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[Reading]

All, so I gather you like Reading Bear here. As you know, it's 100% free despite being of a quality that you might have to pay a bunch for. Well, here is your chance to give back a little: if you're an artist, we need you to volunteer to illustrate some e-readers! As you might have guessed, funding for the project has become scarce.

See attached text.

If you're interested, please email me at [email protected]!

[reading]

Congratulations on your little girls reading success! Good job parents! Great work little one .

Now that she's broken the reading barrier, I would say just keep reading. I would look into getting lots of simple readers and read them to her and with her. Continue to read every single day and talk about the story and the pictures and point to each word as you read. If you want to continue offering instruction and structured practice and guidance I would go with 1 or 2 basic programs. (using supplements as needed) but fight the urge to buy, buy, buy  or try, try, try several different things for the sake of trying them.

All the links go directly to their product page/results so please feel free to click on any of them directly

Sight Words:
There are several sight word readers, programs, and websites.
I would look up a few and see which ones seem the most pleasing. Both Amazon and Ebay have several kinds of sight words readers available commercially.

I also recommend looking into I See Sam readers which are online for free. Print them 5 at a time and work on them until your DD can read the words separate of the stories and continue to point out the words in other stories and such as you come to them.

Phonics:
There are a lot of great resources available for free, Progressive Phonics and Soft Schools are two, there are tons, just Google them!

Personally, I really, really like The Reading Lesson and highly recommend it. Check out the freebie section of the site. They have sight words, and samples of the first 2 chapters/lessons available.

I would get either Bob Books or Now I'm Reading books to supplement TRL, as I would say to expect to spend at least 7-15 days on each chapter of TRL , depending on how your girl picks up on phonics.

and of course, read, read, read! I would check out many books with CD's also, so that my little one could have access to a reader even when I wasn't available. Something like Frog and Toad, Little Bear, or whatever is available at the library.

(A simple solution might be to get a newer version of HOP, since I understand that they come with their own readers now.)

I would continue with ReadingBear whenever she is receptive to it. Also look in to Leap Frog Letter Factory, and Talking Words Factory. I dont know why, but they work like magic for sooo many kids to get through that initial barrier.


Sorry, I had written a better, longer reply with more links and suggestions but it got lost. So here is my "Where to Essentials" post. Good luck whatever you decide.

[Reading]

iSwifter does the same thing--I have it installed and have used it a fair bit with Reading Bear. It works almost as well as a regular browser although there is a little more lag than usual. Still, it's very handy!

[reading]

Hi all. Out 2 year old munchkin has just started showing some interest and initial signs of early reading since we finished Little Reader and moved onto Reading Bear. I suspect if we continue down this path he will be starting to read by 3 if not earlier.
It has made me pause and wonder Is this the best thing for him?
He is a normal kid, probably a little  above average in his intellectual development but not gifted.
I know my experience of being 'bright' made school boring, esp from about Grade 3 to Year 10 and I had no early training. I coped by becoming a perfectionist.
We live in Australia which has a bit of a tall poppy syndrome and there is usually not a lot of opportunities for extension in primary school.
I am not concerned that reading early will damage him in any way  - more wondering whether he will be too far ahead of the curve for school and will 1. Be bored and 2. Be considered too 'different' by his peers and have trouble making friends. It makes me wonder whether I should be focusing on different skills.
I am not interested in home schooling at this stage.
What are your thoughts and experiences?

[reading]

It's so much fun when they get into the math and reading games, isn't it?  I just knew he would learn the PP Sight Words DVDs quickly!  It's such a great series. Have you shown him the Blends and Diagraphs DVDs yet? Those are great too. Did you do Meet the Numbers with him?

For ReadingBear, I showed most of the vowels 2-3x, and the review one time. Beyond the vowels, I am showing presentations only 1-2x, depending on her interest, but I can't show the same presentation 2 days in a row because she gets bored if I do this. She loves Reading Bear, but she wants a new presentation each day.     So, if I repeat, it has to be separated by at least a couple of days. Right now, we are at the review for the second "unit." We usually go through one full presentation each day, sometimes only a couple of sections from a lesson and not always in the same sitting.

We go through the presentations on "sound it out quickly" now, as the "sound it out slowly" was becoming boring for her. I thought she was tiring of Reading Bear, but she would say "mas" (more in Spanish) every time a presentation ended.  Once I changed it to "sound it out quickly" I saw progress again, and I saw the excitement come back. Amazing how such a minor thing can make such a major difference.

When she reads, she doesn't sound words out, she just reads them. If it's a new word, she pauses for a moment and then says it. I wonder if she's sounding it out in her head or if she remembers reading it before. She's not reading books cover to cover yet (except for the Priddy books or similar books with one word per page), at least not out loud, but she does love to help me read books, and we read a LOT of books!    

As for math, we just started Little Math. I've had it for awhile but was never consistent and never got past lesson 10. This wasn't due to lack of interest on her part, it was just that we were doing other things for math. She loves LM though.  She counts all day and likes to watch counting videos on youtube, even boring ones that are just of a person counting on a hundreds board. She counts pretty much everything she sees: puzzle pieces, books, etc. We purchased the RightStart curriculum but haven't yet started. I'm also very interested in Mortensen Math. I'm hoping to buy the blocks second hand or on sale. I wonder if the Math U See blocks would be suitable. I found some locally that are fairly inexpensive. We also use ideas from Marshmallow Math.  I'm going to be purchasing large dice soon to play games with.  I also saw the Learning Resources Math Mat Challenge that I think she'll like.  She likes variety and can get tired of seeing the same thing repeatedly, so having lots of resources, for us, is important.

I will keep posting updates, and I hope anyone who is reading this will too!

[Reading]

Thank you SO much for the many replies and suggestions!  I have so much to respond to from the above posts!  I wanted to write a quick update though to say that I think my little one is starting to...READ    !!!  YAY!!!!  His speech has drastically improved since I wrote the first post (it had just started to take off about a week before I wrote it - we had two different vacations with lots of extended family and I think that helped it!?!) and it's made a HUGE difference.  He will now eagerly say any word that ask him to say - so if we're doing LR, Reading Bear, etc - he will repeat the words and he seems so much more into it.  Lately, he has been upset whenever I close the laptop!   

Also...and this is where I'm thinking he is reading, but I need some more time to pass to see how this plays out...I started leaving out words when reading books and I wait for him to say the word before moving on.  It's usually the last word in the sentence or a word that I know is easy for him to say.  Well, he has been able to say the missing word almost 100% of the time.  I didn't give it much thought at first, because the missing words were very obvious at first - either I've read the book a ton or there's a picture of the word right there (ie - the word is pig, and there's a pig on the page).  However, I recently got out a whole bunch of board books that we haven't read in quite a few months and he was still able to fill in the missing word almost every time.  The one that struck me the most was a book about cars and it starts with "I am Sam" and he filled in the word "Sam" when I paused!  This is just one example of many....but I still wonder about it because sometimes he's not even looking at the book at all and is able to fill in the words    .....so that makes me think that maybe he was paying way more attention when I read these books to him a long time ago than I thought he was!?  Another thing that made me question, was that (until today!!) he never once was able to show that he read a word that was written on a dry earse board or piece of paper or on the computer, etc.  Howerever - today he read "duck", "baby", "dog," and "cat" after I wrote them on a piece of paper!  Those are all words that I suspected he knew from our "filling in the blank" time.  However..he ignored the word "Sam" when I wrote it .  Lol. 

