My Baby doesent pay attention to the PC or TV or Flash cards

[Maria Clara]

Hello
I live in Colombia, and we speak spanish and I´m trying to teach my kid to read.  My son is 23 months and I started Glen Doman method with flash cards at 9 mo. At some point I noticed he didn´t pay much attention so I stopped for a while. 10 months ago I discovered LR and at first he was very excited about everything, and asked me three or four times a day to show him the words and he always wanted more and more.  We did 5 playlist three times a day for three months and we used to changed weekly the groups of words and what he most enjoyed were those with word + picture + sound.   We were doing very well but after three months, he didn´t want to watch the computer and every time I said let´s go and watch some words he said NO! 
He has never liked the TV and is not interested in cartoons, or anything similar or videos of any kind and I don´t want to insist because I don´t want to create the habit of watching TV.  I tried baby Einstein videos a few times and he is not interested either.  Besides, I don´t find them very special.
What he most likes are books.  He has like 10 books I bought  when he was a few months old with pictures or drawings of different things and the name below.  For example parts of the body, fruits, vegetables, the house, the garden, the bathroom, transportation, etc. One theme for page.  The images are very little, 8, 10 or 15 per page, and the books are not big.  He recognizes almost 100% of the images in the books and if he doesn´t  know he ask me pointing the image so I can say the name out loud.  He takes the book and starts reading page to page naming everything he sees.  The letters are very small so I don´t know if he pays attention to them, but he is amazing.  He absolutely love those books.  His vocabulary is incredible, he repeats every word I say and immediatly memorizes it.  He is using long sentences and also sings 6 o 7 songs and every body can understand him.  He loves music. Loves puzzles too.
Since I noticed he didn´t like te computer, I started making books myself.  I buy a big sheet of moderately thick and shinny white paper, make it cut  in a book size and make two perforations in the left side of each sheet.  That is the material.  Then every magazine I see, or even in the newspaper, I look for a picture, cut it and glue it on a sheet.  I write the name on the back with a red marker and in the next sheet I write a simple sentence related to the picture in big cases.  Every book has 5 pictures with the words on the back and five sentences.Then, I put 2 laces through the perforations on the left side of the sheets and make a knot and there is a book.  For example if I have a picture of a kid giving a kiss to his mommy, I write Kiss on the back and in the next sheet I write :  the boy gives a kiss to his mommy.    Now I have made more than 200 books like those.  He loves them and he likes reading them several times a day.  He looks for me in the house , takes my hand and take me to the sofa where we always read and ask me to read the home made books.  I give him 5 books every week and read them  two or three times a day during the week and every week I change them. I buy a lot of "normal" books for him, but he still prefer the ones mommy makes o the 10 little books with figures and the name below.
During the last week he doesn´t concentrate easily.  After one book, he leaves and go for another activity.  He distracts very easily and is very mobile.  I am worried. 
I sill ask him if he wants to watch the words and pictures in the computer and he says NOOOO!
If I sit him in front of the comuter and start LR, after 2 o 3 words he want to stop and ask me to stop.
The only thing he likes to watch in a screen are a few videos in you tube.  I chose 20 very popular songs for children and ocasionaly I sit him in front of the computer and he stares at it listeing to the music.  He can stay 15 o 20 minutes watching the videos.  He loves it.  When I try to show him LR he ask me for the videos.
Do you have any suggestions for me to teach my kid to read?  Those homemade books he loved, now I don´t see him very interested.
What shoul I do?  I am worried because he doesn´t like flashcards, computer or videos and now it seems that books either.

I´m a dermatologist, so I work 7 o 8 hours a day. He goes to the nursery from 8 to 12 from monday to friday and loves it.  We used to read before I went to work, then in the afternoon and before bed.  Now I don´t know what to do.

Please help me.

