My 3-year-old boy reading a couple of random books

[Discussing video]

Discussing video

My 3-year-old boy reading a couple of random books

Here's my little boy, 3 years 4 months old (not eight years, as he says!), in an unedited, unscripted video reading a couple of books he randomly chose out of our bookcases. I think we read the first, "Angus and the Ducks," two times about nine months ago. We've read bits of the second, "Mighty Machines," many times, but I don't think we've ever read this particular question and answer. The video was totally unedited. He has definitely not memorized these. He's not a genius, we just taught him to read. Your baby can read, and have fun doing it, too. Search YouTube for "babies reading" and "toddlers reading" and "preschoolers reading". Also search for "Your Baby Can Read". You'll be amazed. These days, a lot of people are learning for the first time that it's possible to teach tiny kids to read. I learned that it was possible myself only about 18 months ago, by watching other YouTube videos.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/8iHU2yAIu8U&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/8iHU2yAIu8U&amp;rel=0&amp;fs=1</a>

Author DadDude	Rating 3.89 (9 votes)
Date September 15, 2009, 08:49:17 PM	Views 5623

[Susan626]

Hey DadDude,

Wow, I'm totally impressed! That is incredible! You mentioned you spent at least an hour, possible 2-3hours of reading a day. I'm quite suprised by his ability to concentrate for this long duration. Do you break that one hour of reading into few short reading sessions? Do you point to each and every word that you read aloud to him? I'm just curious, by reading aloud to him, you can actually teach him to read. That's incredible. I mean, i totally agree reading to a baby introduces vocabulary and concepts. For a LO to sit for such a long duration while able to comprehend what is being read to him, doesn't he need to be equipped alots of vocabularies? How are you able to make this happend at such a young age? Any tips on selecting good and suitable books for our LOs?           

[TheyCan]

This is really impressive!  You've done an awesome job teaching your son!  It shows you have a real passion for teaching him.  Looking through your posts - I have a couple questions.  First, do you print all your presentations (and make books)?  Or do you just read them to him on the computer?  Second, the phonics cards you made obviously have very similar words.  I believe I've read in other places (maybe Your Baby Can Read materials), that the words should be different so the baby can easily recognize the difference (like hippopotamus and dog).  I realize there are two different objectives going on.  Did you only use the phonics cards?  Or did you simultaneously use a vocab set with different looking words?  Thank you so much!!!  I hope you continue to share your progress!!!

[DadDude]

Wow, I'm totally impressed! That is incredible! You mentioned you spent at least an hour, possible 2-3hours of reading a day. I'm quite suprised by his ability to concentrate for this long duration. Do you break that one hour of reading into few short reading sessions? Do you point to each and every word that you read aloud to him? I'm just curious, by reading aloud to him, you can actually teach him to read. That's incredible. I mean, i totally agree reading to a baby introduces vocabulary and concepts. For a LO to sit for such a long duration while able to comprehend what is being read to him, doesn't he need to be equipped alots of vocabularies? How are you able to make this happend at such a young age? Any tips on selecting good and suitable books for our LOs?           

Thanks Susan.  I work at home and his Mama is at home as well.  So I go down and eat all three meals with the little family, and mealtime is our main "study" time.  This is about 45 minutes per session.  We also read about 30 minutes or more before sleep.  We frequently (not every day) do other educational things as well.  Using what might otherwise be "idle" time really adds up, as you can see.  At mealtime, too, he's a captive audience.  When he was smaller, I frequently just sat him on my lap and read a bunch of books to him.  When he was very small, concentration was never an issue--I don't know why--probably because it was a little "closeness" time.  He still likes to sit in my lap while I read although we don't do it that way so much anymore.

I do have a tip about book selection.  It is very important to select books that are not too far above a kid's level.  Always include stuff that is on the easy side.  Recently we've been going back and reading some Little Golden Books, even though at night we're reading Little House in the Big Woods and even things a little above that in level.  Before he was 12 or 14 months or so, I think it was, we focused almost completely on baby/concept books.  Only then we moved into the really, really easy picture books, like Biscuit and the simplest Dr. Seuss books.  And so forth.  By always reading to him a lot at his level and also always a little above his level, he's progressed pretty quickly.  I have noticed that when I try to read too much that is above his level, that's when he starts to get impatient.

This is really impressive!  You've done an awesome job teaching your son!  It shows you have a real passion for teaching him.  Looking through your posts - I have a couple questions.  First, do you print all your presentations (and make books)?  Or do you just read them to him on the computer?  Second, the phonics cards you made obviously have very similar words.  I believe I've read in other places (maybe Your Baby Can Read materials), that the words should be different so the baby can easily recognize the difference (like hippopotamus and dog).  I realize there are two different objectives going on.  Did you only use the phonics cards?  Or did you simultaneously use a vocab set with different looking words?  Thank you so much!!!  I hope you continue to share your progress!!!