And one more update - when using Daddude's cards...he was actually starting to sound them out yesterday.  He had the word "map" in his hand and he pointed to "m" and said "mmmm" and then to "p" and said "pppuhh".

Ahh - one more update! I also found out yesterday that he knows all of his letter sounds (except e)!  I happened to have a bag of chocolate chips and he REALLY REALLY wanted some !  I then asked "A says__" and ended up going through the whole alphabet!  Yes, he got a handful of chocolate chips after that  !! 

Anyway, I'm super super excited seeing how much he's grown in the last month or so.  I just can't believe how much can change in such a short time period!  Thank you so much for all of your replies!  I'll have to give another update later!

[Reading]

Hi! What would be your suggestions for best downloadable educational materials for a 7-year-old who recently immigrated to the US and speaks very little English? Her native language is Spanish. When she visits us, we play Reading Bear for her, which she really enjoys. I think it would help her with her English if she could work with it regularly. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to use Reading Bear offline. We're planning on buying her first computer for her as a birthday gift, and I would like to load it with as much fun educational material as possible. She has no Internet connection at home.

I'll be grateful for any suggestions!

[Reading]

I think the word "Synthetic" means "synthesized", as in putting together sounds to make words (rather than meaning artificial, as there's nothing artificial about it).  Basically you teach a few sounds, and then start blending them into easy words, and then build up from that (the report explains it well).

Analytic Phonics appears to be an approach in which the kids use words to try to learn sounds.  Like for the letter "c", they would give the kids "car", "cake", "candle", etc.  Not as direct, and much slower.  They say in the study that the kids are taught one letter per week...which means that they just might get through the alphabet in an entire school year.  I remember they were doing that at David's pre-school (pre-K) and it seemed like a very long, slow, process (obviously it didn't affect David though).   I suspect this approach is used more commonly here than Synthetic Phonic.

I think this is a key factor in the phonics vs whole word debate. The type of phonics instruction varies greatly depending on the country you live in and even on the particular school you attend. Many people who are anti-phonics are thinking only of analytic phonics, when clearly the research points to synthetic phonics as the only phonics approach to take. I have been recommending Reading Bear to anyone who will listen to me as it is an excellent example of synthetic phonics.

One aspect of that research I loved is the speed at which children progressed. The fact that they learned to both read & spell one word ('pat') in their first lesson was fantastic & must have done so much to boost the children's reading confidence & their interest in subsequent lessons.

Keri - Jolly Phonics is pretty popular here in Ireland too, although it is not used in every school with many still using analytic phonics unfortunately.

As an aside, I learned to read using the whole word approach (Doman) as a toddler. I am using both synthetic phonics & whole word approaches with my toddler - she is definitely learning far more quickly using phonics than whole word. I think this difference may be partly due to learning style - I am a very visual learner & she is not.

[reading]

I am going to do more sight words with her but even with words she is being exposed to she rarely says them. She can do steps 1 and 2 but not step 3. She has done step 3 a handful of times but for the most part she doesn't. I want to do all the preschool prep videos (meet the sight words 1, 2 and 3,letter sounds, digraphs blends and numbers especially)  I will skip meet the letters until much later. My other kids were older when they learned these concepts and they did tell me the letter sounds after not many viewings. I did quite a few viewings with my 2 year old and she can't do step 3. I can work on her with a few letters at a time to see if that helps. I see that whatever she does learn she learns by sight word reading unlike my older kids who learned by phonics. I still would like her to really know her letter sounds even though I know she won't be blending them for a while. Once she finishes preschool prep I will work on more sight words with her and reading bear but I just don't know how long to show her stuff before moving on to new material. Should I go for recall? She gets recognition fast but not recall. I don't know how many times of seeing something it would take to get to recall but it seems like it will take quite a lot for her.

[reading]

Oh yes it is often a tradeoff between time and money!  
To teach reading cheaply or free won't be too hard. Using reading bear is a great idea and daddudes words will cover everything. BEFORE those two options I would suggest you spend time playing with starfall.com to learn the basic phonics sounds. Starfall is free and has letter sounds, phonics books and enticing animations to keep kids looking over and over. All three of my kids liked it.
Fr math it looks like what you want is some structure on what to teach. For this with a zero budget I would recommend IXL math. If you look for their grade level lists, starting from preschool and work through teaching your child everything on the list using free resources found at home you will have a very solid math education. An example....one of the options could be learning to recognize numerals 1-5 using a chalkboard this will be free. To teach capacity play with water and measuring cups in the bath, to teach subitizing start with a dice. IXL will guide you in WHAT to teach but not in how to teach it. Most of the early stuff is easy to figure out HOW to teach and if you get stuck you can post a question here. IXL allows a few free questions each day to give you an idea of what each concept is but you really only need the free curriculum list.
Marshmellow math is a great book. It will help you by showing you how to include math in your everyday activities and their ideas are great. It will probably give you the confidence you are looking for. Kitchen table math is also good and perhaps more detailed. I am not sure which one to recommend more. You won't be dissapointed with Marshmellow math for ideas.
There really is no better option for teaching music than little musician, so if you want your children to learn music I highly recommend you save up for it. It will be adored by all three of your kids and you will learn from it also. Worth every cent!
You have covered science well with your choices of magic school bus and Peter weatherall. To supplement this get some books on the subjects from the library to deepen the knowledge and expand on topics they find interesting. we have had great success linking our magic school bus series to activities around the home like a water wheel ( ferris wheel substitute) and baking bread. We even went visiting bats in a cave!

[Reading]

For LR and Reading Bear: Shorter segments, usually 4 sessions (meaning, LR = 2 days worth of teaching, Reading Bear = 4 little boxes in the middle). The rest are played one DVD per session. I also got a very positive result with Preschool Prep.

[reading]

It was fun to read back through the goals and see how others are doing too! 

We are doing quite well, with a few adjustments.        She is now 3 years, 5 months old.

In reading, we finished LR, so I made my own course with lots of French downloads and EK facts.  It is a 130 day course, and we are on day 65, I think.  She is still doing Reading Bear everyday (when our internet works    ).  I think she is at 75% mastered.  She still takes a quiz every time.  If she gets them all right she gets a piece of candy, like one M&M, so quizzes are the best .  It is really the only time she gets sweets, so she is impressed.  She is really into reading anything by Beatrix Potter right now.  She read through the whole Mr. Jeremy Fisher book with help on only 3 words.  Daddy was impressed!

