Advice needed!

Early Learning Teaching Your Child to Read
1

Hello! First of all let me thank you for this amazing site, I can’t stop reading it over and over again.

I have a 5 months old girl and I’ve been showing her flashcards on the computer for about 2 weeks now. I’d like to share with you the method I’m using so you can tell if I need to change something.

I started with 3 sets of words which means 15 words per day 2 times a day. I chose to do it this way because she didn’t get bored and pays a lot of attention to every word. The first lesson is in the morning and the last one before she’s going to bed because those are the moments when I can do it and when she is happier than any other time in the day.

I want to teach her 3 languages, I’m a native spanish speaker but soon I will live in Canada which is why I’m introducing her to english and french. I’m also using videos, movies, songs and sometimes I talk to her in every language (please let me know if this is too much right now).

I didn’t know how to do it exactly with three languages so I’m doing french monday and thursday, spanish tuesday and friday and english wednesday and saturday. I’m using the same sets and same words for every language with the same images as well.

The sets I’m using are about words we use everyday such as body parts, animals, kitchen utensils, clothes, objects. The second week I changed one wet and introduced another. So my specific questions are:

  • Does three languages are too much too soon?
  • Should I let one language per week and then change to another?
  • Should I repeat a session the same day but with different language?
  • Should I reduce the number of words she’s seeing?
  • Should I do it more than two times a day?
  • Any other suggestions?

Thank you so much, I will also share my flashcards in case they’re useful for some parents out there :smiley:

2

From what I read, you can do each language a day. (monday - spanish, tuesday - french etc etc…)

As for me, it was hard for me to only speak one language a day. I m a native chinese speaker living in the U.S., my husband only speaks english and my son’s grandparents speaks another dialect of chinese, so by the end of the day I m speaking all three…So now I just play different languages of songs each day.
The music is on usually when we are playing in the morning and also after his noon nap. I m not only playing songs with languages I want him to learn, I m also playing songs with all different languages (my playlist has Icelantic songs and swedish songs…) I just want to expose him to all different sounds of language.

I hope this helps, I m sure the experts in the forum can give your more detail regarding your question.

3

That’s pretty amazing! Your child is learning a lot, I wish I could do the same with mine, unfortunately in my house she only hears spanish all the time from the rest of the family, that’s why I try to expose her to different sources that I mentioned before.

I’m planning to teach her russian too, I studied for a while and I can get enough materials for her but first I’d like to be sure that she’s enjoying everything.

I think it’s terrific that many parents are interested in teaching everything they can to their children, I don’t want to imagine how they will be when they grow up, so ready for the world! Cogratulations! :wink:

4

I believe you can teach her to read in several language. laso if you do it on the computer you’re less likely to give up than preparing if you were preparing your own flascards.
It’s great that she is looking and I encourage you to keep on showing her whatever she’s interested in.
Oh, and if you had some flashcards in french, i’d love to download them (are they in a ppt file?)

5

Thank you hypatia! I’ll keep teaching her everything I can. I have also been interested in improve her physical skills, she can’t crawl yet but she has so much strength in her legs she can stand by herself now and we help her just with her balance. I videotaped her today because it was the first day when she could actually run in the baby-walker! I was truly surprised and she was so happy and screaming all the time :laugh: . I will upload the video on youtube soon so I can share it with you, but I will post it in another section :happy:

Oh and yes, the flashcards are in .ppt I just need some time to upload them too.

See you soon!

6

hi,

as for physical, has you read the books," How to teach your baby swimming " and also “how to teach your baby to be physically superb” If you haven’t, i think these are great books. I started late, however i think my daughter still benefit in a way. I started taking my daughter swimming when she was 1yrs old , she is 2 yr 4 months now, she could swim a little (about 1 m) without any floating device, with her face in the water in the adult pool. And recently, we started jogging as the weather gets warmer. She jog n walks for about 2km each session/day. I am also teaching her several language, i think you ve plan well, cant give you any better advice. Keep it up!

