Of course, many of us are going to be somewhat biased by our personal experience, but having tutored older children who learned to read using phonics-based approaches, I can see why that approach would be labeled code-emphasis.  If you take a kindergartener at age 5-6, teach them only phonics, and tell them that they must "sound out" "decode" or "break down" every word, they will at a very high rate be bogged down, read slowly, and comprehend possibly individual words but have very low comprehension of, say, the sequence of events in a story.  If children are told that it is ok to just read and know certain words, such as "the" "and" or even some nouns and pronouns, things would be easier.  I have seen kids at the age of 7 or 8 sounding out the word "the."  I suspect this is because a teacher admonishing the child "Don't guess!"  It is an overwhelming experience to read a paragraph in that manner, then be confronted with comprehension questions that also must be read, never mind writing out the answers.  There are comprehension issues that stem from phonics based approaches that can be alleviated by a "balanced" approach.  There are issues with uptake of new unfamiliar material that stems from the whole language approach.  I think taking common experiences with older children age 4-6 and up, and applying them to children who are being taught to read at age 3 or younger is silliness to me.  They learn differently at that age, and moreover have much more time, 3-6 years more time, to incorporate whatever techniques that would be required to gain fluency.  It really does not matter much whether a 2 year old reads with comprehension, the comprehension WILL come with age and testing a child that age on comprehension is wholly inappropriate regardless.  Now, if a 6 year old is reading with low comprehension, and they are not picking up steam in fluency by age 8 or 9, that is very worrisome and is a totally different problem than what is experienced teaching a baby or toddler.  I don't think there is any need for anyone to be up in arms, offended, or take it personal.  I think Glenn Doman says it best, you do not have to be a perfect teacher to teach a baby to read, now teaching a large group of 25 or more 6 year olds to read is a totally different challenge and really is not to be compared.  In that case, unfortunately, the teacher must almost be perfect to do justice for her students.

i think people are not willing to do because it can be time consuming...it is hard work to educate some one, and a lot of people choose not to that is why you see so many young kids with bad behavior , unfortunately even though we hate to hear that its the parents fault, I am afraid to say it is, the kids are like a sponge they reflect their parents.

I notice you have one child, 8 days old. Just you wait. Perhaps you need to do as I have done, and have a number of kids, of different ages and sexes, and send some to school, and homeschool some. And then get back to me if you still hold that opinion.
I have come to my own conclusions, and as I have 5, the oldest nearly 14, I actually KNOW what I'm talking about from personal experience. What you get is a lottery, a lucky dip. You can do your best, and it can produce some outstanding kids, and yet in that bunch you can get a real handful who seems unrelated. Just like you get physically and mentally handicapped kids, you can get obedience-challenged kids. I got one. If he was my first and I had waited many years, I would NOT have gone back for a second.  I want a big family, but I really DO NOT want another boy. There's just something gone wrong in brain chemistry  5 years ago. He was a saint before that...he could do no wrong and I was the envy of all my friends. Now he embarrasses me constantly, to the point of having people send over child welfare because he gives off the impression he isnt kept clean, decent clothes, lunch packed for school...and he does this deliberately to upset me. If I didnt have other children to compare him against, people might think I was a bad parent. Some things are sent to try us in life, and there's my trial.

Let's just say I have empathy for some parents of pyschopaths.  Jeffrey Dahmer came from a normal, loving family, but he was born a bad egg. His brother is a normal family man...no matter what you do for some people, they will just be bad. I'm hoping my son snaps out of it. I wish we had military school around my area. I feel very resentful towards him nowadays. I feel he doesnt deserve his family. And his sisters resent him also as he gets away with not doing chores when they are obedient and helpful.
 I could go on and on...

Yeah, my aunt has 4 children, the first 2 and last are as sweet as can be, and the 3rd is just inexplicable.  She does things which you would not expect from a child, like seek revenge for an insult DAYS later.  If you told her she could not have a lollipop when she asked, she would remember, and be sure to pour an entire bag of sugar into your pillow case for you to find later on.  Being with her in the house for several days is kind of scary actually, you think she is going to do something to you in your sleep.  I am not saying she is a psychopath, but I don't hold her Mom responsible for her behavior, primarily because the other 3 are absolutely fine children.  If she only had the one child though, everyone would think it was her mother's fault, I really try not to judge.