In math, I have seen the biggest improvements!  We still use LM for skip counting.  Right now skip counting is still at the rote memory stage.  She is still using Jump Math every day.  We both really like it.  Rightstart came to a complete halt several months ago.  She just completely resisted it.  Maybe next year...  MEP is pretty much the same story as RS.  I think our biggest math improvements have come from i Pad apps though.  Right now we are going through Eurotalk for the second time,  SlateMath for the second time, and SplashMath 20 ? per day.  I can not believe the difference between the 1st and 2nd time through these apps.  She demonstrates such a more thorough understanding!  She now uses Math on her own in her everyday life.  Daddy and several other people have commented on her Math ability just while she was carrying on a normal conversation with people!  Momma is very pleased with this!!

We also have started handwriting and spelling.  Neither of them are an actual curriculum, just things I printed off the internet. She is still at the tracing stage on most letters and can only write about 2 - 5 words on paper before she is tired.  Because of this, most of our spelling is oral practice.  Both of these subjects we use the i Pad for also.  LetterSchool is handwriting only.  Writing Wizard has a section that you can make your own word list, so I put her spelling words on that one.  And we use Word Wizard by L'Escapadou  for her spelling "tests".   

This summer she was able to swim in our neighbor's green house quite a bit too.  She can now jump into the pool and swim from one end to the other and back with a small floatation device.  Momma just didn't have the energy to tote her around in the pool this summer, so I let her use a floaty.  Alas! Our nights are now so cool that even in the green house the pool is too cold, so no more swimming until next year.    But since she learned how to jump into the pool, she now jumps everywhere she goes!  Not so impressive at church, grocery store, or doctor's office, I know!  But since this is such a big milestone for her, I have a hard time stopping her even if we get strange looks.  
 

[Reading]

I only used the phonetic sound of the letters when my babies were learning to read. I did do starfall.com's ABC section, which teaches both letter name and sound. But stick to phonetic sounds early on. Over time, they will easily learn the letter names. Reading Bear will make more sense to them if they only know the phonetic sounds of the letters.

Math is something you can teach doing day-to-day activities in the first few years. Then you can move onto more formal teaching. I did a lot of reading in the early years but I didn't really start any EK things until my kids turned 3. Then I started using a combination of books and YouTube videos to teach concepts. I stay on one concept for a while. My big things right now with my 3.5 year old are teaching the human body and how plants grow. Three and a half is also a good time to start chapter books (something most educators wouldn't agree with either).

[reading]

Both of his parents are real bookworms. I have been into books as long as I remember and  everyone who really knows me tease me abt my love for books! So long before my son was born i had already started reading about how to get him to love books obviously!
He was given his first book when he was 7months old though. And since then he was given books often and I made sure I feed him knowledge all through out. He was a late speaker, he first started talking 1m before he turned 2! But with that week he was making sentences and surprising me with his intelligence. By the time he turned 2 he knew alphabets of 3 languages (mother tongue; Dhivehi, English and Arabic) and knows to count to 10 in all languages as well. I discovered this forum when he was 2yrs and 2m. I gave all my time and effort to make files to get the program and got it finally by the time he turned 2yrs 5m. So I couldnt do LM well but I had been already doing language bits in 3 languages at home. He read his first word on his own at 2y 3m.
I remember worrying and even posting here about how sure I was that he was reading from memory than on his own and YES thats how it all starts. Probably from memory at first but I definitely can give witness that even if they do it that way they gather words with phonic understanding on their own when they finally starts reading books!
He started reading well at the age of 3 and by the time he turned 4 he was reading level 2 books but wasnt keen on reading it himself nevertheless. This really put me down! Cos he didnt like reading and I agree at that time life was very hectic for me due to a sudden accident at home so I wasnt able to read to him as I used to.
And one amazing thing for me is I never had to teach him the phonics! He gathered all of it by himself! I started brillkids when he was 2 and half but I have already exposed him a lot to books.
After he turned 4 even he would skim through the books and mostly just stare at the pics and gather whats happening! (Bear in mind English is our second language and we hardly speak in English at home!) He never replies back in English even, thought he perfectly understand when spoken to! And then he got to undergo a surgery and we had to go abroad for it.
In another country the only way he can communicate was through English and all of a sudden I see my son having great verbal communications at shops with salespeople and this really surprised me with the way he spoke and arranged sentences! After almost 3months abroad when we came back he had more confident in English.
A few months later I discovered the Children's Library in our city and started taking him there. At first he just chose small short stories and yet keep pushing me to allow him to read goosebumps which his little uncle, who was 4yrs older than him, read!
A month later he was reading books for advanced readers and now hes a total bookworm reading Famous Five, Secret Seven, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl just like that. He may be lost in a story for hours and yes I mean hours like 3-4 even! I have to always drag him away and he insist, let him finish that chapter. And its not only fiction, he loves reading through enyclopedias and Q&A books too.
He will turn 6 this November and his comprehension is at grade three level and I always wondered how he understand new words as he refuses to use dictionary. And its amazing that he gathers the meanings of new words and if a word's meaning is not clear enough for him, he asks us.
A few weeks back he finally understood the word "instead" and told me that he knows its meaning and when I asked what it means he actually made a sentence using the word!
As for his spelling its another unbelievable achievement in him. He hardly ever makes a mistake in spelling even when given big words for his age and words he has never heard of cos he uses phonics to spell I assume.
But with all these amazing things in him, he has started with one big problem. He hates writing! He hates writing Arabic and his own mother language all the way and even English he always try to duck out! I am struggling with it but I have hope cos he showed his writing capabilities when he wrote some letters on his own by the time he turned 2 and half!

Right now i have learnt of a great way to start him to write...Penpals! He's so interested in the thought but am waiting for 2 - 3 kids so we can do the posting all at once.

If anyone's got any tips to get him to write, please do quip in!

[This is what we've been using/doing for the past 8 months:]

Hi everybody,

I've been thinking about a program for my 12 month old baby. I'd like to choose a sort of "curriculum" for the coming year or so. Actually, I read hundreds of posts about different products and that made me quite overwhelmed, so Moms and Dads... I need your help 

This is what we've been using/doing for the past 8 months:

1- LR English + Chinese (the latter is for 1 month)
2- LR / YBCR downloaded / customized files: Arabic + French + German + Spanish
3- LM
4- EK: LR library
5- Just started Reading Bear of DadDude 

Now, I would like to introduce more variety. So I am thinking of the following:

1- Little Pim in the diffrent languages we are studying (that's gonna be $$ to get all those  )
2- Baby Signing Time: I've been signing with him since birth but he just signs back when I ask him to, never to express himself. Will these DVD's make a difference?
3- Now, the dilemma: right brain stimulation... For this, there is LR & LM, but are they good enough? Would I just add Memory Magic (for affirmations, photographic memory and eye tracking) or should I get the famous Tweedlewink which is quite costly?
5- Any other DVD / program that you think is worth it.

