My daughter is 12 months old.  I have tried introducing the written word to her through LR and YBCR a number of times (6 mo, 9 mo, 12 mo), and she initially responds well but turns from it within a few weeks.  I've set it aside again, and will try again in the future.  She is very tactile, doesn't enjoy being read to, and will only tolerate touchy feely books and for a brief period.  Her interests:  lacing beads, drawing, climbing, putting anything in her mouth, etc. (notice the trend).   

This is my second child.  I had a very different experience with teaching the first to read (although I didn't start trying to teach him at such a young age--we started at 17 mos), who was essentially obsessed with reading.  I'm not pushing this with her, for that surely would be counterproductive; however, any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I do wonder whether this is not a common experience with the younger child.

 

KL and Tanikit,
Thanks for the replies.  We get books with a range of reading levels from the library, and we keep all the easier books we own out for my dd (8 months).  When I'm occupied, he frequently just picks up a book at looks it over himself.  With the library books, his interests align best with the more challening stuff (US States, countries, space travel, the solar system, etc.)  That's a challenge for us b/c these books usually have too much info for him, even though they are dead on as far as interest goes.  I try to break things down into sizable chunks and do it in LR.  I read him fiction that's above his reading level (Beatrix Potter, Colleted Poems of Stevenson, and Andrew Lang's Fairy Books).  I'm really shocked that he lets me read the latter to him, but hey, I'll go with it. 

KL, first of all, you have a wonderful product.  Thank you!   I did take a video, for my own future enjoyment if nothing else.  Maybe I'll post a section.

You're right, Tankikrit.  They do go through phases, as they develop and as interests change.  There are challenges for me as the parent/educator, but when I'm attentive to my chidlren's interests, the learning is always fun.

Hi all,

I've owned LR for 6 months now, but have only posted once on the forum.  Here's my background:

I have two children, ds who's 32 mos and dd who's 8 months.  I didn't give early reading much credence until my son was approaching eighteen months olds, and we found ourselves bored.  I started with YBCR (the only product I knew of at the time) and he blew through it.  I ended up buying LR shortly after he turned two b/c I didn't feel I was keeping up with making materials on my own with a new baby.  We went through semester 2, especially to continue with the phonics, and I've been entirely making my own playlists on LR for a while now.  Right now, I feel starting homeschool is a must within the next three months. 

I started LR with dd a month ago.  She laughs and smiles through it, but I find her attention drifts during the last catergory of the multisensory section.  Then, with the picture flash, she's back on it.

My son is 2.5 now.  Yesterday, I showed him an usborne first reader book, level 4 (~750 words per book, 48 pages, 40 words/page, 3-6 lines of text per page, about 8-15 words in a sentence).  He read the whole book.  I did not read it to him first, and he had never seen it before.  He was a little off on 5 words at most.  I did underline the text with my finger to help keep him focused, and he frequently stopped to look at the pictures and talk about them, but he did need my encouragement to continue with the text after each break to talk about it.   I'm not concerned about this; it seems developmentally appropriate.  My question is do you recommend doing anything for increasing stamina, or is this just something that will switch over as he develops?

I'm continuing to use little reader to increase vocabulary and doing stories on it as well, increasing the number of words per page over time.  I figure he'll just get there when he does with this method.  I do have an inclination to go quickly though.  I've plugged verse like Lewis Carol's "Jabberwocky" into LR, font of 90, up to 6 lines per page, and he liked it so much he asked for it many times in a row (and now recites it when he's playing).  I included no pictures.  I initially did this in black text, but changed to red/blue with each syllable b/c I think he could still use it. 

Please share any experiences you may have regarding the transition to independent reading, including but not limited to decreasing text size, increasing word count/lines of text/ words per sentence, switching to black text, reading aloud vs. only doing a reading program on LR, etc.