Anyone Have Experience with Your Baby Can Read?

The most important thing you can do for your baby is to play games that require her to orally manipulate sounds. This is called phonemic awareness, and is the first step to reading. If she can not hear the difference in sounds, replicate them, and then play with them by making small changes then she will have a harder time learning how to read. She basically needs to orally rhyme, including nonsense words. (And remember, you may be able to understand her perfectly, but you're her Mom, what about other people?)

Please read this: http://www.improve-education.org/id58.html

The your baby can read program is nothing but memorization. This is NOT the basis for good reading! While yes, some words simply need to be memorized since they are not phonemically correct, such as the word "there", most words require you to be able to use phonics in order to figure out a new word, even big words (I know, I had to figure out how to pronounce catafalque, something I would not have been able to do without a foundation in phonics). I know people who have a hard time learning how to read new words because they were taught to memorize every single word. This is not good. There are literally hundreds of thousands of words in the English language. Learning to read primarily by memorization is doing your child a great disservice. Please do not get the "your baby can read" program.

All you need to do is play sound games, and read books to her (if you're not reading to her regularly it'll be harder for her to develop an interesting in reading), sing songs, etc. If you want to start on her letters, then use alphafriends. Each letter has an animal character, with hand movements to do along with saying the sound of each letter. I can ask my daughter's Kindergarten teacher from last year where you can get them.

personally, I'd stick with the "old fashioned" method of spending the time you would have spent on this "program" on reading with your daughter instead (and squirrel aside the money you would have spent into her college fund :-)). Your local public library is a treasure trove of wonderful books that will capture your daughter's imagination better than any program would IMO, and Children's Librarians are worth their weight in gold when it comes to helping you find books that are likely to captivate your daughter whatever age she might be. Most public libraries also have regular Story Times for toddlers and older children that combine stories with rhymes, songs, and other activities.

I've said this before but IMO there's a big difference between teaching your child to read and teaching your child to *LOVE* reading. When you read with your child, she's not only learning reading, she's learning that reading is the doorway to countless worlds of imaginative stories or fascinating information.

I do not have any personal experience with this program, but I have done alot of research into it because I was seriously considering purchasing it myself for my 9 yr old son who, because of his disabilities, may never learn to read.

Yes, it is based on memorization. However, this is how most of us learn, believe it or not, to read. We "memorize" our letters and numbers and then apply those memorization skills to phonics rules. They way we learn the rules for phonics is memorization as well. Same with numbers - think of how we all learned to multiply - we know conceptually HOW to multiply, but most of us have memorized the answers so we just spit them out when asked. Nothing wrong with that and in fact the school often teach memorization of words and math skills today - one example is "sight words." Finally, we know that memorization using sight of the word, a picture of what it represents, and hearing it works for adults as well as children because this is the concept that Rosetta Stone uses to teach adults another language. Why do they do that? Because it works.

Here is the downside to a program like this. In order for it to be truly effective, you will spend hours (not kidding) a day working with your child on this skills. The plan that the program uses must be followed exactly in order to achieve the results that people experience. Not only must you be dedicated, your child must be willing as well. Most kids are not and we as parents mostly cannot devote hours a day to this type of program :)

There are alot of ways that you can encourage your child to grow academically. Check out books, workbooks, websites and other sources to see what might work for you. You could also check out a Montessori preschool in your area. That focuses on a different style of learning that may be perfect for your child.

Good luck!

I don't have experience with it, but I am sure it is a waste of money. The best thing to do is to read to her, which I am sure you already do. That is the best way that she is going to learn.

I just don't think babies or toddler should start reading. We started in FIRST GRADE, not before. The ones that start early, we've noticed, tend to burn out from reading very soon, and they don't become life-long readers.
Also, using a DVD is not a good idea. Read to your children; it's about the experience.

Hi B.,

You may be interested in reading this: janetlansbury.com/2009/11/your-baby-can-read-costs-too-much.The best thing you can do for your little girl is to instill a love of learning and reading by talking with her, reading and singing to her, taking her to the library- no expensive, drill like programs needed!

L.

No experince, but your baby does not need to read, won't really read until she is ready, and the best you can do for her is to save your hard earned money and read to her, which you are probably already doing.

Children are not little computers, they don't get ahead if you start them early and they don't get any further than they would anyway if you just enrich thier environments and provide them with the very best education you can, WHEN it is appropriate to do so for their developmental stage.

You are already doing what she needs, or you would not be considering this program.

M.