Your opinion and suggestions are very appreciated.

Thank you.

[reading]

While I'm lying on the floor icing my back for a few moments before bed (using my new laptop), I thought I'd give a quick update here in the thread.

Two days ago PokerCub turned 17 months. He's doing phenomenally well in my estimation, though I'm not sure how he'd measure up against some of his predecessors (kids that we looked to for inspiration), such as Owen, Henry, Cayden, Joey, Cammie, Robert, Eddie, et al (there are definitely others). Those superstars I doubt Cub could compete against, and thankfully, it's not a competition. 

On Cub's 16 month birthday, I was getting something out of the basement while Cub was eating breakfast in his high chair. I was heating something in the microwave, and as I walked up the basement stairs, I could hear Cub. He was counting back "three.... two.... one...." then the microwaved beeped signaling that the items were done. I was stunned really. He was watching the numbers pop up and then read them (or even anticipated?). He hasn't done this since, but he knows his numbers and likes to count a lot (though I never really hear him go past three too often, I've heard him go to five before). A month ago was his number phase.

Lately he's been on a letter phase. He likes to sing the alphabet song, but he mostly skips around the alphabet unless one of us is signing a long. Perhaps letters were last week. This week he's into animal sounds, and he knows more than we thought he did. PokerMom was quizzing him today in the car and he was coming up with the sounds faster than I could think of them myself. This was sort of scary to me. Then her and I started talking and he got upset! He wanted more quizzing!

I've always thought Doman was wrong about the whole "never test your kid" - Cub loves to be questioned so he can show off. Further, if you don't start early, then they just might become averse to it.

Unfortunately we haven't been able to do nearly as much as I'd like due to my ailing back condition. I cannot sit up for more than a minute to two without having issues. I had started making my own videos for him to watch, and he really seemed to like the first one I did. Since then, I've had my video camera with us whenever we're out in hopes of capturing interesting things to put onto a video for him later. I'm hopeful that next week I can resume some of that production because he's soaking up more than I can give him, and sadly, I haven't the energy or wherewithal to keep up with him!

As for reading, we usually do 1 to 2 little reader sessions per day. We stopped doing little math for a long while, I just wasn't in love with the way the curriculum progressed, so we do a little custom one-off stuff in the numbers tab. We started back up during his number phase, and I'm needing to customize a numeral presentation for him so he can get all his numbers 1-100 down. He's really eager to learn right now. We do LMs perhaps every other day. I believe perhaps him singing the octave (or hearing it perhaps) got him interested in letters, though that would be difficult to attribute to a single particular thing. I do think maybe his love of the alphabet song might have been due to hearing the octave all the time. We usually do about an hour of video per day, but this is getting difficult because we've ripped through so much of it that's out there. I try to get one reading bear session in the morning, and am cycling through about the first 12 of them at the moment.

The monkisee videos are great, but in the later DVDs she didn't separate out the music videos which make great transitions from one topic to the next.

I've been hoping to do a full review on all the videos out there, because I certainly have some opinions, and strong ones at that.

Would you believe that 6 weeks ago, Cub was deathly afraid of going into the hot tub? We took several weeks off over the summer in large part because of my back and in larger part because it was too hot. The big pools we visited were too cold and wavy to really do solid work. I'd estimate that within 6 weeks or so, he lost his abilities, memories, and confidence. At first I thought it was just that he didn't remember, but then I noticed his procedural memory seemed to fail also. I think this has significant ramifications for EL. You cannot assume that your child "has it" and move on from a skill at this age without periodically revisiting that skill (or EK knowledge, etc).

The good news is that I knew he'd get it back and get it back faster than it took the first time around. It took about 3 weeks of solid work for him to get to where he was.... though he no longer cruises around the tub like he used to; he's mostly inept at that now. A few weeks ago he became intensely curious and started sticking his face underwater by himself and looking around. He experimented relentlessly. He even demanded that I make him float and then put himself into a roll. Then he tapered off a bit for a few weeks, and the last two times we've gone out there, he's wanted to swim/float independently the entire half hour working on his kick, etc instead of standing on the side playing with his toys.

In the last week, he's become adept at stacking his foam bricks/blocks. It's amazing to watch him balance the various shapes. When he gets it tall, he'll declare, "I did it!"

I'd say he's doing very well. I'm also open to any suggestions or ideas on what to do now.

[reading]

Hi yusrab,

I read a lot to my daughter since she was an infant, usually running my finger under the words as I read.  I took notice of which books she enjoyed most since they held her attention.  I pointed out letters and numbers everywhere.  We liked Preschool Prep Company's DVDs and apps and the Endless Alphabet, Endless Reader, and Endless Numbers apps.  

We also do a ton of reading everyday because she loves it so much.  When she was an infant, we would dedicate time to reading books with one word per page (in addition to reading other picture books).  While reading books, I would pause at words I knew she had already learned to see if she would read them.  Many times she did, other times she didn't.  I never pushed; I just had faith that it was all sinking in.  Then, I started showing her Reading Bear (www.readingbear.org).  It's free and wonderful for teaching to read by sounding out words.  We read different types of books, some books with rich vocabulary and also easy reader books to build up her confidence.

We also liked watching Leapfrog Letter Sounds, Talking Words Factory, etc.

As for math, Marshmallow Math is a great book to start with.  We like the YCCD DVDs every once in awhile.  We played with blocks a lot and talked about the different 3D shapes (ie. pyramid, cone, etc.).  We practiced making patterns and sorting items/toys.  We play(ed) with big dice and dominoes.  There's a cool app called Bugs and Buttons that she used to love to play too.  There's a show called Number Crew that is fantastic.  I wouldn't have thought my daughter would enjoy it, but she loves it.  Each episode incorporates different math concepts.  We read MathStart books which are living math books that teach math concepts through fun stories.  

The key is to reinforce concepts from the DVDs or books with fun activities.

This is just a very general idea of what we've done...

If you have any specific questions, I would be happy to share!  

Take care!

[reading]

I'm not sure if anyone has addressed this question already, but I remember a few people asking about it...

I think the question was about right and left brain development.  It's been mentioned that we should avoid doing too much LB developmental activities at an early stage.  From what I understand from TW, linking memory is a "right brain" activity for left brain dominant individuals.  It is not recommended for children under 4 years because these children are largely right brain dominant and don't need these tools to remember things.  Yet, the children in Shichida and Heguru all do linking memory from infancy.

I've been reading Makoto Shichida's book (which you can buy directly from the Japan website - it's in English, too!) and linking memory is one of the tools recommended for developing right brain image memory.  Shichida believes that if you want to develop superb memory capabilities, the training has to begin from infancy.  At Shichida, they believe in using inking memory.  This is because children are very creative and fanciful.  They can come up with all sorts of fantastic stories.

