LDSMom, you must have been caught off guard by the name the author gave to his blog spot on psychologytoday.com. Pre-frontal is a region of the brain that he researches as scientist. I agree that his choice of a name is provocative and sounds like something inappropriate. But I understand his predicament as a scientist trying to write a popular blog about brain research. He is trying to be original and readable. As to readability, he does a great job, as to originality, I think he would want to be original in a slightly different way. I see his choice of words repels the readers he exactly needs to attract. But style aside, he gives great info that parents can use.

I hope that straightens the confusion and you read his articles. By the way, not to promote the website (I disagree with a lot on it), but it was the articles there that changed my mind about teaching reading to babies. You can say those articles lead me to buying Little Reader from BrillKids.

Sincerely,
Reader in the Night
 

Thanks, Mandabplus3, for giving the link. I thought the site is easy to find, it always pops up in my searches on psychology. Just to clarify: I indeed wanted to be helpful. I like the article. It also tells something about nurture vs. nature; OK, in rats but interesting. I don't particularly like the author's language (I cautioned about that), but I understand that he is trying to be funny; it's hard to become popular when one is writing about scientific things like brain research. Still, I enjoyed his other pieces as well. I think they hold value to parenting.

Sincerely,
Reader in the Night

I like this question and it's great that it's asked when a child is still little. I want to share with you an article that may answer it in a surprising but profound way. It definitely improved my parenting. The article is in Psychologytoday.com (or org?) It's a big site, I am sure you will find it. It's titled Lick Your Kids. I like the author's other articles too (his language borders on impolite but the info he gives is really helpful). Let me know what you think.

Sincerely,
Reader in the Night

It's a good question, since it's good to always remember one's reasons for homeschooling.
My reasons are:

1. It's important that my child stays with me most of the time. Public school in my state takes a child away from parents for 6 to 8 hours a day. I believe child-mother separation is unhealthy up till teen years, maybe even later.

2. It's important that my child spends time with his/her siblings first of all (not with children that were placed in his class by chance).

3. It's important that my child has a lot of time for free play and independent work.

4. I believe that I teach my children better and more efficiently than school would do. We read and write a lot, learn by heart a lot, review and practice a lot. We don't do busywork, projects and not many field trips (I notice people get carried away with the latter and it could take a lot of financial resources). I choose the study materials very carefully and teach them thoroughly.

5. My children have better meals at home.

In short, I home school because education at home gives better outcomes for my children's physical, psychological, moral and intellectual health.

Sincerely,

Reader in the Night

Since I discovered Reading Bear (while reading a response to a very negative feedback on YBCR online), I've been using it with all my three children, ages 6, 3 and 16 mo. We also greatly enjoy the founder's presentations on various topics. In addition to that, I use his word-picture cards, which all my children LOVE. Our reading really took off. I tell about this experience to everyone in our home school community. I sincerely hope that Mr. Sanger keeps working on Reading Bear and the library of multi-topic presentations he had mentioned. His article on early learning and some articles in Psychology Today persuaded me to try BrillKids' Little Reader. Before that, I wouldn't hear about YBCR, thinking it was a useless whole language program. But now it made sense to me. I believe children really can figure out how to read. I remembered how I learned English. Of course, I was a teenager, not a baby, but nobody ever explained any reading rules to me, I just had to look up words in the dictionary as to how to pronounce them. After some time I noticed patterns and became quite a good speller. So, my way wasn't a whole language. With that, I started Little Reader with my toddler (on the 20th lesson, he still likes it).

About phonics. As someone who learned to read in English word by word (no method), I must say phonics method is still confusing. It's confusing to an adult (I also have a language degree), so I am not surprised that children have to mature before they are ready to grasp the whole sophisticated theory behind it. When I demonstrate reading to my children, I only use letter sounds. We never talk about letter names or all that long-short vowel business. That's why we love Reading Bear and I guess that's why we progress so well. I don't want to offend the phonics method or anyone who benefited from it, just want to say that there must be an easier way, and I'm glad I found it.

Mr. Sanger, please keep us informed on what you are doing!

Sincerely,

Reader in the Night

Thank you, ShenLi, it really helps. You mentioned your son is 2.5 now. How old was he when he started Little Math? What lesson number is he on now? If you discussed it somewhere else, please direct me to your posts. With appreciation, Reader in the Night

Hi,

Maybe taking a break for a week or two will help to revamp interest. In my experience, it helps my 6 y.o. with reading and math concepts. We would be learning something with no success, then give up, then two weeks later came back to it and suddenly - boom! - she gets it.

When my 16 mo. old tried LR, he lost interest on day 5 but I cheered him up to make it to the end of 9 lesson trial. He just watched passively through all lessons. Then a week passed. Duding the second week, he suddenly started saying new words he picked up from LR, and then - repeating the words and running to the computer, ready to watch. So we purchased LR. Our son is very active and attentive during sessions right now but I have no illusions, I know he will get bored eventually. I am prepared to give him a break and come back to it later.

Maybe a break is what your child needs at this point. He most likely knows his lessons by heart already and when he comes back to them later, it will be like seeing an old friend.

I think you may try another program, for variety's sake, but one program should be enough. It just depends on how much you are willing to invest.

Keep  us posted how things are going.

Sincerely,
Reader in the Night

Thank you for sharing, it's really helpful. Sincerely, Reader in the Night.

Hi!
I am trying out Little Math and looking for accounts of progress/experience/success with this software. How is your toddler progressing with Little Math? I see lots of posts but can't put my finger on a direct feedback about the software and its impact on a toddler. Will appreciate if you share your experience. Sincerely, Reader in the Night.