We are going through LMs again with my 2 year old.  She loves watching the extra lessons at the end of each days lessons.  But for some reason none of them are showing up anymore.  No matter what day's knowledge lessons we go to, all the videos are just black and we can't click on them. 


By the way, we love this program!!!  This is my 3rd time through it, first time with only my oldest, 2nd with both, and now with only my youngest.  Do you have any plans to release the next semesters????   

In my opinion, if he is interested, let him watch!  Even if he isn't interested, you might convince him to "help" the younger one learn by pointing to the screen and repeating the words as they are spoken in the curriculum. He will especially gain from the phonics sections!

LR can be adapted so much to be useful to any age.   You could download categories that he is interested in from the library and make his own lessons! Have you had a chance to look through the library yet? 

The flashing method definitely won't hurt him. The more often he sees the words written while hearing them read, the more likely that he will pick it up.  Good luck! And keep us posted!

I am not sure if you can change it in the lessons or not. (Maybe someone else could help you out there).  But if you just want to show the solfege without the colors, go to the play &edit button. Under the "music notes" tab, is a solfege folder. All of the solfege can be shown in "non-rainbow". You can also play chord recognition, scales, and children's songs in "non-rainbow". Since my 12 month old really enjoys LMs, she never complains if I show an extra category or two after the main lesson is done. I typically go to the play&edit button after each lesson, and show at least one more thing anyway, so if I was ready for her to learn the solfege without the colors, that is probably what I would do. Unless, of course, someone else knows a way to change the setting for the whole course!

Wow! She is doing great!    I haven't heard of anyone starting Reading Bear at 14 months, anyway not on a regular, consistent basis. But I don't see why it would hurt anything. Even if she can't verbalized what she knows, she could still learn the lessons. Try it for a week or so, and if she likes it, keep going! Keep us posted! I love reading your updates, by the way!  Your little one is only a couple months older than my little one. I am very impressed by her progress! Keep it up!

I don't think it will hurt either of them to watch the extra lessons. Especially if the oldest isn't reading yet, she could benefit from the input!  My youngest loves having older sister act things out and point to the words while we do LR. It helps the older one feel important if they get to be the teacher. Maybe show your older one how to point to the words, repeating each one so baby can learn it. She may learn to read in the meantime! I have found that the more things they do together as a team (even though mine are 3&1/2 years apart), the better they get along. They love each other so much because there is no competition between them, just team work! Eventually, the younger one starts wanting to copy the older one just because she sees how much fun Sister is having.

I agree with Tamsym and Mybabyian, pronouncing "uh" after a voiced consonant can be confusing. Anyway, it can be confusing to an older child trying to learn to read by a phonetic method. Maybe it isn't confusing to our LOs. It didn't seem to confuse my oldest dd. I can let you know in a year or so if it was confusing to my youngest.     

Most of the time the woman speaker gets it right, and most of the time the man speaker mispronounces it. Also, there is a phonetic rule that says something like "a vowel at the end of a syllable is usually long"  So table should be divided ta-ble, but faster should not be divided after the a. It should be divided after the t, fast-er.  Most of the time now I end up reading the word split, as well as the phonics sessions, to my baby.

My guess is you could change nothing and the LOs would still learn to read just fine. It might be easier on some older kids or ESL students though if changes were made.

I am going through a similar situation with my almost-8-month old. She is very active! We started showing LR and LM when she was about 4 months old, only one session a day. It isn't that she dislikes them, she just doesn't like to be still.  Some people might suggest stopping for a while and coming back to it when your LO shows interest. I don't think that would work for us, simply because she is going to get even busier! And soon! And I doubt she will slow down until it is too late to interest her.

I just look at it like I look at other things we do with her. She doesn't like to be still long enough for me to get clothes on her.  We do it anyway. She doesn't like me to wipe her nose when she has a cold. We do it anyway. That doesn't mean I try to leave it an unpleasant experience for her. She watches me wipe my nose making silly noises, etc. Then we gently show her that she can do it too.  She doesn't like to sit in her highchair and eat. We do it anyway. She honestly would go without eating anything (except nursing) until she dropped from lack of nutrition. There just are lots of things babies, especially busy babies don't enjoy. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do them. Nor does it mean it has to be a miserable experience for them!!  Since I know from experience of 14 years teaching at a regular school and now seeing my oldest daughter's EL experience, and also many other kids from this forum; EL works! And it is so much easier on the child, especially the busy ones. We are going to do EL, I just have to find ways of making it fun for her.

Now, here are some things that seem to be working at the present moment with my busy lady:  she loves to have me pick her up and fly her like an airplane with her laying on my arm. So I fly her up and down by the computer screen while it is playing. No, she doesn't see it all, but she is laughing and looking at the screen each time she rushes up to it. Some people can hook their computer to the TV screen so it is bigger and easier to "fly by"!  We do flash cards of body parts while changing clothes and tickle each named body part as she sees the card.  I "sing" the phonics lessons to her while pointing at the words, or zooming her up to the screen. She also likes the faster flashing, so we click through things quickly. We look at flash cards while she is crawling around. I have gotten pretty good at flipping quickly through them while chasing her around the room on my hands and knees so they are at her level. She will get more out of them because she is doing what she loves--moving, while she sees the cards and while she does LR & LM.