For those who don't know, linking memory is a method of helping us remember a list of items.  It is often recommended by a lot of memory books.  For instance, if you wanted to remember cat, oranges, fan, and shoes, you could make up a funny story like: "A cat was eating oranges.  The oranges were ripened with a fan.  The fan was strange because it wore shoes."  Children can make up all sorts of wild stories to link unrelated objects together.

In Shichida's book, he cites an example from one of the teachers regarding linking memory and what it does.  The children in the class are encouraged to practice linking memory to help them remember a series of cards.  They work at it until they can remember the entire series of cards all in order - it might be twenty cards, or it might be forty cards, or it could be more.  What one teacher reported was that when the children could remember about 30 cards in correct order using the linking memory method, something strange happens.  Some of the children are suddenly able to remember 40 or 50 cards by glancing at them without using words.  It is as if linking memory is triggers the brain's photographic memory ability.

I haven't finished reading Shichida's book (sorry - slow reader alert) but it is pretty amazing.  I'll be updating this post in time to come as I don't have time to write it all at one go so please bear with me.  If you're impatient, you can just buy the book directly from Shichida and read it for yourself.

[reading]

Thank you Manda for your suggestion.  Yeah I am leaning towards Shicida too at least to try it out.  I may still try to fit her in part-time Montessori preschool for a few months to a year before kindergarten so that she will be somewhat prepared for full-time kindergarten life.

Does anyone have Tweedle Wink programs?  Is it a program to have?  I am considering getting some DVDs too from that program in Math and the one that teaches different languages, and maybe the 12 DVDs down the road.  One thing I am concerned is the screen time allowed per day.  5-10 minutes per program each time each day... If I have 5-6 programs, she will be watching the screen for an hour or two each day just for the educational ones plus other programs on top when I am doing chores.  That seems a lot to me.

I have some friends who send their kids to kumon class when they are 3 years old for reading and math.  One girl seems to do well and she can read by kindergarten and now she is in French immersion in kindergarten.  Has anyone tried that method too?  It seems they are doing a lot of workbook drills like a book a day.  Any reviews on that method?

There are just so many programs out there and it can be really overwhelming.  I don't want to do too much at a time but since we started late so I want to get her to expose to more while I can. 

She does reading bear and starfall here and there too.  She will look at the icon pictures of reading bear and determine what she wants to see.  That means she want to read something new every time before she is familiar with the old concept!   Starfall is nice too but she seems to like to do the same ones over and over again. 

Thanks again for any suggestions!

Marrtai 

[Reading]

Okay, so as I have said in other posts, my kiddo loves the IPad!  We must have about 10 pages of different baby/toddler learning apps, both free and paid!  We stick to only the 'educational' because my daughters IPad time/IPhone time has to be limited...although I refuse to feel Guilty about letting her play in the mornings in our bed while we get in a good 1/2 hour of cuddle time (and Mommy gets a few precious extra minutes of rest! ). But as I am sure you EL parents are all very aware of, there just are only so many hours in the day!

We try to have a schedule every day for mealtimes, nap times, computer times (for LR/LM/Reading Bear/youTube videos), as well as 45 min-1 hour of reading before nap and bedtime...The rest varies day to day, although she always watches YCCR or Signing Time during lunch...I do try to have a list of things I want to 'fit in' here and there...we have even started doing some apps and LR/LM via Splashtop and the IPad while kiddo is sitting on her little potty or driving to Gymnastics 2 x per week!

How you parents with more than one child do it defies me!  I think you are all absolutely AMAZING!

So today I was playing with some of her favorites, and realized that one company makes several of them...I thought I would start of this thread with some of them..please share your favorites and the ages of your kiddos that enjoy them the most! ( it would also me useful to note whether they are free or paid?!)

Almost all of the apps by Duck Duck Moose are WONDERFUL! All vey highly rated, usually cost $1.99, but well worth it...A is two, and while they are recommended for ages 4+, if you are like me this is more of an encouragement!
Some are even better than others:
ParkMath HD is her favorite, with WordWagon HD a close second...Today we bought MusicalMe, and it is fantastic is well...there is even a section that has a follow-along section for teaching patterns with Do-Re-Me!
The graphics are great, and there is a ton of useable material... Fish HD is also great!

She also likes almost all of the Apps by Grasshopper Apps, and if you have not seen their "I Like Books", this is a must see!  Mostly free, simple books with read-along, highlighted words at the bottom..you can choose read by yourself or read to me options, and they seem to have one for just about every interest!

iWriteWords bygdiPlus ($2.99) is also fantastic for teaching her how to write her letters.  The first time I tried to show her how to write her name, she told me she already knew how to make the letter A, and came pretty darn close!

She really likes TeachMe Toddlert (24x7 Digital LLC, $0.99) and LOVES TeachMe Kindergarten because she can 'earn' money to buy stickers...TeachMe 1st Grade is too advanced and she gets mad because she wants a sticker!

Right now her absolute favorites are both by ABCYa.com!  Word Bingo and Junior Bingo! Oh wow! Word Bingo is for sight words,choose a level, clear up to 3rd grade level sight words.  You earn these little stylized bugs, but I have yet to meet a kid that didn't go MENTAL for them!  No idea...but hey, you can't beat it...the junior version does colors, shapes, and letters, and she loves it nearly as much! These are also $1.99 I think, and rated 4+...right!  Thereof a math oneaswell but is too advance for A right now...

So, enough for now...any apps out there that your kiddos love?

[reading]

I agree with CVMomma too. I like to see studies with programs like brillkids, reading bear or starfall. A lot of the studies I have seen on this have used programming like baby Einstein as "educational programming" and that isn't really educational. My kids didn't watch TV or computer programs before 2 but if I had more I would do Brillkids, Reading Bear or Sttarfall with them and nothing else. A lot of the studies also commented how that if TV was on as background that the babies and toddlers were hearing less speech from their care givers. I think that was the main problem with TV. I don't think really short lengths like on Brill kids will make a difference especially with attentive care givers.

[reading]

Do you have any specific plans for college with your children since they are so far advanced? Mine is 18m and have thoughts of how I want his education to go.  I love the family who put there kids in college at age 12, Kip and Mona Lisa ? I'd love for my children to start classes that young and I've looked into the opportunity to clep most of gen ed courses.  Which could mean the possiblity of only attending two years out of a four year college.  That would save me a ton!

This is what I've been doing for my son now and I'm also 34weeks with the second.
He is doing YBCR, reading bear and I've started to increase my out loud reading time with him to 3x/day.  For his math I'm looking into buying the Mortensen Math set, the deluxe set when tax time comes.  I think it will cost around $500 but it goes up to calc and trig I think.  I'd like to buy through Crewton Ramone, he so many videos available on YT.  I believe his kids were doing algebra around 5/6yrs old. 