Thanks!  Well, I have never printed a single one of my presentations.  We just sit in front of the computer.  Usually after he gets up from his afternoon nap (oops that would be another regular teaching time we have).  But I never did this with him when he was a baby (that I recall).  We started doing ppt presentations only about a year ago, when he was around 28 months.

As to the second question, I don't know whether the Flesch word list or my cards could be used to teach very small babies.  I would be very interested to learn if anyone had tried.  But when we started, he was 22 months old and had finished learning to recognize all the letters and letter sounds.  So he had no trouble distinguishing between the words because he was learning to sound them out.  What look like little differences to someone looking at "the overall shape" of the world end up being plenty big enough, I guess, when you're looking at each individual letter (albeit very quickly).

One idea I've seen some people mention is that they would do Doman-style presentations until their child was older, then they would introduce phonics.  Sort of makes sense to me.  We did YBCR and the phonics cards at the same time, but that was when he was almost 2.

[Susan626]

Thanx for your reply and the wonderful tip about book selection. I too notice that she gets impatient when i read too much that is above her level. Concept books? What do you mean by that? Any of those to quote? Would appreciate if you could comment on the question i asked earlier, - "Do you point to each and every word that you read aloud to him?"

[DadDude]

This is a topic that fascinates me (how to read to children).  Earlier, as I read, I pointed to everything.  I pointed to the words as I read them, and then (in picture books), if there was a word or name that I thought he may not have understood, I'd quickly point to what the word was referring to.  I used to do this a lot more, when he was 0-2 years old.  Now that he's nearly 3.5 years old, I point to things rather less and also read a little faster than I used to.

"Concept book" is I guess librarian jargon for the sort of book, mostly found at libraries (not so often at bookstores), that introduce concepts like the seasons, colors, occupations, numbers, ABCs, etc.  In short they're very similar to some basic Doman presentations (and my own presentations) but in book form.  We read a lot of them, got them from the library, when he was 1-2.  I was always a little surprised that Doman folks don't tout them more, these books are right up their alley.  The only unfortunate thing is that there aren't any concept books (that I've ever found) about many "advanced"-seeming, "encyclopedic knowledge"-type topics like history and science--although there are some.

[mother of faith]

Tooooooooo Cool!

[Raising Ethan]

Hi Daddude,
Thanks for the advice on simply reading an abundance of books to help our children progress with reading.  I think sometimes we parents can forget that with all the technology of computers, the internet, child development DVD's, video and youtube, sometimes the simplest of our educational resources, namely "books" and the act of reading them with our children, can get forgotten.   

DadDude, great work on teaching your son how to read. He reads awesome for such a young age. And the amount of technology available today does indeed take away from the idea of "just reading" to your child works too! But then if everyone just "read" to their children how would they make millions of dollars without selling all those tech./fancy products. I LOVE using tech. to teach with but I find that my toddler loves the intimate moments best as I hold him in my lap and read him his favorite stories. He can actually "feel" being loved at the same time while his brain is absorbing info.

[Susan626]

Hi Raising Ethan,

I have viewed your vedios in youtube. They are great! I can see that Ethan loves books alot. He was trying to recite them as you read to him. That's cute! I have a daughter who is about the same age as Ethan, and we even have the same book - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. But things for me are a complete opposite to what i have been in your vedio. The momement she sees that book, she will ran away from it. This happened even the first time i showed it to her and also applies on other books as well. She used to love books. I started reading to her as young as before her 6th month. She can sit in my lap for as long as 45 mins. Things started to change a couple of months ago. She is so active now that it is hard to keep her still in my lap. She likes to play with us "run and chase", "hide and seek", "piggy back", "bouncing on bed" etc. I am a working mum and i have only a couple of hours for her evey night. I truely agree with the "feel" being loved thing. And i am missing it.    Could you please advise? Would be really keen to know what's your magic.   Please advise on how many books or how long you read to Ethan a day. What is your list of books that you have choosen to read. It would be really useful for me as my girl is about the same age as Ethan. Many thanks in advance.
     

[DadDude]

Susan, I don't know how old your girl is, but when my boy was about 12 months, he went through a period of about 3-4 months or something like that in which he definitely didn't want to read books so much.  But it was just a phase.  He came back to books with gusto.

[Susan626]

Thanks DadDude, my girl is 18 months now. Glad to know this is just a phase. Looking forward to have our "cuddly" time again. 

[mother of faith]

My 16 month old is the same way, good to know. Thanks everyone.

[sabrina2005]

great job..DadDude

Did u teach him phonics..

[DadDude]

Thanks.  Yep!  http://www.mediafire.com/Fleschcards

[jackie0109]

I have a 3-year-old nephew who can read books, especially picture books and children encyclopedia.

[sonic4r]

My son who is 3 years old now can read some single words only.  I tried to join words into short sentences, then hopefully move to long sentences over time.  but seems that my son couldn't progress from there.  he's still stuck at the single words phase... 

what can i do?

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