Mommy

[hypatia]

Hi Maria
I sure feel for you. I started flashcards when my daughter was 6 months (she is now 12 months) and she does not care whatsoever. I've tried every possible trick and she is not into it. Same goes for little reader, she won't even look once, just looks away for something to grab or play with. She is a very active kid always on the move and it sort of makes sense (she hasn't been on her back since she was 3 months old, now that she walks really well she won't let me take her hand, she does not want to sit on someone's lap etc) Same for books she only wants to close them.
So i've stoped with flashcards & LR, i've only taped a few words on the wall and whenever we walk by (me carrying her) i take her finger to point at the word and i pronounce it, that's it. We also have a map of the world and she's been able to point at Australia since the age of 11 months so i know she learns, just as long as i don't try to slow her down.
Good luck!!

[Twinergy]

It is not uncommon for kids this age (especially boys) to be very active and learn better by doing/touching than by seeing or hearing things.  Many kids will grow out of it by the time they are 6 but a few (I think 20%) remain tactile/kinesthetic learners their whole life.  Here is a thread on teaching active babies.  http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/how-do-you-teach-a-very-active-baby/

[KL]

How about finding Categories that you know will interest them? Animals perhaps? Dinosaurs?

In the middle you could slip in other things...

[Maria Clara]

Hello
Thank you for the recomendations.  I already showed him all the animals and their sounds and he can repeat a lot of them.  Surprisingly, animals are not his favorites, and he is not interested in dinosaurs.  He recognizes the great mayority if he sees a picture and he says the name outloud but I don't know if he can read.  He already saw the most popular and familiar words in little reader, perhaps 150 or 200 words and i think maybe he already knows them and is bored of them.  The problem is that he is not interested in the new ones.  I'll keep trying without pushing him, and i'm going to try other options with my imagination.
Than you
Maria

[Indidee]

Hi Maria
I am interested in how he is developing. I have a very very calm daughter but I fear she too is not showing so much of an interest in the LR type activities.  I wonder how she will react. I am actually about to subscribe to it. Your case is such a lesson for parents such as I.

Thanks.. Indi

[wenjonggal]

I'm perhaps not a good person to answer this stuff, because I myself think flashing flashcards is incredibly boring, but I think that we all learn better hands on. That is why for adults they have language trips, cooking classes, whatever. It is why my friend who is a university language department head says the more senses you can incorporate into learning, the faster you will learn and the more effective your memory. You're more likely to remember a mosquito that bites you than one on a flashcard, more likely to remember the name of a dish that tasted great, than a picture of it on a flashcard, etc etc. Small children are buildling their nerves in their whole bodies, their senses. Flashing an image on a flat card, or squishing some jelly between their fingers, discovering its flavour, stickiness, smell... normal he choses the latter and turns away from the former.

I guess I just think it is sad that people lament that kids do what they are supposed to be doing, exploring the world, and bored by incredibly passive rote learning. I'd say, "good for him!!!" (btw, children in most scandinavian countries, I think, don't learn to read til 7, and have some of the highest literacy rates in the world. Pc or tv aren't generally recommended til age 4 and over.. most of us are trying to get our older kids UNaddicted to pc and tv, and interested in the real world)

But you can ignore my opinion. I don't do LR or other such flashcard techniques, so I'm a bad advocate. I put my son in the bath and let him sit naked in and play with cooking condiments instead and name them. LOL!

I think that he loves books, and you make books for him is FANTASTIC! What is the point of flashing unrelated lists of words when he can have stories, sentences in context, the flow of the plot? I don't think I ever saw flashcards as a child, but my brother and I loved books and by 4-5 were reading fluently. In grade one I could read through most the books they gave us in 2-5 minutes. I did grade 2-3 in one year. My brother was reading 400-500 pg books in a day as a teen. As a gradeschooler he read the WHOLE World Book Encyclopedia.

I would say you are doing GREAT! Give him books, read to him, let him see when you point the words out as you read... and don't force him to do something that is boring (egads that someone flash Chinese vocab to me instead of me listening to Chinesepod.com: there they present funny witty, pertinent dialogues, and you REMEMBER it!)... you want him to LOVE and WANT to read. What a great mom you sound like!

