When pointing, remember that in native reading text pointing is a bit different than what most parents tend to do. I posted a long quote from the book on text pointing a while back, it's in the thread:

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/native-reading/

It may seem like a subtle difference but I think it's important.

Btw, you're not alone in having difficulty getting your little one to sit still for flashcards. I never used flashcards. One of the things I liked best about native reading is that the methods are flexible and socially interactive. Many of the techniques and games in the "Native Reading" book are social, and encourage movement and manipulation of letter toys and words. That's one of the big differences compared to flashcard methods and YBCR videos. My daughter was also very active and liked to grab things and be physical, and with native reading she used this to her advantage  -  playing word hide and seek, playing at labeling things around the house  -  rather than having her curiosity and energy be a problem.

Native reading worked wonderfully for my daughter. I had already been reading with her pretty much daily, and doing a bit of "letter play" even earlier, so she had a neurological base. But after about 6 months of native reading techniques, for maybe 15-30 minutes per day, on average, she really took off. (Kailing emphasizes consistency -- doing at least a little native reading activity each day, even if it's only reading with implicit text pointing -- rather than stressing a lot of time in a given session.)  She could read anything by her third birthday, and in the months since then, she's continued to gain more fluency and confidence.

I especially like how native reading taught her both phonics and whole word skills together.  I don't know why many people emphasize one over the other, when both skills seem critical to me. Kailing argues that it is best neurologically to learn them together.

I really think Kailing's "Native Reading" and Lise Eliot's "What's Going on in There" are two recent books that should be required reading for any educated parent.

Don't give up, but do consider supplementing with other methods!  I used Kailing's Native Reading techniques successfully with my daughter -- native reading methods are much more social and kinetic.  My daughter was not a baby that liked to sit still and watch things -- not flashcards or videos (and, even if they work for some parents, I have reservations about having my child plopped in front of the TV multiple times a day!). She liked to move and grab and play with things, she liked to be physical.

Kailing's methods are all social, interactive play that include spoken word-written word correlations. Much more like natural baby and toddler play.  I know flashcards seem to work for many parents here, but I do think it is too artificial and a overly static environment for some children at least.  And even for those it does work for, I think native reading methods are a useful complement. 

Native reading is newer, so not as many people know about it as Titzer and Doman, it shares some of the same ideas, but it has a more "naturalistic" emphasis, trying to teach reading in a parallel manner to how children learn speech -- not through simplified stimuli like videos or flashcards.

The native reading web site gives an introduction and some of the philosophy behind the methods. I especially like the intro chapter of the book that's online. Let me google it. Here:

http://www.nativereading.com/introduction.html

The chapter on dyslexia is also interesting and online.  There's also a description of native reading here at brillbaby:

http://www.brillbaby.com/teach-baby/native-reading-method/method.php

Just don't think that it is as simple as the text-pointing talked about there. The web sites definitely don't give you the full picture. In the book Kailing makes the point that text-pointing is not enough for most children. The native reading techniques are crafted to (A) develop a search image for letters and text  (B) develop a phonic cognitive "map" (in the brain) from letters to sounds (and back)  (C) develop a whole word "map," too, from written words to spoken words  (D) and most importantly, this is done through natural methods which are all fun and games that engage babies and toddlers and teach them socially, and flexibly, just like they naturally learn spoken language.  He really emphasizes customizing the games to each child's personality.  By the way, native reading methods are both "left brain," phonics-based AND "right brain," whole word-based.  It is a whole brain approach!

I think the native reading approach is less programmatic than Doman's or Titzer's, and a lot of parents do like to follow a "program" of, say, X number of flashcards, Y times a day. In contrast, Kailing explains a lot more about the "whys" behind the methods, so that if something is not working for your child you can modify the techniques to fit your unique little one, rather than be frustrated if your child "won't pay attention."

I'm not the best person to contrast Native Reading with Doman or YBCR, because I haven't read Doman or used any videos. I first read Native Reading this last spring, and I found this site when searching for sites about early reading.

Someone at brillkids has apparently knows about all of the methods because Kailing is discussed along with Doman and Titzer at some of the pages on this site (for example, on the pagehttp://www.brillbaby.com/teach-baby/why-teach-reading-early.php). Whoever did that can probably compare and contrast them. From reading around this site, and a few others, they share a lot, but there are some differences.

The core of native reading is some simple techniques and games that correlate the spoken language with the written language. I'll try to find a good short quote.

"To help your child learn to read natively all you need to do is use some simple techniques that consistently correlate the spoken language they are naturally absorbing with the written language that is almost entirely analogous in structure."

That's from the second chapter, which is called "The Correlation Method of Native Reading."

