My Baby Can Read. - Phoenix,AZ

There are so many posts w/ regard to this question. You can look up past responses in a search in the upper right corner box. Don't mean to be dismissive, but this question pops up at least twice p/ week.

Please don't do that to your child. Many babies can learn to recognize words as "snapshots" if they sit in front of a screen long enough. That is NOT reading, and the child will have to unlearn the shapes in order to learn phonics later. Teachers on this site have complained about how resistant kids can be to learning to read the right way after becoming accustomed to this flashcard approach.

This is a "brag" program for parents, a goofy novelty, but mostly harmful. Your child won't do better in school as a result of hours of early drilling. What your son needs is to see and hear you reading and enjoying books, storytellling, and conversation. That's what his little brain is designed to process in his early years.

All the program does is teaches your baby to memorize words as if they are pictures... not how to phonetically 'sound out' new words. I know a lot of teachers hate the program, because they have to un-teach it before they can teach a child how to actually read. Don't waste your money.

No, your baby can't read, and this program does not work.

There is nothing to be gained by your child learning a skill that they are not ready for, and that will suplant all the things that they need to learn right now so that they are ready to learn to read once they go to school.

Zero emerical evidence. The creater of this "system" has no credentials in education or childhood development. He did write a book about something else completely. It is a total scam and a waste of your money.

You simply cannot give your child a leg up any furthter than they will be if you simply enrich their enviornment and provide a lot of langague in their world, then read to them and let them see you reading to yourself for pleasure.

M.

Do some research on it. There is a lot of controversy over this program...yeah your child might learn some sight words, but it could be counter productive as your child gets to the age where he/she should be normally learning to read.

My opinion-don't waste your money. Babies are only babies for such a short time...just enjoy 'em instead of trying to turn them into a circus sideshow. :)

Same answer here... it is a waste of money. The program actually wants you to eliminate all other televsion and play only these dvds over and over. It will drive you nuts and gets boring for baby too! My2 y/o daughter memorized the first dvd word for word, but she didn't learn to read.
If you insist on purchasing... let me know, I'll sell you mine! LOL

Going with most of the group here- don't waste your time or money. As others said, it essentially teaches memorization, almost by conditioning (think Pavlov's dog). But it does little to teach your son HOW to read.
I can tell you that if you went to your son's kindergarten teacher when he starts school and told her he's been 'reading' for a few years, she would not be impressed. The best thing you can do for your son is to read to him a lot, and ensure that he enjoys reading.

Why would you want your baby to read? Shouldn't he just be enjoying being a baby? He has years and years of traditional school ahead of him. Why not just let him learn through play and love? I would spend the time just being with him, and he will learn plenty from you. They grow up so fast.

I second everything that the other mom's mentioned. WASTE. OF. MONEY.
Plus if your child is younger than 2 or 3 than they wont actually understand what they are reading, so there isn't a point to them reading that young.

I love most of the comments here.

It's tempting for parents to want to give their children the best leg up they can. The children at my preschool learn to read through relevance. They can recognize their friend's names, because they see them each day at Morning Gathering when we look at our Special Helper Jobs board. They see their names on hooks and where they place their shoes and the little mailboxes we have. Exchanging notes to each other makes writing relevant, and gives it a thorough meaning as a tool of self-expression. I take a lot of dictation for my preschoolers, and we do look at uppercase-lowercase letter identification. I made a self-correcting set of cards years ago-- it's easy to do.

Learning to write is intrinsic, in my opinion, with learning to read. Each supports the other. For a child to learn to write, they must have the fine motor skills to operate a pencil and paper. They must be able to draw cirles and lines, and then develop the self-regulation to draw only archs and shorten lines, memorizing the placement of these lines. Lots of work!

There's so much that these kinds of videos want to sell you. I feel differently: I feel parents shouldn't sell *themselves* short as their child's teachers. At this age, your baby is better off watching a video of babies and other young children. I love Hap Palmer's original "Baby Songs" dvd for this reason.

Also know that it's suggested that children not watch TV until 2. The fact that someone would market a product to encourage parents to do the opposite seems a bit disingenous to me.

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We bought this off of ebay for a third of the price. As someone who did part of my master's work on the literacy skill acquisition process, this program seemed sound.

Of COURSE they're memorizing - how do you think you learned words at first? You were immersed in sounds and symbols and as you became older and made more connections, you realized which sounds went with which symbols. There are books that kids will "read" over and over, memorizing the words and not actually reading them. This is part of it: seeing the words in a familiar context and then, later, identifying them in an unfamiliar context. Along the way, the videos point out phonetic similarities between words, making this a bit of a hybrid between phonics and whole language.

Much of the success of this program is based on the level of parental engagement. If you're being intentional about using the words in outside life and reinforcing them by pointing them out in books, acting them out when possible, and showing the written form (flashcards, video, etc) the baby WILL identify them and begin to make connections outside of the video.

I think we underestimate the value of memorization as a learning tool, but there is a definite place for rote learning, especially when it comes to reading. Also, do not underestimate the value of carrying on a running dialogue (or, depending on the age, monologue - ha!) of the day with baby. Just being surrounded by words and language is training their ears to develop a vocabulary, which makes literacy much more attainable, because they already have a connection to the words when they see them.

My daughter learned to read before kindergarten. But, I taught her. You read to them a lot. Dr. Seuss books are great with the rhyming words. Teach them the alphabet and the sounds of each letter. We had a Bingo game of the consonant blends (Teaching Stuff store) to make it fun. Label things in their room so they can see the letters. Teach him how to write the letters, etc. But, how could a baby read without knowing all these basics first??

No it doesn't really work, I tried them because a friend had them and let me use them. Those kids on the commercial have just memorized the words presented to them. The best thing you can do for your son is read to him yourself!