Interesting article, but I think the main point is not the lack of competition, but that the teachers have respect and prestige. Teaching is a respectful profession in Finland, and in any other country where schools are very good. Giving teachers responsibility, respecting them, and paying them well; this is what sets Finland apart.

Also, I noticed that they mention that it's principal's job to find bad teachers and deal with them. This makes me think that they don't have teacher's evaluations for students. May be it's just me, but I found it odd that when I taught a summer math SAT course, I didn't grade the students, but they graded me at the end. I did fine, and some students left nice notes on the eval, but I still felt uncomfortable by the whole idea. I felt like I was working for the students who were half my age, not teaching them. Little things like that matter and show lack of respect in a way.

 I'm not saying that feedback is not important, it is, but when I was in college, I could tell that a lot of professors would give out good grades and make the class easier than it should be in hopes of getting good evaluations at the end. Almost no one was willing to challenge us and risk revenge at evaluation time. When teachers are made to adjust and make a consideration for administrative measures like that, it takes away from education. Too much bureaucracy in our schools, IMHO, and this comes from a person who worked in school administration for a few years

My twins love YBCR and cry when it's over and demand "more!" I was taught to read early, and even though English is not my native language, I read faster in English than my husband, who learned to read in school. So, personally at least, I can make a case for early education. The earlier you learn to read, the better reader you can become.

I think that teaching you grandson to read will give him opportunities to excel in school. Having worked for public school system before, I want to teach my girls to read myself and to leave it for the schools to do. If you want to do it right, do it yourself

There is a great case made by Glenn Doman in "How to Multiple Your Baby's Intelligence" that "smarter" more educated people have better life, not worse. Fewer problems. Statistics are just that, averages that predict nothing about your grandson. Nothing. Please don't get discouraged. Besides, I bet those statistics about single moms and black males don't mention anything about early education, and there is probably a reason for that. Teaching you child to read early is a gift to that child for life, IMHO.

PS - You don't have to create sound sets and word sets yourself. There are several sound sets in Russian available in the forum and even one word set in Russian (that will cost you 100 points but is worth time it saves, IMHO, considering that the set you'll create will look exactly the same), The easiest way to find them is by categories through LM Download screen. Scroll down to see the categories past Recent files. It literally takes 10 minutes to download and configure Override settings. After than, it's one click of the button to switch between languages during playback (turn Override on and off).

This way you don't have to change settings for each and every session and you don't have to create content yourself. I think this is the best way to go with another language. 

On a personal note, I am totally impressed by Override feature of LM that allows that one-click switch between languages. You can even control what parts of the program to override. Awesome!

Hm, I've tested a few short against delayed, and I can't notice a difference. So, I give up. What's the difference?

Thank you for getting back to me. The resolution is set to 1024x600, which is both the highest on my netbook and recommended one. Changing it to 800x600 didn't solve the problem. Sorry.

I have HP Mini netbook, and I don't have a tape measure at the place we're staying for now. I'd estimate it at 10 inches.

Before becoming a SAHM, I used to program and Java and VB. My best guess is that you'd have to set scroll bar property to true on the panel object or whatever container that is. Hope I'm wrong because that would require software update.

Sure! Please find attached three screenshots.

Please note that on the first one, there is no scroll bar so I can't access Save or Cancel buttons that I am guessing are at the bottom of the screen. When I make changes and just close the window (the only thing I can do), the changes are not saved, so I can't make any changes to default settings on any presets.

The second screenshot shows the same exact problem with a different screen.

The third screen shows the main window, and please note that the left side of the screen doesn't have scroll bars either, and it probably should as it looks like the content at the very bottom is not being shown completely. Not a big deal since it doesn't affect functionality, but if you're going to fix the other two, you might want to take care of this one as well.

I've just checked, and my netbook's display is set at 96 DPI, so that's not the problem.

Privet Glad you found this forum. We love Little Reader, and it's a great tool to teach children to speak and read English as well as Russian. You obviously know English yourself, so I'm sure you can teach your toddler too. I'm using LR to teach my twin 2-year old girls to read English and speak and read Russian, and I've noticed that they picked up some words from watching LR.

There is a trial version of LR, if you haven't found it already yourself, to see how your child likes the software.

Hi there,


I have a netbook that I use to play LM, and when I tried to adjust some settings in LM Preset Settings screen, I couldn't save them because I can't see the buttons (I presume there are some) at the bottom of the window to save the changes. There is no scroll bar. I've tried CTR+S, but didn't work either, and neither did the arrows on the keyboard.

Is there a combination of keys I could use before you get a chance to adjust the properties of Play Settings container and issue an update to resolve that bug?

Thank you.

Thank you! I've found and downloaded the manual for Little Reader and Little Math. I already had the e-books.

I tend to agree with DadDude. The article is against theory of multiple intelligence, which is essentially a philosophical concept rather than a scientific one that doesn't seem to have any objective support in reality. Multiple studies have shown that intelligence is inherited rather than acquired, but as it's been said before, genius is 99% perspiration 1% inspiration. So, working hard is likely to make you more successful than any talent you may or not have been born with. You may have great intelligence that is never realized without education, and a lot of people do. After all, no matter how smart you are, you can't read if you haven't been taught how.