Great job with your children btw!

[reading]

We started our little boy on LR around 13 months and completed the program when he was about 2 years and still have no obvious 'reading' results. He is now 2 years 4 months. We ran through LR once a day and did little to reinforce it except for general reading and some letter play.

Despite the lack of 'reading', I have absolutely no regrets about spending the time of LR. My son had no spoken words, not even mum and dad at 18 months, and now his language development is just accelerating - he is ahead of many of his peers whereas he used to be behind.  He is also explicitly curious about words, their definitions and pronunciation which is great for his vocabulary and which I directly attribute to LR . My husband, who was a skeptic of the program, is now a convert.

Furthermore, at the conclusion of LR my son also showed less obvious steps towards reading. He recognised that text represented words and pretended to 'read' (as an ex teacher I can confirm that 2ish is very early for this behaviour (though it might seem very late if you go by the kids on this forum!)). He also knew the sounds of several letters, again early if you compare it to averages.

We are now working slowly (and somewhat erratically) through the programs Reading Bear and Your Monster can Read. I am continuing to see progress. He knows the sounds of all is letters and is sometimes guessing words based on their first letter. He recognises a couple of sight words too. I am not pushing it too hard, and I am taking our son's interest as the barometer for how much explicit reading teaching to do. My priority is that he enjoys reading and the learning process. If he takes longer than many of the kids on this forum I am  not worried - it is just who he is.

I am also a great believer in latent learning. It might appear nothing is happening now, but when your child does start to read, it will probably be at a much faster rate than would otherwise be the case had she not been exposed to LR.

Lower your expectations and enjoy the process! You might be surprised about what your daughter is actually learning if you let go of what you think she should be learning.

[Reading]

You know the quote "I love deadlines.  I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."?  I feel like that with schedules and routines.  I love them.  I love coming up with them, I love what I can get done when I follow them.  But I have never managed to follow one for more than 3-5 weeks.  Then it disintegrates, and I have to (get to?) come up with a whole new one.  Odd, I know, but it works for me!

That being said, our current schedule is heavy on the outdoor time.  That's my main focus for off-screen "learning" at the moment.  So this is what my 3yo and 1yo and I do daily:

7-7:30 The girls come get in my bed (husband has already left for work) and cuddle until they get me up.  (I don't like mornings.)
7:30-8:30 Breakfast and screentime.  This is the bulk of our official learning for the day.  We do LR, LMus, flashed RightStart math, Reading Bear, youtube "Kids Picture Show" Addition tables, and a treat - an Alphablocks episode.  I'm working to add EK in there, too, and I need to come up with more ideas for math, but that's the current practice.
8:30 I go out and milk the goats.  The girls usually come play in the backyard while I do it, but the past couple days they've opted to stay inside and play with toys.
9 I read my scriptures, exercise if I have time, and get ready to go.
9:30 We go 3 miles to an undeveloped piece of land filled with equestrian/walking trails.  Mondays and Wednesdays we take my nephew, who's 4, with us.  We start at a picnic table at the top and use Kimochis to discuss social skills.  Then we throw the Kimochis in the car and hike down to the creek.  The kids play for a while, then we have a snack and read 2-3 books and act out/play one of the books we read (like "being cougars" or "building a house" out of rocks).  Then we go for an explore.  I want to add in sitting quietly time at the end; maybe next week.
11:30 We give my nephew back to his mom and get our picnic out of the car.  By this point the 1yo is asleep in the backpack carrier, so the 3yo and I eat and read stories and talk.  Sometimes we head back out for more exploring, sometimes we get to watch horses being tacked up, sometimes we watch birds or ants or whatever.  When the 1yo wakes up she eats and joins us.
1 Tuesdays we go to storytime at the library.  Other days we may head to the splash pad or the store.
2 Back home for Naptime!  I'm trying to put the baby down first and let Big Girl work on reading and math with me.  Or maybe I'll start packing all the stuff and do it over lunch.  It's just so hard to get out the door!
3:30-4 Kids get up for a snack.  I want to do Session 2 of LR and the EK here at some point.  Sometimes this is where Big Girl's reading and math happen, but Baby is an attention hog if she's awake.
4 Housework, making dinner, playtime
5:15 Husband comes home and we have dinner, do whatever we've got going on, get together for nightly devotional at 7:30 and then bed for the girls by 8 so my husband can milk the goat.

This schedule works very well on Mondays and Wednesdays, because I'm committed to my sister-in-law.  Other days, maybe not.  Like today, we ended up doing learning stuff a lot in the morning and never made it outside.  Too bad.  This has been in place for a month now, so it'll probably run out of steam soon.

As far as non-screen learning, I'm only doing what comes up naturally outside right now.  Lots of books, and I try to make the ones I pick math or science related.  I've tried Montessori in the past, but it doesn't work at all for Big Girl.  After all the effort I put in, that's very disappointing, but oh, well.  I have some ideas on how to adapt it, but not the time right now.  Maybe in the winter.  We also have the classical music station going whenever we're home, and I try to speak French with them as much as possible.  And I have a deliberate focus on seeing how anything and everything can be turned into math.  I want to talk math all the time.  It's getting there, slowly.  That's about it.  I think we'll do more in the winter.  Maybe I'll write up what we did last winter sometime.

[reading]

For what it's worth, Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, has a website devoted to teaching early reading. Www.reading bear.org.    Obviously, he believes in it.  I think Doman addressed quite thoroughly in his books the adverserial attitude mainstream medicine has toward him, and how he was too busy healing kids to worry too much about it.

[bear]

Thank you for starting this thread - I was planning on doing the same thing in the next few days!  I'm a big advocate of mindfulness and awareness training for both adults and children, there is a lot of evidence of its benefit, both emotionally and in concentration skills.  Plus for learning to manage difficult emotions, and as a form of relaxation or calming activity. 

I found a few interesting articles (but always keen to see more!):
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/08/21/f-vp-handler-schools-brain-lingo-sel.html
http://www.theprovince.com/health/Meditation+helps+kids+attention+leading+researcher+says/6159558/story.html
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/news/goldie-hawn-discusses-teaching-meditation-and-neuroscience-to-children
http://www.wildmind.org/tag/children

I am personally far more famililar with mindfulness for adults, so I'm very keen to learn more about how to adapt for children.  I've just ordered / borrowed from the library a few books on mindfulness / meditations:

The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate  http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindful-Child-Happier-Compassionate/dp/1416583009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347022986&sr=8-1&keywords=mindfulness+kids

10 Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children--and Ourselves--the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce Stress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happy Lives   http://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Minutes-Children---Ourselves---Emotional/dp/039953606X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347023065&sr=8-1&keywords=mindfulness+goldie+hawn

The Centering Book: Awareness Activities for Children, Parents, and Teachers   http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0131221841/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

I haven't received the last one yet - still waiting for it to arrive.

