are GRAMMER and ELECTION COLLECTION (U.S. HISTORY/Civics) and both are excellent as well. What is included in the 30h anniversary DVD??

James