My first days of teaching to read - not unfolding according to book

[GeniusExperiment]

I recently bought GD's book "Teach your baby to read" and was going to get started soon - I had just prepared 100 flash cards myself and was waiting for my daughter to get better (she had high fever the last days), as GD says to do it only when the child is well. But when I was in the kitchen doing something else, my husband had grabbed the flash cards and just started with my 2.5 year old daughter. Apparently she had seen the flash cards and gotten excited. Things have unfolded somewhat unexpectedly - I was wondering what other people's experience is.

Things that are going according to the book:
- my daughter seems to love the cards and is really excited about them. I couldn't really believe GD when he said kids will love it and beg to see the cards, as a flash card without pic seems so boring, but despite her fever she was jumping up and down and loved it
- she's also really eager to learn, and when I show a flash card she tries to shout out the word (even though of course so far she has no idea which word it is), but she tries to guess as soon as I open my mouth and guessed a few correctly
- for fun (and more to get my 2.5 year old involved) I also showed some cards to my 3 month old (the cards that say "baby", "milk" and "dad"...) and she also seemed to get quite excited about them. I feel a bit stupid showing these cards to a 3 month old, but she definitely seems to be curious

Here is what is much more difficult and unexpected and I wonder how people handle this (at least those working with manual flash cards):
- as my daughter saw me making the flash cards, she decided she wants to make them herself. So now she took all the flash cards and the red marker pen and started "writing" on them. Luckily, I managed to convince her only to write her "words" on the back of my flash cards. It's cute that she's trying to write, but now she seems more interested in writing them herself rather than looking at them
- GD says to stop after 5 cards so they are hungry for more - but I've found this absolutely impossible! I now do a set of 15 in one go because there is no way I can stop after 5. We just get started and it's over? Impossible.
- My daughter wants to hold the cards herself actually and then gives each to me to show her, but often she is looking at my face rather than the card, or she is already taking the next one from her hand rather than looking at my card

I don't mind too much because it's just a game after all and there's no hurry - she's so young and even if it takes 2 years until she can read, she's still be far ahead of her peers. But if you have experienced similar issues, I'd be extremely interested to hear how you have handled it. Probably an easy solution is just to use the Little Reader Software instead :-).

[penguinpet]

Looking at her interest in the cards, it will be a matter of months, not years that she will start reading the words!!

[Krista G]

I never showed 5 words.  I showed about 20-40 words at a session.  There is not a wrong way to simulate her brain besides not showing her anything.  Perhaps you can give her some blank cards and trace and ask her what words she wants to write on them.  Lightly trace them in pencil and have her write over them with marker.  Then she will be learning to write and read.  Writing is definitely a pathway in learning to read.

My kids loved it too.  It was amazing to see that Doman was really right.  They all the sudden started to talk about the animals that I showed them on Bits of Intelligence Cards.  It was precious.

Many people try to follow Doman's suggestions to the letter.  They are meant as a guide.  Feel free to adapt them to suit your family.  We changed a whole set of cards each week, instead of his recommendation and experienced wonderful results.

[GeniusExperiment]

thanks a lot for sharing your experience, Krista, that's really reassuring to hear! I am really glad to hear it worked for you using many more cards in one session. I was just worried she can't really memorise a lot if we do too many and change all the time. But my daughter has quite an amazing attention span for her age so I think she just wants more and can concentrate. I've found 15-20 is the right amount of cards for her per session. How are your kids doing now? What are they up to?

[Tanikit]

When my mother taught my sister to read (in about 1978) she started with only one word for the first day, a new word a day later and then both words together the next day and then I think she increased it as she realised that my sister was taking in so much. With my second child now I have always shown her about 9 or 10 words at a time. My eldest I stuck mostly to about 5-6 words initially. It depends on the child and also on the day - some days they wanted more, some less and some days they didn't want any words at all and that was ok too. My eldest is now reading beyond a fourth grade level (I have no idea what level it is anymore - she's only 5 so we stick to reading things that are appropriate for her age no matter what the reading level is) and my youngest is still working through phonics and sight words - she is able to blend though she has just turned two because of what I learnt with my eldest when teaching her)

Doman himself stated that toddlers learnt to read no matter how their parents taught them. Your 2.5 year old will learn almost no matter what you do. The baby I would advise using very large print as a baby's eyes do not focus as well as an older child - also stick to red on white or possibly black on white for the baby. Get your older child to teach the younger one once she really gets going - most love to do this.