That being said, success is a combination of inheritance and environment, and even if inheritance plays larger role in intelligence, environment still matters. This is why studies also show that early learners tend to stay ahead. This is why Doman program is successful. So, I wouldn't see the article is discouraging. This is all old news. The truth is that no one really knows for sure, and social sciences are not exact science. One expert can say one thing and another expert can say something completely opposite, and a lot of this is just non-sense. I do agree that "experts" tend to cause more damage rather than produce value.

Of course you're tired! When I went back to work full time last year, and I had 2.5+ hours commute each day, I was so tired all the time. I also have some chronic health issues that made me even more tired, and after almost 3 months, I resigned. I have twins, and after calculating our child-care costs, we decided it's not worth it. I was still coming on top, but it wasn't all that much.

I love being with my girls, and it is hard work, but I love that we don't have to go anywhere when we don't feel like it. No more commute. More importantly, I work with people I really love. When someone asked Warren Buffet about what was the best thing about being rich, he said that it was that he didn't have to work with people he didn't like. Only billionaires and stat-at-home moms can say that!

Sounds like you're working part time already, but may be you could cut your hours a bit more? With my job, it wasn't an option. It was full time or no time, but I think it would've been nice to get out of the house now and then for sanity sake if anything. You have to decide what's best for you.

May be your husband can help pitch in more? Hire some help? To have someone come and clean the house is huge help.

It does get easier though when they get older, so hang in there We've all been there, so we understand.

Take care.

Where I can find a PDF version of Little Reader manual? I know I should be able to find it on your web site, theoretically at least, but practically, I couldn't. I don't have a good internet connection at the place we're staying in, so I need a local copy. Could you please post a link to the PDF version?

Thank you in advance

Same thing here - I have to guess sometimes what language and word this is coming from. Not to mention that a lot of times, it their own language. One of the girls now says "ma" when she wants a blanket. May be she means it as "my" or "mine", but it took me a while to figure out that it was her blanket that she wanted. "Poo" and "pupok" is a good example too!

It's interesting that according to that chart of language development (the link is above, thanks MummyRoo) my girls don't do things they should be doing and doing things they shouldn't be doing yet, like plural and singular. But, they don't use prepositions such as "in" or "on" or any for that matter. Just shows you that no child is developing exactly the same way.

On our two-year checkup, our pediatrician told me that if they will have not started talking in 2-word sentences by mid-September to have them evaluated. But, luckily, they started doing it in mid-July. But, they are a bit behind because they were supposed to have been combining the words together before their 2nd birthday, and they weren't. But, I have a friend with twin boys who were born on the same day as my twin girls (we met in the hospital during bedrest), and she's also teaching them Russian, and the boys are about at the same level as my girls. So, I am grateful that in addition to my monolingual friends with toddlers, I have a bilingual friend with twin toddlers whose kids develop closely to mine, despite going to a very fancy (and very expensive) preschool 5 days a week.

I just read in "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards" that studies indicate that using two languages separately produces better results, like if each parent used only one language. But, they didn't explain how much better results, and honestly, I don't see how it's possible unless parents don't talk to each other in kids presence! Kids will figure it out, well, I hope

My sister-in-law actually stopped teaching her kids Spanish when someone told her that they will be delayed in English if she teaches them two languages. She was born in US, but her family spoke Spanish, so she was a native Spanish speaker. So, she stopped. Her kids speak great English, but they speak Spanish with accents like anyone learning it in school. She told me that not teaching them Spanish when they were small was one of her biggest regrets. When she tried later, it was too late.

Talking about delays in language. My twins are definitely behind in how many words they say in English, even if you add the words they say in Russian, they are still behind their peers. I'm not sure if this is a twin thing, or that the fact they were premature, or that they don't have older siblings, or that they are bilingual. In any case, we don't know, so we're not going to stop teaching them two languages. It seems that it depends on the source if there is a delay in language if you teach more than one or not. Some people say there is and some people say there isn't. Regardless, even if there is a delay in the short term, I think it's well worth it in the long term if the kids pick up another language.

My husband does the same thing your brother does!!! So funny. He often says to the girls "Go brush your zybs!" and things like that. I've tried asking him not to confuse the girls while they are learning, but he's been saying things like that for years, so he can't help it. It comes out automatically. We sort of have a mixed up language of our own, but we try not to say things like that in front of the girls.

I think we made some progress on this front today. One of my girls said "Two kyklas", thought about it for a second and then added "Two dolls". I've tried to get her to say "dve kykli", but she wouldn't. But, it's 50% progress. I guess it means that she understands. Whew.

My girls also have a few favorite words that they say in Russian, such as "pupok", "kaka" (poop in our case), "kykla", "pit" (drink). I lot of them came from Doman's DVD! It doesn't matter that I try to speak Russian to them all day long, and I have to make an effort not to speak English. In any case, adding the DVDs seems to have been beneficial as they definitely picked up a few words from it. Not to mention that they like it. My only complaint with the DVD is that I wish they had included a vegetables section because my girls want all the food they show This is how I got them to eat carrots!

Anyway, thank you for sharing your insight.