7

I wish I gave my baby more tummy time when he was at that age. Being a first time mom I was more sensitive to his cries and as a stay at home mom, he had always hated being on his tummy so He s gotta trasportation 24/7.
He is 8 months now and he just started crawling foward this week, he started crawling backwards when he was about 7 months old and that got me a little worry thinking that he might just go from crawling backwards to pull himself up and walking and i didnt want him to skip crawling(forward) after reading the importance of crawling foward from Domans book “how to multiply your baby’s intelligence”. I know crawling about 8 months its about adverage, but I know he could have achieved this milestone quicker if I would have read the book earlier. hopefully you already know the importance of tummy time :slight_smile:

8

Yesh 25,
I think you are doing a great job! Good started with the sets you have choosed. I did the same.
What kind of videos are you using?
-I used Your Baby Can Read in english which in this forum you can download the spanish version of all the series. It worked great for me. Also I made the same words in printed flashcards to practive evryday besides dvd’s and LR.
-LR is such a great program to teach reading in different language. My daughter loves it.
-I also made some signing flashcards in spanish with picture,sign and word for my daugher(I don’t know if you are planing to teach her ASL) I totally recomended. it is such a great way to comunicate with your baby.
My daughter turned two last week and she is being watching Signing Time dvds since few months ago, she loves them, helped het to improve her vocabulary and her reading besides the great ability of signing.

I am teaching my daughter how to read in english(my husband speaks english to her 100%)spanish(I speak spanish to her 100%) and chinese ( we do not speak it, I think it is the hard part)but with flashcards and LR MAKES it lot easier for us…she is speaking it and reading it!! So far she is doing great reading in all those three different language,(spanish and english since 14 months old) (chinsese just recently, because I just started to teach her chinese)since my personal experience I can tell you …WE CAN DO IT!!Keep the great job.

It is a lot of work for us to make it happen, design the flashcards, look for good pictures,make it fun for her, prepare more slides in different languages, look for good set of words,etc…but seems like reading is her favorite game which motivates me to keep it up.

Good luck

For chinese dvd’s I am using little pim, once a week or so.

9

Well the only books I’ve read are How to teach your baby to read and I’m starting with How to multiply your baby’s intelligence. As for the physical part my mom did everything, I don’t know how she knew all of that, probably her instinct :slight_smile: but since the very first day the baby arrived, she was on her tummy, one side, then the other side and so on, now she really loves it and she crawls a little but not completely.

We started to use the baby walker about two months ago but it wasn’t meant for her to walk obviously, she was very little, but she has always loved the movement and she gets bored easily when doing nothing, so that’s how we started. After a while her feet could touch the ground at the lowest level of the walker so my mom started to encourage her to move her feet you know one after another and yesterday was the first day that she did it by herself and after a while she was running and so happy. We always talk to her, clap, use toys and stuff like that and we she finally arrives and comes closer to us, we grab her, kiss her and all of that :laugh: But I can’t tell exactly what was the process because it all came all of a sudden. :wacko:

It’s very good to read all of your experiences they fill me with much more enthusiasm. I’m uploading a few .ppt files in french, hope is useful for everybody.

As for the videos I use well some are in russian like conversations or documentaries, for french I go to youtube with the user “imagiers” he has like a full package to learn french, it has grammar, pronunciation, EVERYTHING and of course vocabulary with images and letters, I only use it as a reference because I think letter and images in the same place might be a little confusing, but it has the vocabulary very well organized, clothes, animals, professions, places, everything you can imagine. I also watch a lot of movies but she falls asleep 10 minutes after lol for spanish well everything is in spanish here. I also use music videos, my favorite in french are those from Ilona, a girl with animated videos that are beyond cute such as “Un monde parfait”

None of these materials are meant directly for our purpose but I find them very useful because she relates with the languages in a good way by listening to different voices, emotions or situations.