your baby can read

mollythewestie

We bought this "your baby can read" set from a baby show a few months ago, and I hope it will help DD be able to read earlier. (She is only 5 months old at the moment, so too early to tell if it has worked yet!)
However, a teacher friend told me that there was no point in getting her too far ahead with her reading skills as, once she starts primary school, they are likely to keep her behind until the others catch up anyway.
Which makes me more determined to either home school when the time comes or do as consultant31 did and make financial sacrifices ourselves to send her to private school.

freda

We bought this "your baby can read" set from a baby show a few months ago, and I hope it will help DD be able to read earlier. (She is only 5 months old at the moment, so too early to tell if it has worked yet!)

Please don't tell me you are seriously using a 'learn to read' system for a 5 MONTH old child????

However, a teacher friend told me that there was no point in getting her too far ahead with her reading skills as, once she starts primary school, they are likely to keep her behind until the others catch up anyway.

I think it is fairly likely that our DD and DS will be able to read before getting to school, and I'm sure a fair number of children do. But surely your job as parent is to give them the wide range of knowledge and understanding of the world, social intelligence and appreciation of investigating new things - not just to focus on the academic stuff that school does? Leave academic things to school, teach your kids things they'll not learn at school.

Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick here.

bonty44

lynnexxxo wrote: »

I am another one who thinks teaching kids to read before school is not doing then any favours. The way i see it, its one of the things that the early school years focus on, and with so main other things to learn in the world, why do something that is going to be done anyway ? My son is in primary 1 and comes home positively buzzing that he has a 'new letter'. I feel if i had already taught him all the letters and sounds then that early thrill oflearning would be taken away.

I understand its difficult if they want to learn, or if they have older siblings they pick a lot up. Parents with gifted children sometimes get recommended to help them learn a muscal instrument instead. You could get a keyboard, write the notes on the keys and help then play little tunes (if i hear freres jaques one more time!!!)

Not once did I sit down and teach my children HOW to read but we always enjoyed looking at books together; they just woke up one day and COULD read. Both DS1 and DS2 are learning French at home with me and DS1 has just started learning the guitar, having started recorder at the age of 5. They both swim and we bake and make regularly; I haven't hothoused my children, I have nurtured their talents and they thrive on life and having different experiences; more often than not, though, they enjoy 'academic' experiences as they are both very bright children.
I really believe that a love of and exposure to books at an early age can only be beneficial.

oystercatcher

I don't see how people can say there is no advantage in teaching a child to read early. This then enables the child to read books alone and learn things when the parents aren't interacting with them. The written word is everywhere so the earlier they can read the sooner they can be absorbing more information from every source.

My youngest son had a newly qualified teacher in reception class and she insisted he work his way through the reading list, we obliged, but also let him read far more complex books at home. When he went into year one aged 5 years and 3 months the deputy head was his teacher, I can still remember her face one day after school when she came out of the classroom looking astounded "We've just tested B, he's got a reading age of 10 1/2 " she said. After that they borrowed books from the junior school for him !

I don't like the system advertised at the beginning of the thread. It's just a very expensive way of doing things you should be doing anyway! I certainly wouldn't want to teach my child to read with an American accent unless I happened to be living over there!
I taught my children to read by pointing at words as we read a book and by spelling out the phonetics, we used flashcards and pictures as well. I remember them from when I was at school in the 60's I thought it was progress as I was taught A (aye) is for apple B(bee) is for bear etc and now e use sounds. I agree with poster who said what is t if it isn't 'tuh'? It was tee in my day !!

Marcheline

Don't know if the Glenn and Janet Doman method has been mentioned, but the book is £7.99 and then you have the additional small expense of card/pens to make flash cards http://www.amazon.com/How-Teach-your-Baby-Read/dp/0385111614

My sister and I were both taught using this method and could both read extremely well at age 3. I am currently using the method (in a more haphazard way than my mother would have taught us, mind!) with my 3 year old daughter and she is coming along well.

Caroline73_2

bonty44 wrote: »

Not once did I sit down and teach my children HOW to read but we always enjoyed looking at books together; they just woke up one day and COULD read. Both DS1 and DS2 are learning French at home with me and DS1 has just started learning the guitar, having started recorder at the age of 5. They both swim and we bake and make regularly; I haven't hothoused my children, I have nurtured their talents and they thrive on life and having different experiences; more often than not, though, they enjoy 'academic' experiences as they are both very bright children.
I really believe that a love of and exposure to books at an early age can only be beneficial.

