I tried a few things:
1. Writing large words in red in cardboard sizes and flashing in front of my baby - She will probably look at the first word only and turn her attention to her surroundings after that.
2. Using Little Reader - She will pay attention and attentively wait for the first word, but after that she will quickly turn her attention to pressing my laptop keys.
3. Pasting the large words cardboards on walls around the house - She will look at them sometimes, but often is distracted by surrounding items. I am afraid that she will recognize the cardboard location rather than the word itself. Is this a good method?
Till now, I have no sure indication that my baby is actually learning how to read. How do I tell? I tried placing a few cards on the floor and asking her to pick the word "ladybird" for example. She doesn't seem to be picking the right word.
Do you folks think I'm going the right direction? How can I tell? I don't wish to continue doing so in the next few months only to discover my method is wrong or ineffective.
Other people will probably want to give different advice. This is just my advice, and you don't know me, so why should you believe me? Well, here are things to think about.
If you just show a word without a picture of what the word describes, that could be why the baby loses interest. The baby may not know what the word means. It becomes more interesting if she does.
I wouldn't worry about the baby looking at the keyboard keys. That will probably quickly become less fascinating than what's going on on the screen--just forge ahead.
Pasting large words on cardboard around the house? Well, some people swear by this sort of thing, but
to me it sounds like a lot of work for little benefit. If you're trying to teach the writing-sound combination, then flashcards, "Your Baby Can Read" (and similar videos), and moving your finger under a word as you read it in a book will more efficiently create the same effect, won't it?
If you're not doing YBCR, I'd try that. Get a used copy of just the first one DVD and see if your daughter likes it.
Also, many Doman advocates are cool to the suggestion, but I recommend teaching ABCs as well as the sounds the letters make, then playing with refrigerator magnets. We got started on this "reading adventure" when we noticed that our little boy knew his letters around 18 months. Then a few months later we were spelling out words on the refrigerator, and he actually sounded out "cat" (I'm sure in imitation of me). I'm sure this helped gel the notion in his little brain that words and letters are connected to sounds in a systematic way. That's about the time I started looking online and discovered that it's actually possible to teach little kids to read. But there are several different tools to do it...keep trying new ones, or varying the old ones, if some tools don't seem to be working (or if the kid is getting tired of the old ones).
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