I think it's an important topic.  I've done plenty of book searches over the years and have bought shelves worth.  Although my son is willing to read those books with us if we're enthusiastic..., the only ones he picks up to read himself (so many times that the pages are all taped together) are 'toolbox twins, backhoes, bulldozers, and some construction books in Finnish).  He has carried those books everywhere and slept beside them.  Boys like to know about machines and tools, their parts, how they work.  Real stuff, with important info, but written at a kid's level.  Unfortunately most kids books are overly simplified stories staring little animals.  I think boys would love to read as much as girls if offered topics to their interest.

We'd love to test the little musician!  My husband reads music and has been playing the guitar since childhood. We taught our first child to read from 3-months using heaps of handmade cards. I'd like to try the little musician with our second child who is nearly 3 months old.  From past experience i think it's a huge advantage to start during this stage of brain development when the baby absorbs it all without effort! We'll also be using LR.  Hope you'll consider allowing us into the beta-testing phase!

In my opinion youngsters who have been taught to read will read so long as it's of their own choosing.  They will prefer a book or certain subject or even a single page within a book.  I can't imagine trying to force them to read things which don't interest them.  If you get a feel for what they are interested in and read about that, letting them choose when to participate then it'll be fun !  Of course reading takes up only a few minutes here and there as most of their time is spent playing.

My kids first and seemingly final passion is machines and it hasn't changed.  Everything from vacuum cleaners to backhoes.  He knows all the brand names and all the part names which I've been able to teach him.  Oddly he has favorites within machine categories.  He'd gladly learn the names of all the engine parts and how they work if I prepared that info for him.  He's 2.5 years and speculates on their functions and possible uses.  I know nothing about such things.  Unfortunately mom has zero interest in machines but is bullied into making lego juicers, cranes, weed eaters, etc to no end!  Every stick he finds outside instantly becomes a machine and he'll gladly 'saw'  for an hour.  I'd like to encourage his one and only passion but I can barely endure discussions of  caterpillar, bobcat, kobelco, new holland.... backhoe brands.   If any machine passionate parent out there cares to upload some 'specific' machine related categories, it would be appreciated by my lil one!!

I read the book 'teach ur baby to read' and thought it made perfect sense n' therefore got started.  It worked so quickly and my son was communicating from a very early age.  I would never have understood how his mind works or had so much patience with him if it weren't for his ability to communicate his thoughts.  I would have assumed he had a one-track mind when in fact he was making connections between all sorts of things constantly.   Also, it is something we can do together which is fun for both of us.  That's reason enough for me!

I recently started teaching my 28-month-old to spell. I got her some 3-letter and 4-letter word puzzles, a set of wooden letter beads to string (she loves stringing activities), and a set of upper- and lower-case letter stamps. I also started showing her some words on spellingcity.com and she seems to like it. I was wondering if there are any other good resources for teaching spelling to a toddler? She is already reading comfortably at a second-grade level so I thought this would be the right time to introduce spelling. Do you think it's too early? I have read somewhere that kids who learn to read by the whole-word approach (vs. phonics) may have a harder time learning to spell later on or they become atrocious spellers. Is there any truth to this assertion?
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From the iahp bookshop you can buy a little booklet called ''teach your baby to write''. (U have to request it as not listed on the website).   It neatly explains how to teach spelling as one of the steps to writing.  I got a set of big wooden letters and followed the method.  It only took 3 month of playing the spelling game to teach my son to spell.  25-28 month.  The funny thing was that he was just as interested in remembering 'misspellings' as the correct ones.   Now he can spell pretty well, even long words if it's something of interest to him.

My son's favorite reading material for many many months was his daily journal.  In appropriate print size etc, we'd simply write about his daily sightings and encounters in a notebook.  It's a perfect way to add in new vocab words.  No word is to big when it describes his things!   He would ask to read his notebook daily and get so excited to review his day that way.  He never got tired of reading those!  We have a whole stack of notebooks. 

Does anyone have a crawling track they'd like to donate or sell.  I'm due in 5 mo. and would love to use one this time round but the iahp tracks are out of my price range.