This is exactly like my youngest - he watches DVD's and changes the language settings and is picking up French and Spanish that way. We have just come back from his 'drama' club, where he sings, dances and puts on improvised plays. Now he is playing on the laptop - repeatedly watching a song from Carrie and Davids Pop Shop, and learning the words. Not my choice, believe me. Later he wants to write to Santa and I will be asked to spell the words so Santa gets it right. Should I try and get him to sound out the words before I tell him the spellings or would it make it a bad mother if I taught him wrong? :rolleyes:

mollythewestie

freda wrote: »

Please don't tell me you are seriously using a 'learn to read' system for a 5 MONTH old child????



I think it is fairly likely that our DD and DS will be able to read before getting to school, and I'm sure a fair number of children do. But surely your job as parent is to give them the wide range of knowledge and understanding of the world, social intelligence and appreciation of investigating new things - not just to focus on the academic stuff that school does? Leave academic things to school, teach your kids things they'll not learn at school.

Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick here.

We are not teaching her to read quite yet :rotfl:she is still a baby after all!:D (Sorry, just re read my post and realised I didn't make that clear)
Although we always read her a bedtime story everynight - it is a routine thing for us to read before bed ourselves. she really enjoys looking at the pictures and books like the Gruffalo have a lovely rhythm to them too.

I agree that you should teach children a wide range of things not just acadamic stuff.

fernliebee

I could read well by age 3, so could my brothers, and that was just through my mum and dad spending a lot of time reading books to us. We loved books and would read a good range of things from fiction, non-fiction, comics etc.

I could definitely decode when I started school, and was put in to special needs which I hated, I couldn't understand why I was separated from the whole class. I was made to complete the reading scheme though my mum asked if I could change my book every day, rather than every week, and ensured that I had more complex reading material at home. I was also made to listen to other children in my class read, which even aged 6 I thought must have been horrible for them, I cannot understand why they would have done that? I can see the benefits of mixed ability reading groups etc, but not just one student listening to a group of others and checking if it was right.

Despite having such a high reading age early on, by secondary school most people were reading at a similar level to me, though I'm not sure that most read as much for enjoyment as I did iyswim.

As far as teaching my DD to read goes, I read to her constantly and she 'reads' to me (she is 17 months so she flips through a book and points to things on each page and tells me what they are ) and she 'reads' to her dolls which is very cute!

I don't believe that flashcards, and reading schemes before school are beneficial. However I do believe that if a child is showing a love for words and reading then this should be harbored and encouraged. My DD has a minimum of 25 stories a day, often many, many more than that. I don't force them on her, she just has always had free access to her bookshelf and since she could crawl she would bring books over to us and we would read them. If she had her way then we would be constantly reading to her. Who knows if she will read early or not (who cares, I'm confident she will be able to read in line with her peers) what I do know is how much enjoyment she gets from listening to her stories, and talking about them, and to me that is the most important thing for pre-school learning- that it is fun!

fernliebee

mollythewestie wrote: »

We are not teaching her to read quite yet :rotfl:she is still a baby after all!:D Although we always read her a bedtime story everynight - it is a routine thing for us to read before bed ourselves. she really enjoys looking at the pictures and books like the Gruffalo have a lovely rhythm to them too.

I agree that you should teach children a wide range of things not just acadamic stuff.

You make a very important point. Rhythm plays a large part in learning to read and to talk. Especially as a small baby, my daughter loved books like the gruffalo, snail and the whale, and Dr. Seuss due to the rhythm and rhyme in them. Even now her favourite book is Tiddler (another axel Sheffler/ Julia Donaldson combo.)

There are so many games and activities you can play with little ones that include rhythm and rhyme which they will get hours of enjoyment from. Even just banging a pan with a spoon! You don't have to spend lot's of money on expensive 'systems' etc IMO.

bonty44

Some of you have expressed this so much better than me, blame it on pregnancy brain!

I just automatically get defensive when people start talking about why parents shouldn't teach their children to read. I honestly think people expect me to be running a mini-school at home! A love of reading comes from a love of sharing books, stories and a good imagination, and I would not swap all that time of my two littlies snuggled up to me for anything!