So for I've read the first few chapters of the Mindful Child.  It's a great book written by a teacher very experienced at working with a range of children's ages.  So far there is a greater focus on older children (my DD is 3.5) so I'm thinking about what could be adapted for her.  I've literally only come up with two or three activities so far!  I think that starting very small and building up is the key.  The exercises I've come across so far are:

1.  Take three breaths- this can be very helpful to ground us, e.g. just before leaving the house or when you notice you are starting to feel a bit tense. Try to be aware of each breath in, the full exhalation and the gentle pauses between the breaths.  Don't force the breathing.  Place a hand on your tummy to feel it move.
I've been trying to get DD to do this before she gets out of the car to go to nursery (she's never keen on transitions) to help.  She won't always do it.  I try to do it (and at least helps me a bit to keep calm if nothing else!).  It's too late if they are already very worked up or emotional.

2.  Rocking your teddy to sleep.  We had some success with this the first time but the next times DD also just wanted to talk rather than do the exercise.  Before going to sleep, place a favourite small teddy on the child's tummy while they lie on their back.  Say "see if you can feel your head on the pillow and let your body sink down into the mattress.  Can you feel the teddy sitting gently on your tummy?"  Ask them to rock the bear to sleep with their gentle breathing using the tummy.  There's no need to force the breathing or push it up too high.  You could ask them to count the breaths (I usually do up to 5 and then start again - if they get lost or the mind wanders then non-judgementally start at 1 again).   You could also ask them to say up and down as he rises and falls.  This helps keep a bit of an anchor and focus on the activity.  I tried this for literally about 15-30 seconds but you could do longer with a slightly older child.  Next step is to try without counting. I did this again for maybe only 10s following straight on from the counting phase.  Ask them to watch teddy gently rising and falling and to feel him on their tummy as he moves. If they prefer either with or without counting then you could just do that.

3.  Sending kindly / friendly wishes.  This is adapted from a Buddhist Metta Bhavna meditation, but is really a very non-religious activity and can certainly be modified to fit all different beliefs.  The aim is to encourage development of thoughtfulness, compassion and kindness for the self and others.  Again a good exercise for bedtime. 
Ask the child to send friendly wishes to themselves, imagining that they are happy, having fun, healthy and safe with friends and family.
Then send wishes to a close family member.  E.g. "Daddy, I want you to be happy, healthy and strong.  I want you to feel lots of love in your life.  I want you to get home from work early so you can play with me.  I hope you always feel peaceful, calm and are always safe.
Then send kindly wishes to others including friends and family, people they've met, they haven't met yet but would like to, and finally to all living things in the whole world.
"I hope you are happy, healthy and have fun.  That you have enough to eat and drink, and people around to love and care for you. I hope you find ways to overcome any difficulties you are facing. I hope for you to be safe and healthy and live a happy life..."
Finally end back with kindly wishes to the child themselves once more.
Older children can send kindly wishes to people who they are having difficulties with but this may be too challenging for young children.
I did this with my daughter recently - a VERY brief version for a 3-year old at bedtime, we stuck with people she knows (she could choose).  I think she finds the concept quite abstract so it's something we will work on very slowly.

For a very talkative child, my feeling is that you might be better off starting with some kind of mindfulness of movement as it may be she has a lot of energy and many children (and adults) find sitting still for long periods very difficult and quite stressful, so the opposite of gaining calmness and relaxation.  I personally like mindfuness of walking (some info here http://www.wildmind.org/walking). Classically you focus on the movement of lifting and placing your feet on the ground.  I think this could be easily adapted for children - ask them to move in different ways and choose a different part of the body to focus on each time.  For example, lets walk around the room.  Notice your feet, now do they feel, what is the carpet like underneath, are they warm or cold, what happens with each step.  How does it change when you take different types of steps, walk on tiptoes, walk really slowly or run.  You could make this into a kind of game - maybe musical statues - where when you say stop, they try to keep still and notice one part of the body.  Mindfulness is simply awareness and being present about what is going on in both mind and body, so it is not essential to be completely silent or still.  Lying down and then rolling gentlly around whilst noticing the feel of the ground on your body might also be good. 

In the Mindful child, the author talks about a Pendulum game for those who find it hard to sit still.  The child sits cross legged and gently sways from side to side and stays aware of the movement.  You can beat a drum to help keep time and they could try to breath gently in time with the movements.

Anyway, I'm going to keep reading and happy to post the exercises here - it will help keep me focussed.  Looking forward to hearing other people's insight and experiences.

[Bear]

Thanks TeachingMyToddlers, I was going to do a little research on the Finnish example before I wrote this and was glad you had the link. However, it is not surprising that many Finnish children enter school able to read or are emergent readers. For goodness sakes they are seven. I have several friends who are unschoolers. Their children learn to read on their own. Only one of nine children I know about couldn't read by age 7 and the mother was getting worried about it. The kids picked up most of the learning on their own.

But, I don't want to start at using Finland as an example. That is merely a distraction. First lets deal with a practical question. If the early years are years of tremendous growth and learning, and if we give them information like: this is a bird, this is your nose, milk, eat, mommy, daddy and here is how we jump; why on earth is it detrimental to give them additional information like this is called an “a” and it says “ah” and this is a “2”? Why would giving them information that helps them make sense of the world they live in be harmful and keeping that information from them be helpful? This makes no logical sense.

My response cannot possibly answer all of the questions some of our new members ask themselves. I've been around the homeschooling world long enough to know that children survive all kinds of mistakes parents make, usually without lasting effects, if parents are humble enough to correct their errors. I've yet to see children refuse to learn because their parents started teaching them to read and write at 3 and 4. What I have seen is children who could read and write at 4 who then got lazy because they weren't challenged and then had a hard time later. That is a genuine and real problem for the EL community. Parents should go into this with their eyes wide open. But this is not specific to the EL community. This is a problem with all above average children in our public and private educational institutions. I have said this before - children who are gifted/above average are less likely to graduate from college and be successful than children who are merely “average”. It comes down to laziness. Please see the research done by the Belin Blank Center at the University of Iowa. They coast through the elementary years and never learn how to work. Because the studies are dumbed down in high school, they never learn to manage both school and extra-curricular activities. They never figure out how to study or take tests. They didn't have to. They get to college and their peers have all caught up with them and now they are in trouble. They can't hack college life. But this is not because they were taught too young. This is because the adults in their lives did not challenge them.

The assumption that EL is hard on a child is false. The children in my daycare are not burdened by EL. Other than the writing, my children will far surpass the goals set forth in these programs. My kids do not balk at learning, they love it. Not only can they read and do math, they know the names of local birds by sight, sound and written name. They can identify local plants, trees and animal tracks. They learn about the solar system and how food digests. Currently every kid in my daycare is taking violin and piano lessons. I must insert here that I have only 2 full-time and 1 part-time plus one of my own. In their MUCH free playtime they act out the stories: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Runaway Pancake, Chicken Little and The Three Little Pigs. Yesterday, I caught my 2 year old reading The Owl and the Kitty Cat to one of the daycare girls. His part of the conversation went like this:

“Kitty said the to Owl, 'You elegant fowl'.  Ana, fowl means a bird, it means he is bootiful bird.”

