Hello Joelymc!
Welcome to this forum!
I'm also very happy teacher of my baby. So far I am not certain what he is learning because he is only 9 months old but he seems to be very interested of texts and books so I bet he is learning all the time. About a week ago I showed him Roman numbers and he was jumping of excitement in number eight (IIX). Maybe it was because this was actually the first time when he had ever seen letter 'x' used anywhere.
Ok, I've been reading quite a lot about this area, so here are my ten cents for the topic.
Learning to read in this age is very different compared to learning to read in school. First of all, you are supposed to have fun with it! If something feels like pressuring your baby, don't do it and change it to something that both of you enjoy or do it on some other day or on morning (when the baby is on the best mood). And don't test your baby. Babies are like sponges and keep on learning all the time. In one study it was identified that a 9 month old infant had already perfectly ready brains for speaking which activated accordingly when mother was speaking to the baby. According to Glenn Doman it possible (and easy) to learn to read at the same time when they are learning to speak. Just trust your babies capability to learn everything you show to him. And keep you session constant, well prepared, short and joyful.
For the first couple of years baby is not expected to "understand phonetics". What they seem to be doing when flashcards are shown is to learn to recognize the picture of the word. I really think that something similar might also be happening in adult brains too because adults are not really "reading" each letter (or are we?). A year old baby can read a book by identifying familiar words and knowing what they mean. Phonetics are something that are typically (?!) something that babies are expected to catch automatically at some point after enough time with flashing. Reading should be started with familiar everyday words to help the baby to learn them.
The key is to present texts in a format that the baby can understand (at least font 80, preferably red font color to catch the baby's attention, always keeping the pictures as clear as possible only showing one object).
The main source for information for parents is Doman's How to teach your baby to read book. There are also several options for help YBCR dvd (your baby can read), LittleReader software, or TweedleWink dvd.
We also made a book with all the family members and their names written on top of the pictures. I just recently realized the font was too small and too black for the baby to notice it
We have been singing ABC's everyday since our babies birth and I have labeled all the objects in our babies room. We are also having a lot of fun in playing with phonetics (rrrr, rararara, rererere, rorororo..) while I show them from the alphabets and our LO is laughing a lot to me when I am playing with sounds.
Enjoy!
Digg