I would encourage you not to quit! This is a wonderful fun journey we are on! Your bump in the road just now happens to be finding a way to make it fun for your LO! You can do it! You know what your child needs better than anyone else!

Hi Mukund, welcome!  With my oldest, we didn't start brillkids products until she was 23 months old, only because I didn't know much about EL when she was 4 months old. We used all three products with her and found all of them to be very helpful! Now she is 4, and reading at about 1-2 grade level (never had her officially tested), about halfway through 1st grade Singapore math, and doing very well with Soft Mozart piano.

My youngest is almost 7 months old and we started her on all 3 BK programs when she was about 4 months old. She loves all of them. Like you, we are also doing flash cards with her. I highly recommend getting all 3, especially if your time is limited. Right now we only do one session of BK a day, and flash cards several times. At this rate, LR and LM will last for close to 2 years. LMs only has one session a day, but the content is so good, it doesn't hurt to just repeat it after completing it.

the nice thing about getting the deluxe kit is having the physical copies of the books. The flip chart is also very helpful! You would probably want to order more inserts for it. I would print out the words we were using for the week and put them in the flip chart. It was handy for traveling or using at the dinner table, etc.

I can not say enough good things about LR! It is a program that is useful for years to come! There are so many things in the BK library to download. And so many ways to add your own content after finishing the original curriculum. Plus all the wonderful languages BK keeps adding!!!

Hi Cokers! Good to hear from you again. It sounds like your kids are doing very well!  Very impressive to have 2 year old reading at second grade! Thanks for the list of apps, I will have to check them out.

My oldest just turned 4.  She has finally started grasping and maybe even enjoying math. She flew through Singapore Essentials Kindergarten in about a month. This past month she has completed about 1/4 of Singapore 1. That is even while we are using the textbook, workbook, extra practice book, intensive practice book, and the challenge word problem!     She is reading at a high first grade or low second grade level. She is doing about 5 lessons a day in First Language Lessons. If I had realized just how slowly it moved, we would have gone a different route with that! She loves drawing and is using DWN, and Art for Kids on YouTube.  Also, she is doing Soft Mozart and really enjoying it!

My youngest is 6 months. She is about 40 lessons into LR, LM, and LMs. She only does one session a day and then does flash cards also.  She loves it! She is already crawling too!

My oldest dd finished both semesters of LR and LMs, and most of LM. She lost interest in the lessons in LM, but we continued to use it for skip counting and other number patterns nearly every day for almost a year.  We love all three products! Now we are starting over with all 3 for my youngest. She loves them all too! We continue to use LR with my oldest for French and the just completed Country Course--both wonderful!

For a 5 month old, that can be normal. Maybe try a different time of day when she is more alert. Generally, it works best for us right after a nap and a snack.  Or try plugging your computer into the TV so she has a bigger screen to look at.  Keep it fun and quit before she gets too bored. Sometimes babies can appear like they are not paying attention, but they see a lot more than you give them credit for. Maybe she isn't bored, just equally interested in the laptop and the lessons. Maybe get a remote mouse you can hold in your hand and back farther away from the screen.

Hi Nuria, I just realized your doubts have not been answered.    I don't know Spanish, so I will try my best.
1. We say "pull the plug" when we are going to drain the sink or tub.
2. Usually I say "leave that alone" or "don't touch that" interchangeably. Either way works well.  It is nicer when said with a "please" or at least a smile!
3. Don't step in the basket.
4. Yes, we would say "don't open the lid of the toilet. It is yucky! Or it is dirty!"
5. This one I am not sure what you mean since I don't know Spanish.  Maybe "Put the book where it belongs" or "put the book on the shelf."  Or "put it next to the red book" etc.

Hi DebraStaphan, it is very handy to use the digital versions of flash cards, but some babies actually prefer the physical flash cards. My baby enjoys both!

I have a 5 month old also! What a fun age! Two things that seem to help her are, making sure she is far enough back from the screen and putting a towel over the keyboard. For some reason, she pays attention better when I hold her at least 3 to 5 feet from the screen as opposed to sitting right in front of the computer.  If she watches the keyboard instead of the screen, I use her spit-up towel to cover the screen. She spits up ALOT! So she sees the towel often and isn't interested in it. That might not work if a towel is something new to look at though!

Finding the baby's best time is the most important thing just like A_BC said.

Thanks Manda and Tamsym and Skylark! This is one area that we really haven't worked on yet. I really need to get started... Now if I can just find the time to fit one more thing into our routine! It will definitely save time in the long run.