This is not a stunted child.

But, having said all the previous, I would stand with the Open EYE folks and oppose the regulations placed on daycares and preschools. A child sitting on the lap of a loving caregiver using the EL techniques you find on this site is not the same thing as lining children up in rows and group activities and didactically teaching phonics rules. My child would rebel in that situation. Most children would rebel in that situation. And the bright children will revolt. In that case, I would much rather have my child outside playing. What I oppose with these regulations is the same thing I oppose in all state schools – cookie cutter curriculum and a poor curriculum at that. Little children do not all learn the same way. Not all programs work for all kids. Our brand of EL works so well because it is implemented by people who love and care about these specific children not by people who like children in general. The caregivers of these children are invested in their particular futures. I know when what I am doing is not working for my child and the children I care for. If I can get all the children working on the same thing at once I will, but that doesn't happen often. All of my kids have educational goals each day that are tailored for themselves. And if they are tired we quit. If someone misses their mommy too much today we just read stories and snuggle. You cannot do this with 20 children and 2 teachers. LR works for some kids and not others. And Reading Bear works for some kids and not others. Handing down a curriculum and saying you must use this for all little kids a bad idea. The paperwork alone would be a nightmare. But this is not the same as saying EL is bad. What the Open Eye folks are missing is that it is their system that has brought this on. They cannot educate a child properly in 13 years. Why would giving them another 2 or 3 make a difference? It is not just preschoolers that are coming out not able to learn, most children in state schools are not learning. If I were a betting person, I'm not even betting that the curriculum is the problem – I'm going to hedge my bets on the fact that little children want to be with their parents. There are multiple studies that indicate that children do much better if they are kept at home longer. This is not to disparage parents who must send their kids to daycare. I am a daycare provider. But I am painfully aware that the children would rather be with their parents.

The other assumption here is that childhood is some inherently magical special time that shouldn't be tainted with more mature subject matter (reading and writing and arithmetic). Thus, we have specific programming devoted to children filled with drivel and nonsense or as Charlotte Mason would say twaddle. You see this in some of the comments made in the movie. Yet, the Open Eye folks are a bit disingenuous. All children are learning all the time, they are correct. You cannot stop a child from being educated. All you can do is direct that education. They just want a list of things that are acceptable to learn and things that are not for the sake of some ideal specific to what it means to be a child. I submit that this is silly on it's face. Giving children more information is not harmful. However, it is possible to make certain kinds of learning distasteful.

Now, what about pushing the kids too hard and fast? There are some parents that do that I am sure. They see the progress of  certain children on boards such as BK and then they woodenly apply EL strategies trying to get their child to surpass or meet certain expectations. They push beyond what a child is capable of. This is not an EL problem, this is a parental problem. You will see these same parents on the sports field, in music and math competitions. EL did not make these parents.

The few long term studies and the anecdotal evidence does not support that EL is bad for children. Dr. Beth Lucy Wellman's studies on orphans in the 30's showed that children who had participated in EL brain building and educational activities caused a 15-35% increase in IQ scores and that the earlier the intervention the higher the rise in IQ. Those children were followed for some time and often out performed their peers from 2 parent families.

I've no doubt that EL can be done wrong and cause damage to children. Please look at the current state school system. That does not mean that EL is wrong. That is like saying that because our state schools turn out children who are functionally illiterate, shallow, and morally bankrupt we should stop educating our children. Most of us are able to put on our big kid pants and see through that nonsense.

[Reading]

Thanks so much for your information!  I've started to doing my Doman words & math homemade LR/LM programs back to back at the breakfast table, followed by LMu.  My nine month old looks forward to it and starts clapping as soon as I bring out the computer.  It's been great!  Her big sister watches, too, and then does Reading Bear afterward.  I never would have thought they'd concentrate so long!  Thanks!

And it makes a lot of sense that the parents/teachers would be more stressed by trying to fit in lots of little lessons.  I know I was.  Doing it first thing in the morning makes it easier to relax the rest of the day.

[reading]

For telepathy, we use the boy's 'magic eye' - in the middle of his forehead.
We get him to use his 'magic eye' and look through a few cards that are faced down. And say we ask him to look for the card with 'strawberry' on it. And that's it, simple as that. To add to the feel, we put dramatic sounds to it, as if his 'magic eye' is doing the reading. Sometimes, we even ask him to guess which elevator (in the shopping mall) will stop to pick us up.

For imaginary play, we make him imagine that he can actually pull the cute teddy bear out from the picture and cuddle it. My boys like 'imaginary play' and they like it on foods stuff. So, they will pull out foods from advertisements and banners while we are on the road and put them into their mouths. My 5 year-old will actually tell me when the fruit tastes sour after popping into his mouth. My 18 month old will reject fruits, before he even tasted by giving me a very sour look. And well, I was trying to trick him to eat the green kiwi.

[bear]

Keri is awesome!

Early Learning does not have to cost much. We are a single income, low income family. Thanks to a small raise my husband made last week we are finally above the poverty line! Just.

My single biggest investment for my son was an iPad. With an iPad I can get a plethora of early learning apps for nothing or a few dollars here and there. I completely believe you can teach a child to read and do math with an iPad (some apps) and access to a library.

The library is a huge boost for us. My son borrows about 30 books a week and devours them. We read non fiction just as much as fiction. Many libraries allow you to borrow DVDs and CDs too. I was able to borrow some preschool prep and

Another place I go is Goodwill. I have been able to find some great books for 99c. And some awesome games for $2-$4. Goodwill is a good source for puzzles.
Discount or outlet stores are a good source for work books and puzzles too.
Garage sales can be surprising resources.

There will always be something that you feel you have to buy. But often times there is a cheaper option. You don't need to buy counting bears for math. You can use anything in your home. Cheerios are a hit here. Or we spent $1 buy hundreds is tiny erasers to count. You don't need fancy work books worth $30-$40. Schoolzone makes some great ones for under $3. Or that might have been the amazon deal pricebut they are cheap.

If I am to buy something expensive I look for a great deal, I buy it through amazon with swag bucks and credit card reward points, or  buy it used via eBay.

There will eventually be somethings you will want to spend money on, like an abacus or dominos for example. But for things like that I give to my son for birthday and Christmas presents. My son gets used books and work books and educational toys for birthday and Christmas. And he is ecstatic.

Oh and I second Cockers, YouTube is a great free resource. There  are several completely free math programs, one called MEP  and another called JUMP. Starfall followed by Reading Bear are great free reading resources.

You may want to invest in a good printer with cheap ink.

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