As for the writing - I laminated my cards so it did not matter if my children drew on them (most things wash off easily) and it also meant I could use the word cards in the bath. Otherwise cut out some more blank cards for your child to write on.

Its fine if she holds the cards, plays with the cards, throws them on the floor - its all exposure. Like I said I often teach my children in the bath - the words are right there and the children are contained in the bath so it never gets forgotten and they give me their attention usually (its got harder with two children in one bath of course) - that way they can wet the laminated cards and stick them to the tiles which gives them the chance to touch them, wet them, stick them up and read them. I do also flash cards, but both my girls are pretty kineasthetic and want to touch and hold - I let them. We also used to have races to fetch the right card when I called one.

If you are doing 15 cards at once then make sure you do go back and repeat them at some stage. Here you need to decide what your aim is - exposure to print you can do fewer repetitions, words that really excite them generally also take fewer repetitions, words like "the"and änd"that they may not even be using in their own speech yet can take a lot more repetitions to sink in. And then as you move further along you will also have to start with phrases and sentences. Its a fun ride - enjoy it.

[Krista G]

Tanikit has lots of good advice.

My youngest kids are 6 and 8.  The 6 year old can read just about anything.  She loves to read and I don't know what level she can read at, but she is an exceptionally good reader.  Her brother that is 8 is the same.  Because they learned to read early and we homeschool, they are both grades above where they would be in the school system.  My 6 year old would just be finishing Kindergarten this year if she were in the public school system.  She will complete 2nd grade next week for most subjects, although for grammar, she had already begun the work for 4th grade.  My 8 year old would be in 3rd grade in the school system, but will complete 5th grade next week.  This is all attributed to early learning.  The things taught in the early grades of public school were learned at home long before they were school aged.

I hope this helps.

[staceycanada]

Glenn Doman on his videos says if 5 mins works for you do that. If more works for you do that.
As long as your child is left excited and anxious for more you are doing great if it's 5 or 20.

Also continue to use the cards with both children.
It may seem silly to show cards to the baby but they pick it up faster than 2 or 3 yr olds.

[heatherleigh81]

Im sure this is a silly question and I should just buy the book,but how do you know which words to start with? Also how do you make flashcards. I have an 8 month old with Down Syndrome and a 3 year old. I figured I can start them both. Thanks in advance.

[Tanikit]

You start with whichever words you think will appeal to your child most - I started both mine with words like Mummy, their own names, dog (cause we had one and they liked him), milk - usually its nouns, possibly some verbs (jump, run, kick, clap - whatever they can actually do), maybe their favourite toy animal - it really doesn't matter as long as the word is meaningful to the child.

You can buy Little Reader or use the trial version as this makes making flashcards unnecessary, though I have used both LR and flashcards with my children. I used card cut into pieces about 15x10cm then I wrote on them with permanent marker (black or red words well) and then laminated them for durability. You can't really make flashcards wrong though - just make sure they are clearly readable and the larger the print size the better especially with your 8 month old (a 3 year old will cope with smaller print)

[GeniusExperiment]

a little update... one week into our suboptimal flashcard practice, the results are absolutely amazing. My 2.5 year old can now  read her name, her sister's name (which has four syllables), the word "song" and the word "school" - and these are just the ones she volunteers. I was most amazed that she read the word school - I didn't actually do a flashcard for it, but recently I bought her a book called "starting school" and she must have seen it there. I know she can read it because the other day I had my laptop open and on the website it said "your guide to top schools", and she pointed at the webpage and said "school, start school!". I was extremely surprised. It's not on the flashcard but I think once I told her that I will teach her to read and started flashcards, maybe she just pays more attention to the words she sees in books as well. I can't wait to see how things evolve over the next months!

[MarthaT]

Glad things are getting better 

[Tanikit]

That's great - you are doing well. You'll be amazed how she progresses over time if you just keep showing her things.

[GeniusExperiment]

Tanikit - it is amazing! I never expected it to go so fast, I thought you spend months of flash cards before you see progress. I was quite sceptical about it all to tell you the truth, but being the scientist that I am, I decided to try it out for myself rather than listen to what others say. It's indeed incredible how fast little children learn.

[Krista G]

That is such great news!  And the positive reinforcement will motivate you to do even more.  I love when it works out like that.

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