All, it might be way too early to be skeptical, but I’m just having a hard time believing daily flashcard and PPT sessions at the speed and quantity suggested by Doman and used in LR is really going to produce a reader…
So far, my boy is very excited and highly interested in all media (books, educational DVDs, flashcards on my iPhone and now with my trial version of Little Reader), he speaks many individual words already, identifies many pictures and objects, etc. and is generally open to learning, but from my vantage point, jumping from identifying images and objects to identifying words is such a huge jump.
When should I expect to see any recognition of a word object or letter object vs. a picture or object in real life?
To be clear, he has great fun looking at all kinds of things, including the pre-created LR curriculum, books, other flashcards, DVDs, etc.
My husband learned using Doman Method, along with his 5 siblings, and I know a great number of children various ages, some are adults now who did and definetly can say that this is one of the teaching methods that was proven by time and results, at least that how I an see it.
But there are so many various hings you can do with your child, what you need the most is giving your child a chance to satisfy his knowledge vacuum, regardless of the methods. Remember, it is all play for them, and you should treat it as such as well! :biggrin:
I guess everyone is a little skeptical. It’s important to understand that every child will learn at a different level. Some may pick it up quickly and easily and be able to read when they are very young. Other children may learn a few words but need extra phonics lessons before they are able to read alone. What’s important is that you are exposing your child to a lot more than the average parent. Your child will have a richer vocabulary, a better understanding of things (including objects, animals, etc. that he may never see in real life), and no matter when he learns to read, he will definitely learn sooner and easier than his peers. Plus, you said your son loves it. That’s a great thing! That means he will absorb more and learn to love learning.
Ooh! A skeptic! How fun! We don’t get enough of those.
I don’t know what proportion of the people who do Doman strictly to order successfully teach a baby to read before age 2. But does anybody follow Doman perfectly strictly? I don’t know–I’d be curious.
If what you’re skeptical about is whether any child can be made to read before age 2, for example, then have a look at YouTube and search for “babies reading” and “toddlers reading”. See also the videos at http://www.yourbabycanread.com/ . But I guess you have already seen such videos…
As far as I can tell just from discussions online, the parents who use Doman tend to use a variety of other tools as well. A popular one (in addition to Little Reader of course) is the Your Baby Can Read videos. We started our 22 month old on those videos, along with a bunch of flash cards (http://www.mediafire.com/FleschCards), and he soon started reading. Now, at ~3 yrs 8 mos, he is sounding out words at about the fifth grade level. We never used the Doman method exactly as ordered, and didn’t start until he was almost 2.
35 years ago when I was a baby my mother taught me to read with homemade handwritten flashcards in red ink. Nothing special, she just sat me down and flashed sets of cards each day. At age 2 I was reading at first grade level. I am living proof that it works.
Every child is different. I started Little Reader with my daughter when she was 13 months and after 2 weeks I printed some of the words we had been looking on large paper and put them up around my house and asked her to find various words - and she did! She also started running up to them and reading them out loud. That is after seeing those words for only 2 weeks, one or two times per day most days when she was 13 or 14 months.
Maybe skeptical isn’t the right word…maybe it’s that I’m not confident the boy will learn and afraid that we will teach it wrong somehow…but I know it’s possible - and we’ll keep trying fun things - this forum has a lot of great ideas.
We’re on day 6 of the LR trial and so far he’s super excited about watching the slides each time.
Maybe in a few weeks, I’ll print out some Dolman-sized flash cards and see what happens if I just place them around the house like Lori mentioned.
Be perseverant!
Like they said before, children learn in different ways, it is nice to try different things with them. Catalina my only child is 23 months old, she learned how to read when she was 14 months old. We made flashcards in english and spanish, we bought your baby can read set and also LR for her to learn reading, she liked the videos of Your baby can read(YBCR) and loves doing LR in spanish and english. So far she is reading both languages and doing good.
I haven’t place flashcards around the house yet, which I think could be a good idea. I have to try it to motivated some more.
I think she loves flashcards, books.
I will suggest to talk to your child a lot, explain her/him every step you are doing, when you take him grocery shopping or somewhere else talk to him, read to him, take your time and do it. Children are like sponges, they will absorb a lot of information.
I will start soon showing her some chinese flashcards, she is watching little pim in chinese dvd’s she started to like them because I think they show the panda bear in the dvd’s. So will see how she does.
Kids are really capable to learn if you have the time and patience to teach them.
How come we, as parents, don’t doubt that if we show our child a picture of an elephant and then an elephant on tv and then we see an actual elephant that they will be able to identify an elephant? Sight reading at this age is the same thing. You show your baby the word elephant on a flash card, on a computer presentation, and then in a book and bingo, your baby can read the word elephant. At this age the brain treats whole words as pictures, just like it does an actual picture and that is how young children learn to read. The really cool part is the crossover from just sight reading words you have taught to words you know you have never taught your child. That happens differently for every child.
I began Doman with my 10 month old many years ago. I had no videos, only flash cards I could make. I lived on a small island with one stationary store, so making cards wasn’t easy, Anyway, I made tons on materials and my daughter loved it. I wasn’t consistent enough in teaching her to read, although she learned so much. At 4, she learned to read more easily than my previous three children. I bought her a phonics workbook and barely even told her the sounds as she worked through the pages. She went from being a non-reader to a fluent reader overnight. It was amazing! By 5 years old she was reading chapter books like Nancy Drew and whatever else her older sisters were reading.
With my number 5 child I was determined that we would make this work since I had so many materials. Teaching my son to read was so fun and rewarding. We spent so much quality time together reading books, playing games and interacting with words.
You say your son enjoys it so my recommendation is to have fun, bond, and build great memories with your son. This time goes by very quickly, I know you won’t regret it.