I have the Your Baby Can Read. I use it with my 3 yr old and 6 yr old. It takes 1/2 to watch the video (my 6yr old only watches once a day due to school) and you are asked to watch the video 2 times a day. I make it fun with my kids because we do it together. I also have a 6 month old who is funny when we watch it. I don't allow my kids to watch tv more than 3 hours a day and I only allow learning cartoons or movies (sometimes Disney movies). I also let them choose if they want to watch the video with mommy or if they would like to read the book. (the book is fun with pictures and words). My family has a schedule so that I can do everything I need to in a day. If you have time and are consistent your child or children would love to do this. Just make it fun. My 6yr old is in kindergarten and has scored 87-98% on the reading exams they give at school each quarter. I am so proud of her. But it does take time and kids need stimulation and change. Being a good reader no matter how young or old you are is wonderful. Just don't force it. My 3yr old has fun with spelling. He can read a few words but we take our time and have fun. Kinda like you do with ball. Right now his favorite word is toy. Just a little information that you might like to know. I got the Your Baby Can Read when he was 2 1/2 and he just turned 3 in March. Don't expect your child to learn anything without you being there to help. Just like how we interact with people and how we are, they see that and learn. We are their teachers and we do the best we can do. Just remember no ones perfect and be patient. If there is anything else you would like to know I can try to help. Keep up the great work with your kids.

Hi- I don't know anything about "Your baby can read" but I question using any program like that with a 2 year old. If it's supposed to teach them to read and even if it does work I question the advantage in that. What you want to do at 2 years is foster a LOVE of reading. Read to her several times everyday, go to the library, play educational games, sing rhyming songs and have fun with everything having to do with books and reading. My children are not gifted and I don't think learning to read early would have helped them at all. They are both A students who have always read at least a grade level ahead. The most important thing is they love reading and do it for pleasure constantly. This is not the case with many of their friends and peers. In fact a lot of kids we know never read unless they have to. This ingrained passion came from being raised in a home where reading was considered fun. You can't teach that you have to model it. Let your kids see how much you value reading and enjoy it with them and they will develop their reading skills without turing it into a lesson.

i personally like it! i purchased it for my daughter, and she has learned a freat deal. Consistency is key... she is only 21 months and she she says alot... even small sentences. She is clear and knows what she is talking about. She loves the books and flashcards... i would recommend...i already have to my friends, they were so impressed with my daughter...we did purchase when she was about 3 months and shes been listening since..so maybe that has helped too.

good luck!

We purchased it for our son at 3 months. We haven't used it religiously like they recommend (2 times a day and practicing flash cards) but we watch it once every other day or so. My son, now 14 months, does some of the actions (like point to his hair for the word hair) and we're pretty impressed. I'm a teacher and was skeptical of it, but found the set on craigslist so we figured we'd give it a try. It sounds like your daughter will soak it up like a sponge! Try craigslist.com and see if you can find a good deal on it--then you're not out all the money if she happens to not be interested.

I too considered purchasing this but after further investigation opted to do Montessori-type activities with my 22 month old daughter instead. Your Baby Can Read is based on memorization patterns (object links to sound links to letter sequence, etc). Montessori is based on phonetics, so kids are learning the sound(s) associated with a certain letter, enabling them to sound out ANY word they come across, not just ones they've seen before.

A good introductory book on this is "How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way" by Tim Seldon. If you're looking for something more in-depth, "Tools of the Mind" by Bodrova & Leung is fantastic, though more clinical. This one is based on the Vygotsky methods.

Good luck!

my sister did but she said its not as easy as it looks. it takes hours and hours a day to get it down and her two year old doesnt wanna sit there all day playing with cards and waching tv she rather get up and move like its summer using chock to write on the floor and hop to the numbers or letters, she said it was a wast of money. sorry maybe other people had better luck with it

it's not reading, it's memorizing words, which will actually, if you think about it, help them little or not at all when it comes time to really read. it has nothing to do with what sounds a letter makes or anything. plus like another parent said it takes a LOT of time. what a huge and complete waste of money! i think it's pompus and ignorant for someone to claim their baby can read after using a program like this. and unfortuntately someone sure is making a lot of money off this racket!

My husband's grandmother bought the program for our son about 7 months ago. (She thought our son didn't speak enough for a 1 1/2 year old when compared to his 2 1/2 year old cousin. Huh?!) We never would have tried it otherwise. Because he was a bit older than what the program expects, we didn't use it exactly as it suggests. The instructions say you should limit TV-watching to just the DVDs. He was already into a couple of educational TV shows and we didn't want to force him to give those up.
Like the other responders said, you will spend hours working with your child if you follow the directions exactly. Yes, it is memorizing words. My son recognizes many of the words in the program, but I haven't seen any evidence that memorizing words from the DVDs is helping him make connections with other words he hasn't seen before. And, he seems to learn more from Sesame Street and our playtime learning than from the program. (He can identify all his letters and tell you the sound each makes, knows his shapes and colors and can count to 20.)
That said, my son loves the program. He asks to watch his DVDs all the time, will mimic all the actions they ask for, dances to the songs and loves playing with the word cards and books.
But, it is an expensive program, and, unless you're going into it with the goal of teaching your daughter to read Dr. Titzer's way, it's no better than what you're doing with your daughter right now. It sounds like you're doing a great job with her and are fostering a love of learning already.
Good luck!