Is it possible to have missed a window of opportunity/interest with regards toearly learning and reading? I began YBCR with my dd when she turned 13 months old. By the time she was 15 months she could sight read approx. 20 words. I was very excited and she seemed to love both the dvds and the flashcards. Then I became pregnant. I am one of those rare women who get hyperemesis gravidarum throughout the whole duration, often requiring hospitalization, and battle with constant sickness, dehydration and extreme fatigue. So basically I gave up teaching her to read because I didn’t have the health or energy.
Fast forward to now, she is 25 1/2 months and I started 6 weeks ago with LR. I am discouraged because it seems she hasn’t any interest. She may tolerate some of the multisensory photos and videos, but she exhibits zero interest in the actual words on the screen and often walks away. We are now in the part of the curriulum where phonics are being taught, but I don’t know if I should continue because she doesn’t seem to be paying attention.
Should I continue on and trust that she is somehow absorbing this? or wait and try again later?
Did I miss an open window of interest when i stopped last year? Perhaps this has something to do with right brain/left brain stuff. Honestly I don’t know. I am stumped.
We also started YBCR at 14 months, and by 21 months I knew he could read at least 20 words, then we ended up putting it away a little after he was 2. he’s not the show off type and I could never tell what he did/didn’t know. Fast forward to when he’s 3 1/2 (I always kept pointing words out and showing YBCR, YCCR occasionally during this time) we started DadDude’s Flesche cards and he has picked up the phonics part amazingly fast in my opinion. I think it’s helped that he’s had a foundation in whole words. We just started with learning letter sounds and then moved right into the first set of cards. I think it also helped for us to take a break from YBCR for a bit, and it also helped that he was older and could communicate better. Anyway, my advice is try the flesche cards and do a phonics based approach. You definitely haven’t missed the window! We also used bribery - he wanted to play his favorite video game and so in order for him to play a level we had to read a word first. Now he wants to take turns reading at night.
Have you tried customizing LR with family photos and pictures of characters she likes? This can really get their interest because they look forward to seeing what will come up with each word. Also, read Larry Sanger’s essay for flash cards and other teaching ideas. Don’t use just one approach.
LDSmom - thanks for the encouragement and sharing your story.
fma001 - good idea, but customizing LR just doesn’t fit into my schedule right now, with having a 3 month old, too. Perhaps when he is a little older I can spend more time doing that and re-spark an interest for my toddler. thanks for your input.
I don’t think you have missed the opportunity at all - I think your child is just a bit older now, more active and propbably in need of a different approach (possibly more tactile too) I’d keep showing her as often children pick up things when they seem not to be concentrating and maybe try a few fun games with the words.
I also had a terrible pregnancy though not hyperemesis gravidarum (I’m type 1 diabetic and kept going into comas for hours) and put away the reading for months at a time- I found a break sometimes helps a lot though you have to find a new way to do things. My daughter was also older than yours and further along with the reading so I had to pick it up where she was starting to read books - I revised some flashcards quickly and just moved on. Could you possibly revise the words she knew and then put them in sentences as older toddlers do better with sentences and early books (even one word per page)
As for teaching with a tiny baby - I lay mine on the bed next to me and teach the older for only a few minutes a day and also don’t have time for anything longer than that. We are starting now to do LR curriculum with both of them - the baby (5 months) does the first semester while my eldest watches (revision) and then she does the second semester (by this stage the baby has lost attention so I just hold her and she can watch if she wants to)
When I tried to teach my first baby to read she was 10 months old. I was so excited to start and she showed zero interest in flash cards. She wouldn’t even look at the words. I was relentless in finding a way to get her to look and learned that if I made word books with words and pictures she would pay attention. I made all of my materials, because back then there really wasn’t much available for purchase. I wasn’t consistent enough since I was so busy making materials. I always felt underprepared. She did see lots of words but never read as a baby. However, when she turned 4 we began a phonics workbook and with very little help from me, because I had 3 older children, she worked through the book and basically learned to read on her own.
I have attempted to teach 4 of my 6 babies to read. I say attempted because the first two were a learning experience. I found that the younger I started the better they paid attention and enjoyed it. If you know how they learn, then you can adapt that into all you do with your children. Point to words around the house. Play games where your older helps you teach your younger and he will be learning at the same time. Play with letters and talk about the sounds they make and read to them a lot!! That is one of, if not the most important things to do. If you teach them to read but rarely read to them and they don’t learn to love to read, what is the point? I think that Doman does not place enough emphasis on reading to our kids. If you read to them and engage them in books you can text point as you go and they will pick up words almost effortlessly. Also, the more you read to your child, the easier they learn to read on their own. My 4 year old loves to be read to and now loves to read to me. We start out with a stack of books and we are fighting over who will read it. My older daughter was reading to her the other day and my 4 year old insisted that she read to my 11 year old. I heard my older daughter saying, “Gabby, I am supposed to be reading to you.” I love that my 4 year old is so eager to read on her own and I know if it because she has developed a real love of reading due to the hours we have spent reading to her. If nothing else, read to your child. It is the most brain building activity you can engage in.
We also used bribery - he wanted to play his favorite video game and so in order for him to play a level we had to read a word first. Now he wants to take turns reading at night.