I'll try to find another quote on text pointing. The idea is pretty important but I don't quite trust myself to explain it right. Here's a quote on it from the book:

"When reading to their child nearly all parents point to the text sometimes, but in my experience almost every parent does this inconsistently and explicitly. They point inconsistently, meaning simply that most parents only very occaisionally point at the text. And parents usually point explicitly, meaning that they try to actively turn their child's attention to the word to which they are pointing, to teach it to them. Then here is how it often goes: because most children would rather look at the pictures, they seem to completely ignore their parent's pointing, therefore, most parents soon stop pointing because it seems useless. The common sense feeling is that if most of the time your child doesn't even look at the text you're pointing at, why bother? And if you point at the text only on occasion pointing probably is a waste of time -- especially if you interrupt the story to do so, if you disrupt the natural rhythm of the spoken word that helps hold a child's focus, or if you try to force children's attention away from the pictures that they prefer to look at. Done improperly, it could even be counterproductive: inconsistent and explicit text pointing disturbs the attention of a child, it interrupts the cadence of the language, and it ends up making reading more confusing for a child -- and a lot less fun. Text pointing improperly like this shows a fundamental misunderstanding because by pointing in this active way an adult is trying to explicitly teach reading to a child, and, in general, young children simply do not learn like this!
     To transform text pointing into a useful technique you need to make a subtle but crucial change of method. You need to make text pointing a consistent, accurate, but unobtrusive habit. Pointing in this way, you do not actively teach your child to read; rather, this passive text pointing simply makes the correlation of the spoken and written words consistently apparent for your child, and this is all children really need in order to learn how to read on their own. By this simple change, by making a consistent habit of accurately following the text with your finger as you read in your normal cadence, you take away nothing from your child's enjoyment in reading books with you. But what you add is tremendously important: your pointing finger dancing along the text in rhythm to your voice makes the correlation between your spoken words and the written words on the page entirely obvious and natural. In a native reading home, children do not need to be explicitly taught this relationship, it will just be a natural and obvious part of their world; they will simply absorb it. Rather than being a complicated new skill they have to struggle with later in childhood, reading is simply a natural extension of language as they have always known it. This sort of text pointing does require patience on the part of the parent, even a kind of faith, because during most of the time you and your child spend reading, your child will not be obviously following the text you are pointing to -- which is exactly how it should be!"


That's kind of a long quote, but I didn't know where to stop and still capture the idea. Proper implicit pointing is just one of the techniques, though. Like most of them, they don't really take any extra time, they are just things to do along with normal play and reading and games. The book has lots of examples.

I don't think I could really do justice to all twelve techniques here (my fingers are already aching from typing in the quote about pointing!). Although one of the 12 techniques is easy: Breastfeeding! Kailing is a big breastfeeding advocate, which I really like!

The biggest contrast I see are with Doman methods is that phonetics and whole word skills are BOTH taught, simultaneously -- although phonetic rules are taught through games and play where the kids figure them out naturally, and not through the explicit rules and rote exercises that are often used in schools. Kailing really emphasizes making everything fun and interactive and social.

I agree with KL that phonics versus whole word is not an EITHER/OR thing.  Or, at least, it shouldn't be.

I, do however, disagree with what many here seem to assume: that you can't teach phonic understanding as early as whole word understanding. My daughter learned about phonetic rules very early.

This may be the biggest way that the method I use with my daughter is different than the Doman method most people use here. I used Kailing's Native Reading method, and it emphasizes learning whole word "aha" methods right along with teaching phonetic awareness. Not either/or.

Of the 12 Native Reading Methods, several help develop phonetic awareness, but they do it all through play and consistent exposure, not through rote exercise. He's really into songs and poems and silly games that are fun first, but that also teach.

One of Kailing's methods (Technique 5) is pointing while reading, but it is a special kind of pointing. I really think it's important to realize that there is a right way to point for your child and a wrong way. Most people point in a way that is socially distracting for their child, and they do it inconsistently, and that done this way pointing can do more harm than good.

I think the reason native reading may successfully teach phonetic awareness really early is that it emphasizes interactive and social play. Some of the Doman methods seem more passive to me, and phonetics is a little harder I think. But as part of a game, it's not really so hard to learn. After just a few consistent weeks, my daughter picked up most of the letter sounds easily. She was (and is) mostly a whole word reader, she seldom bothers to laboriously sound out words, but she can when it is useful. She learned really early how to use phonetics to help her when the "aha" methods didn't work.

Really good phonetic understanding can come very early. In the book, Kailing tells a story of how his son, at about 24 months, liked to play a game of reading the symbols of a stock ticker on a stock market channel. Apparently he could sound them all out, despite how quickly they zoomed across the screen, and thought it was a hilarious game for a few weeks. But according to Kailing, despite this phonetic fluency he, too, usually read words as wholes rather than chopped up phonetic strings.