[Indidee]

Whoa Wennjongal! You have actually expressed my own sentiments aloud. Although I dont discourage TV/PC because of my peculiar situation of living in the middle east where even the weather literally doesnt allow for the children to play in the heat and worse there actually arent any facilities in these countries unless you live in an ensconed sort of apartment complex with all facilities available.
Whilst I am aware of the dangers of TV and PC addition, what concerns me even more is the lack of opportunities to learn out in the open here.  LR type activities and stimulants work like a charm here.  So I wouldnt completely ignore the use of LR, GD or YBCR facilities.  However, there is no substitute to books and real life stimulants - no doubt.
I do hope however that my daughter learns to love books the way I did - except I had the advantage of having learnt from the real world rather than a world of audio-visual stimulants alone.

[Maria Clara]

Thank you Wennjongal!  You made me think about a lot of things.  I learned to read at 4 before I even entered to kindergarten and nobody ever gave me one lesson.  My mother noticed one day that I could read, but she didn't know how.  Maybe just watching my older brother, who was only 7 (and didn't like books at all) made me learn.  I was a very good reader during my childhood and adolescence.  My first language is spanish and when I went to school I received 2 english classes a week for several years and that's it.  When I finished high school none of my classmates could speak or read or understand much english but I did.  I never took additional english classes, just watching TV I learnt a lot.  Now my english is not perfect, I know, but it allows me to participate in this forum. 
My child is doig well I think.  When I read about other parents and their children I always remember myself every child is unique and has different interest or abilities. He is constantly talking all day.  His vocabulary is surprising considering he is 23 months.  I can choose any word, I say it two or three times and explain what it means and the next day I can ask him something related and he instanty remembers the word. He loves music, he listen to a song once or twice and then he starts singing it.  He watched once sombody playing the piano and this week he has been "playing the piano" in his table desk while he makes the sounds.   He also likes to play the drum or the tambourine while he is singing.
He was on swimming lessons since he was 8 months and liked it very much.  Since january he has gone very little because of repeatedly ear infections since he began gonig to the nursery.  Yesterday I asked if he wanted to go into the pool and he said no, asked to go to the trampoline and said no, asked to go to the slide and said no.  Maybe he is not that into physical activities as much as "intelectual" as reading or music, because yesterday wasn't the first time he says no to those things.  But he is an expert riding his tricycle even when his feet don't touch the pedals. 
I've noticed he is shy and I was terribly shy when I was little.  If there are several kids at the playground he dosn't like it very much, but he enjoys if he is alone or maybe with just one child.  We'll see.
Beyond LR or flashcards, I'm always talking with him, explaining things we see, we play a lot and I try him experiment things with his own hands and senses. 
I will continue reading with my son when he wants and I'm not going to push him to things he doesn''t like.  I want him to have fun and enjoy the process.
Maria

 

[wenjonggal]

Maria Clara, it sounds like he is doing great and knows what he wants! ! And like I said, you sound like a great mom!

BTW, my son is quite physical... I let him play with flashcards a lot. He loves manipulating them, putting them in and out of the box etc. I don't know if he learns anything other than how to put things in a box (which is good to learn too!) but it can't hurt and it makes him happy to see the flashcards.

[wenjonggal]

Indidee...
Yes I see your problem of it being too hot outside! But here we have SNOW SNOW SNOW (and lots of slush with salt in it that they put on the streets to keep ice from forming) and then in the summer it can be hot like today: they are keeping the children inside as it is too hot, and we didn't go to a parade yesterday because of the heat and humidity. So every place has its trials! !

I give my son lots of learning dvds (Baby Learns Chinese, Signing Time, Little Pim etc) as well as letting him watch regular videos in Chinese or French, not in English, so I at least feel he is learning something. So I am not against screen learning. But I use it for things that I can't teach so much myself (I am beginning chinese myself and myself learned sign watching those dvds!), and then we do a LOT of hands on incorporating into real life, talking about things we see on the street using our new chinese vocab, signing during the day etc.

But I have found that my son's interest in something onscreen totally increases if it is something in his real life: if he sees spiders in the house he is way more interested in flashcard for spider and song "eensy weensy spider". Now he got a toy stuffed camel from a friend who travelled to Tunisia, now he is interested in where is Africa, where did the camel live, what is the chinese word for camel. Sometimes you don't need so much access to "getting outside" but just things the children can manipulate: like an inexpensive set of plastic zoo animals or little set of toy vehicles etc... they can touch and make them "walk" and see how the dumptruck dumps etc.

