I have not yet read “Your Baby Can Read”, but plan to get it from the library soon.
Today I used some homemade cards with my 11 month old. I used cardstock cut in half-lengthwise. I printed in red ink the names of our family members and the word “family”. I used them twice today in different locations, trying to get a feel for where is best. My 3 year old DD came over and listened/watched some too (she can only pick out a few of the names herself and seemed to enjoy the flashing more than I would have expected).
My questions:
Where do you and your baby sit?
I think I read somewhere that 3 repetitions a day for 10 days is optimal, is that what you do?
If you don’t “test”, in what ways do you know your child is recognizing the words? And what is a typical time frame for seeing your baby recognize words?
Do you stick with one set of words for 10 days, or do you mix it up? And in what way?
search youtube for “Doman reading” and you will see how people are doing. I use PC.
3 repetitions per day is OK. As I remember, each word should be shown 15 times.
I do not test
I think he (10 months) is following because he becomes very curious when I show something new but becomes slightly indifferent at repetitions
I don’t have my copy of How to Teach Your Baby to Read in front of me, but from what I remember, Doman advises 5 different sets of 5 words each. Each set is shown 3 times a day for 5 days. Then one word is retired from each set and replaced with a new word. When your program is going smoothly, you should be replacing one word from each set every five days, and each word will be shown for five days before it’s replaced.
This seems very complicated (which is why I’m buying Little Reader), but I imagine once you start it’s easier. I’m sure you can do less than 5 different sets every day; that seems like a lot of work making cards! But he does emphasize showing the same set for five consecutive days, three times a day. When they’ve been doing the program for a while, he says they might learn so fast that you can retire words in less than five days, but I wouldn’t change the set for variety’s sake; keep going for the full number of days.
It sounds odd, but we’re doing flashcards on the toilet. We’re doing Elimination Communication, which requires a decent amount of time, and baby focuses pretty well in the bathroom. She sits between my legs leaning against my stomach and I hold up the cards for her. It only takes a few seconds each time, and we do it at least six times a day. That makes it easy for us.
Seems brilliant, not odd to me. I plan to EC my babies, (I hate diapers. To me, they cause ones skin to stink no matter how quickly they are changed, and they also give nasty rashes!) and I will keep this in mind :).