It shouldn't be either/or.  I think it's more about teaching right brain and left brain methods (if you believe in that sort of dichotomy) and teaching the whole brain to work together in a complementary way, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

This just came up in another thread, but I thought it deserved its own thread.

I wondered what others thought about Kailing's belief that many cases of dyslexia may actually be caused by reading too late. (Rather than the other way around, that reading late is caused by dyslexia.) It's in his book "Native Reading." His theory is discussed at brillbaby in the discussion of whole language vs. phonics at:

http://www.brillbaby.com/teach-baby/reading-whole-language-phonics.php

The chapter on dyslexia is also one of the sample chapters of "Native Reading" that's free online:

http://www.nativereading.com/chapter7.html

I think the ideas make a lot of sense, and I was wondering what others thought of it. If it's true, it means that by teaching our children to read very early ("natively" in Kailing's lingo) we may actually be lowering their chance of being dyslexic!

Tatianna,

Your story made me wonder if you knew about Kailing's ideas about late reading and dyslexia. In his book "Native Reading" he has a chapter on dyslexia where he shows how reading late could actually cause dyslexia, rather than the other way around (the way most people usually view it). He thinks that many dyslexics are very intelligent, but that they were taught low-level language too late in development.

His theory really seems to fit your history, especially the contrast with your siblings. The dyslexia chapter is one of the chapters of Native Reading that is free online. If your interested, it's at:

http://www.nativereading.com/chapter7.html

Generally, Kailing thinks that an either or approach, whole word versus phonics, is mostly a mistaken dichotomy. Like DomanMom said, kids learn the language rules bottom up (through example), rather than top down (by being explicitly taught the rules) -- but they certainly do learn them. Kailing calls this way that children learn "implicit learning" and he thinks that the traditional phonics approach is way too "top down" and that it can actually get in the way of fluency (I think most Doman readers would say phonics is too "right-brained").

By the way, the "Cmeabrgdie Uivsitney" text is a GREAT example, DomanMom!  It's amazing how easy it is to read!

kmum, both my kids have perfect eyes (so far at least). I, however, am nearly as blind as a bat without contacts or glasses. Hopefully it's not genetic. The pic is just one of the defaults that you get when you are too technically inept or lazy (or both!) to upload a real picture!

I found that sending my mom to the FAQ page at the Native Reading site worked well. It's at http://www.nativereading.com/faq.html.

She came away convinced and enthusiastic, whereas before she was very skeptical. Native Reading was my way into early reading for my kids. I only found out about the Domans after. I think Kailing's approach may come across as less confrontational for some people than the Doman's. I particularly think his analogy between reading and learning a second language in the first chapter is persuasive for many people. (It's also online: http://www.nativereading.com/introduction.html)

That's how I explain it to people anyway, I explain that, properly taught, learning to read early is like learning a second language early.

Still, people can get really competitive about how their kids are doing in comparison to others. It comes from a good place -- everyone wants to do right by their kids. But it can lead people to reject new ideas that challenge the way they've already done things. Expecting a parent of an older child to be positive about early reading is especially unlikely. They just feel like they missed the boat.

Because of this, parents of newborns, or those pregnant, are the most likely to be receptive. I also think there is an "unsolicited advice" reaction sometimes, people just don't want to be told how to do things sometimes, especially when it comes to raising kids. Especially face to face. So, as far as sharing the idea is concerned, I think giving a pregnant friend Native Reading or the Domans' book is sometimes better than talking to her about it. Doing things a bit more indirectly lets people feel like it is their idea, instead of yours. I'm not totally sure why this can be such a big factor, but it is.

In the book Native Reading: How to Teach Your Child to Read, Easily and Naturally, Before the Age of Three, the author has a pretty funny discussion of this issue, including a first kinda nightmare scenario with a preschool teacher who only saw a reading three year old as some sort of problem!

Kailing ended up switching to a Montessori school and found it worked really well for a bunch of different reasons. For example, the multi-age classrooms make the difference of ability less of a big deal (the oldest kids in class can often read), and the because the activities are child chosen and not all big group activities, a fluent-reading two or three year old can choose something appropriate for where they are at, and not have to sit bored while the whole class learns the alphabet together.

Montessori schools can vary quite a bit, but those points are pretty generally valid. The detailed discussion of native reading, the transition to school, and Montessori is in the notes of the book, on page 155, for those that have it. I know a few parents who have sort of skimmed the notes of Native Reading, because the notes are occasionally a little more scientific than the rest of the book. They're worth reading though, IMO.

There aren't any games or anything, but I like the info on the Native Reading web site.

The frequently asked questions page is an especially good place to send someone who doesn't understand what the idea behind early reading really is:

http://www.nativereading.com/faq.html

It worked to convince my mom, anyway. She thought that a toddler learning to read was kinda weird, but after reading the web page, she's totally converted. I also think the page on preventing dyslexia is really interesting.