I think sometimes as adults (who knows looking at a photo of icecream that it is cold, that it melts, that it is sweet, and the pink spots taste like strawberr) that we forget that small children don't have those experiences yet. They can say the right word for ice cream, or tiger or dumptruck, but they have no idea yet that a tiger is bigger than them, or makes a loud growling noise, or that the dumptruck can move over rough terrain and dump things out. And I think we need to really put together as much actual experience of touch, smell, size, hearing, time (ie how SLOW a turtle walks, how FAST a mouse runs!) so that those pictures and words on the flashcards MEAN something. Isn't that the point of reading? Not to get the word right, but to be enveloped in a whole new world created in our imagination from the words?

haha, it looks like I am saying to bring tigers and dumptrucks in the house! haha! No, but just the toys that they can feel, mouth, you can play with them with sounds etc, along with the LR and flashcards etc... Maybe I am wrong but it can't do any harm!

[Indidee]

Wen.... I totally agree.  I actually do much the same except for the terrible summer times here when my daughter doesnt seem to be able to take the heat.  When she is India though, she learns so much more about the real world outside because there is so much of activity around.  Here, we try to work out something innovative.  Like there are days when we might just sit down at a park and watch the cars and vehicles moving and we name each vehicle so she understands.  Another day, i might take her to the departmental store and tell her names of all the fruits and vegetables (literally leave the store without having bought anything at all!!!).  Yet on other days, we try to go to a creek close by and watch the boats.

I just have 2 concerns.  My first problem is that though I actually started showing her audiovisual stimulants (there are plenty of Australian based VCDs for early learning or just simply rhymes and songs available out here) when she was 6 / 7 months old (i didnt know much about early learning till then), I fear she responds better to audio visual stimulants than to the real life stimulants.  I DONT TEST HER.... its the one thing i dont do very often because I believe she is going to run the rat race all her life anyways -so no point testing her and trying to check what she learns right now.
My second worry is that she is, unlike children of her age, losing her innocence really slowly.  although I am happy about it, i do worry that she can be bullied easily.  I know I have lived through the problems of being a fat kid and it isnt a very good experience at all.  To counter this and the loneliness she might be feeling, i have even admitted her into a playgroup before she was 1 1/2 yrs old - which is a stretch according to the Indian parents 

The good thing though is all the exposure to knowledge based education has worked actually.  She does know the difference between an apple and an orange (simple - but for a child its a good thing to understand that she knows it). She knows her alphabet and her numbers already (all this even before i have even started LR).  YBCR, Brainy Baby, Brilliant Baby and tons of the youtube based learning videos have helped here.  She HONESTLY doesnt react / know how to accept flashcards though I tried every trick to get her to sit and watch.  All i want her to do is to love reading and she still hasnt come to that yet.  My latest strategy is to show her what I read. she only wants songs - so stories (like the 3 little pigs, rainbow or toy story - from Brillkids) are things she hasnt responded to yet.

What I never forget is to have fun and let her have fun.  Hence, the moment her interest wanes, I switch - to a toy or a stimulant like a block game or shapes game (she loves her shapes game).

for all those who read, i would encourage starting early and coupling TV/PC exposure with reading - else they do take a while to learn.  And Wen, no u werent at all wrong in suggesting all their senses should be awakened.  She knows all about DOGs for instance because she has always lived with our dogs.  So her knowledge there far surpasses her knowledge of tigers or lions. which reminds me - its High time I took her to a zoo!!!

[qisdhi mom]

How about finding Categories that you know will interest them? Animals perhaps? Dinosaurs?

In the middle you could slip in other things...

Agree with KL.or perhaps you can play puzzle with your child.the wood puzzle-animals,transport,fruit or anything.They still can learn.My babies and I used to play hide and show;(if flashcard or vids did not work sometimes); what you can do is,prepare a 2 box lid,then pick any animals or shape or anything,(eg:zebra(animal) and star(shape))introduce them what it is,then hide them under the lid,ask your baby to where is the zebra,and where is star.of course in the beginning you must lead them how to play,and after that they will enjoy it very much,day by day,you can add more thing,more things they can learn!

There you are,you can do 2 things,play and learn!

Hope this help 

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