DadDude,
I'm in agreement with your entire post!  Just to address point 2(a), my husband and I were looking through some more "elite" private school curriculums and I was really really disappointed at how "soft" they made it sound.  It may have been marketing to parents who want to believe the school is fun, I don't know.  I want a program that calls for mastery of a core curriculum, just as you describe we have totally gotten away from that.  I want to KNOW, that once my child completes grade 3, he will be able to complete 100 single digit multiplication problems in 5 minutes or less at 100%.  And the 100% part is very important to me.  I think many would consider me wrong for that, maybe pushy, maybe old fashioned, I don't know.  My parents didn't have to worry about such things, they sent us to school and they did not waste our time doing ridiculous but exciting "projects" where only 1 or 2 concepts are introduced, but none are mastered.  "Integrated units" is what I think they called them.  Well, I want my units to be segregated. 

Kappasweet says, "For one, they go on and on about how reading sight words isn't really reading..."  Well, do you tell them that most kids who start with sight words, but figure out the phonetic code and are perfectly able to figure out unfamiliar words later?  You should!  "...I refrained from pointing this out, I want to convince people using positive statements, not deconstruct others arguments."  Oh, not at all my strategy, but everybody's different.  When given a chance, I prefer to shut up the naysayers by deconstructing their arguments.  It's called using reason.  It's how civilization got to where it is today.  We don't do enough of critical interchange of ideas anymore, to my mind.  Since when did it become rude to argue logically?

I have spent time instead deconstructing arguments on my blog instead of trying to convert the particular individuals on this Mommy forum.  Disclaimer: I have affiliated with the product, but as everyone here knows it is a good decent product.  I have also affiliated with Little Reader/Little Math but it is a harder sell because there is no infomercial (yet).

The most ridiculous comments to date:
1) I would never use a hothousing product like Your Baby Can Read.  I just use starfall and leapfrog videos! (Who are you kidding ma'am?)
2) I showed my child one showing of Your Baby Can Read videos, and she forgot how to sound out words.  This video un-did all my hard work, now I have to "start over." (This was a claim from a mother of a 2 year old. Not that two year olds can't read, as shown on this forum, I just did not believe that this child could ever sound out words.  She probably knew words by sight, and mimicked her mother when she showed her how to sound them out.  This mother thought it was appropriate to teach babies phonics, but not sight words.)
3) The same person that went on about how parents should not spend money on such products, suggested $60 Scholastic "big books" in response to my insistence that not all children see well enough to read ordinary books before the age of 5 or 6.
4) These parents that teach their children early mask my child's true "natural" genius   People are so impressed that these other kids can read, but my child painstakingly worked out the phonetic code on her own while we were frolicking in the meadow with no readers, educational materials, or parental help. (sarcastic rendition)

I could go on and on.  There are some characters out there, I'm glad I do not know these folks IRL.

You also find a highly suspicious number of early readers (like ridiculously early) on the internet who spontaneously taught themselves with no help. There is a "one up" culture who believes in exclusive child-led learning who makes borderline ridiculous claims about how their children taught themselves to read and other academic skills without help.  I get it, these mothers have to present themselves as non-pushy and want their kids to be viewed as "natural" genius in the meantime they are pretending away the flashcards and videos and other efforts they have put in.

I seem to find the lowest concentration of delusional people on this forum.  Not that there is not the occasional posts that makes you go   , but at least most people on this forum are not subscribed to some sort of ideology that does not allow them to see the possibilities.

Glenn doman recommends 4 inch letters, I think.  Some kids can just see better than others, so I can't say whether you should re-do the cards, but if you make new ones anytime soon I would go with much bigger print.  If you do decide to make new ones, you can shelve the old ones and use them later on when she is older and can tell you how well she can see.

We read every Dr. Suess, we like it.  He also read some golden books and Your Baby Can Read books.

I'm sure that is enough, we barely do the word cards at all because my baby isn't into it really.  He gets frustrated so I don't bother, sometimes we use the books though, maybe 1-2 times a day.  Can you purchase the books and have your mom read some of the books with him?

I would say that you should prioritize the subjects you are going to teach the child.  Also, some subjects are better to teach at different developmental stages, so I would make a quick list of what you consider important, maybe 3-4 subjects, and concentrate on the most important one first.  You really don't want to overwhelm yourself because babies can learn a lot but those first 3-4 years you will have plenty of time to teach.  For my next child, I will be doing a 6 month curriculum for each subject, staggered, so I will only have to teach 2 subjects at a time, but will get around to teaching 4-5 subjects before pre-K.

Can the maker of the Tweedle Wink program give us information on what results babies on the programs are getting.  It seems like to products have been out long enough for some kids to be grade school age by now.  What are the results, can we have either parent testimonial, videos, or list of "accomplishments."

Also, I am much more successful getting my baby to watch the videos at night with the lights off and the TV on.  They will watch because it is the only thing they can see in the room.  Also, sometimes he falls asleep, which means I don't have to be kicked in the stomach for 30 min while he nurses to sleep.  And I agree with the above, it is hard to concentrate on educational dvds especially if you let your child watch any fast paced kid's cartoons.  Also, this is just my personal opinion but I believe in waiting until 6 months to start using dvds, LR and other products. 

I don't think he is losing any brain cells at all.  If I were you, I would only worry if he gets some bruising or swelling from the bump, otherwise just try to supervise him as best as you can but try not to worry too much about that.

I just wanted to give a little update on my baby.  He sings songs these days, pretty much any song that I sing he will attempt to repeat back.  On his own, he knows Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/ABC song, Where is Thumbkin, and Old Macdonald.  He does not sing the words to the song, it is usually a string of DEEs or BAAs or BUHs or whatever is on his mind.  It's a lot of fun, and it is totally not in my head, everyone around (even strangers) comments that he can sing these songs and he sings them pretty often.  I am trying to capture it on video, which I've caught a few things here and there but I will wait to post something when I get a video of him singing more clearly.  He is 16 months, and I think he has learned to remember notes from Trebellina and that is how he can repeat a song when he hears it.  Also, when I sing a song to him that I want him to repeat, I sing the song sort of broken into individual notes (like staccato) and he repeats the song back broken up.  I started singing songs this way because I wanted him to learn the letters to the alphabet song, not all run together, but each individual letter, so I always broke it up, and sang each letter loud and clear, and that is when he started to repeat the notes/rhythm.  Hopefully I will get a good video soon, he seems to do the most singing while I am driving, but he does at other times as well, such as when he is really drowsy before nap time.

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/poems.php

I enjoyed these, when my booba gets older we will definitely use these to help with spelling and so called "phonics"

We did it old-fashioned and did white potatoes.  The best thing about it is you can put your baby's veggies in the potatoes and they can handle the texture better.  We did sweet potatoes, yams, and red potatoes later on.  My baby did not like puree, he needed something solid or dry.  He did not become a good eater until we started on the potatoes, I was very afraid he was going to be horribly picky and it seemed like everything made his face break out.

was just reading ur posts ....there is this thing called "sleep talk"...(i havent tried this on my son....but my frnd has ...and she belives it to be very true)..in india its called "Nidra Sanskar" the first ten minutes after ur baby sleeps talk to him in "present POSITIVE tense",all the talk shud b positive ...u must ask urself and decide wat u want out of your child for eg. if his friends dont take him while playing ...then u tell him "ur friends will take u to play"..say u want ur baby to leave drinking from a bottle then u say "u drink with a glass"..u tell him how strong,polite and caring and intelligent he is..etc etc..u may try this if u like the concept..and let us know may b..take cre.

That is a wonderful idea.  I used to have a hypnotist and he insisted that I listen to his programs during my sleep!  I could not do that as my husband would not go along with that, but that you can truly get your child to accept some great suggestions.  For this reason, never ever ever let your child sleep in a room with the television on some random program, they will get uncontrolled suggestions.  I never thought about giving him suggestions with my own voice, that would be even better.

I still did not get Unconditional Parenting book, the excerpt helped a lot, I will be going to the used book store this evening to pick up a copy.