Interesting thread 
I have a new acquaintance who speaks English/Russian/Mandarin besides her native language and has lived abroad most of her childhood. She makes her living teaching those languages to adults (now part time) BUT she would not consider teaching her only daughter (almost 3y.o. who she is home with) not to confuse her??? Then she makes comments at how developed my kids are :biggrin: :biggrin: I am trying to imply whyā¦
Most people are conformists and wonāt use something until itās endorsed by experts or by the herd. To condemn the whole human race for their conformism is kind of mean-spirited if you ask me. If you have to lay the blame for lack of uptake of these ideas anywhere, it goes to two places:
(1) The IAHP for never sponsoring or performing rigorous scientific studies of the efficacy of these methods. At least Titzer, as a Ph.D. scientist, knows the importance of such studies, and he tells me heās pursuing such studies. Without such studies, the larger scientific community just wonāt pay any attention to this stuff. Those of you who are truly devoted to this and are, say, in school or thinking of going back to school, in educationāyou could pursue this as a thesis, and do a world of good.
(2) In the U.S. at least, I would blame the education establishment and the intellectual elites generally, which are philosophically opposed to several underpinnings of these methodsā¦to wit:
(a) Educationists will scream bloody murder if you call them on this, but when you examine their methods, standards, textbook selection, etc., you can see that their approach (in the U.S.) embodies an anti-knowledge stance. Their theorists dismiss the learning of substantial knowledge as ārote memorizationā of āmere facts,ā imply that traditional academic knowledge is of interest for only those who have a certain ālearning style,ā and accuse those who want children to master a core curriculum of Western ethnocentrism or even āracism.ā This is why Doman and YBCR has a much greater uptake in countries, like those of Eastern Europe and Asia (including so many of the lovely mommies on this forum), with a much stronger and more sincere love of learning.
(b) Americans have deeply āromanticā (in the philosophical sense) notions about education. This is reflected when you find people saying that we should ālet kids be kids,ā that āplay is childrenās work,ā that academic work and homework kills kidsā spirits, and so forth. The historical source of this deeply problematic attitude is Rousseau (read his Emileāintellectual mothers should find it fascinating), the original advocate of unschooling. So, anything that would have kids learn anything that they do not find in their environment (especially that they cannot learn in a āhands onā way) is regarded as āartificialā and a probably insidious influence.
(c) Americans, again, are some of the most deeply committed egalitarians in the history of the world. Many of us (well, especially people on the Leftābut in some respects, those on the Right, too) are offended when we observe deep inequalities in conditions between people. For these egalitarians, any movement that would make people less equal is totally wrong-headed. I find people using what look to me like lame scientific arguments as cover-ups for their own personal abhorrence of ādisgusting ambitionā on the part of pathetic parents. To them, we are merely using our children to pursue our lost ambitions at second-hand, or or make up for our personal shortcomings.
In short, at least in the U.S., we are a counter-culture, like it or not! If you always wanted to be in the mainstream, you are in the wrong place!
I have spent time instead deconstructing arguments on my blog instead of trying to convert the particular individuals on this Mommy forum. Disclaimer: I have affiliated with the product, but as everyone here knows it is a good decent product. I have also affiliated with Little Reader/Little Math but it is a harder sell because there is no infomercial (yet).
The most ridiculous comments to date:
- I would never use a hothousing product like Your Baby Can Read. I just use starfall and leapfrog videos! (Who are you kidding maāam?)
- I showed my child one showing of Your Baby Can Read videos, and she forgot how to sound out words. This video un-did all my hard work, now I have to āstart over.ā (This was a claim from a mother of a 2 year old. Not that two year olds canāt read, as shown on this forum, I just did not believe that this child could ever sound out words. She probably knew words by sight, and mimicked her mother when she showed her how to sound them out. This mother thought it was appropriate to teach babies phonics, but not sight words.)
- The same person that went on about how parents should not spend money on such products, suggested $60 Scholastic ābig booksā in response to my insistence that not all children see well enough to read ordinary books before the age of 5 or 6.
- These parents that teach their children early mask my childās true ānaturalā genius lol People are so impressed that these other kids can read, but my child painstakingly worked out the phonetic code on her own while we were frolicking in the meadow with no readers, educational materials, or parental help. (sarcastic rendition)
I could go on and on. There are some characters out there, Iām glad I do not know these folks IRL.
You also find a highly suspicious number of early readers (like ridiculously early) on the internet who spontaneously taught themselves with no help. There is a āone upā culture who believes in exclusive child-led learning who makes borderline ridiculous claims about how their children taught themselves to read and other academic skills without help. I get it, these mothers have to present themselves as non-pushy and want their kids to be viewed as ānaturalā genius in the meantime they are pretending away the flashcards and videos and other efforts they have put in.
I seem to find the lowest concentration of delusional people on this forum. Not that there is not the occasional posts that makes you go 
, but at least most people on this forum are not subscribed to some sort of ideology that does not allow them to see the possibilities.
DadDude,
Iām in agreement with your entire post! Just to address point 2(a), my husband and I were looking through some more āeliteā private school curriculums and I was really really disappointed at how āsoftā they made it sound. It may have been marketing to parents who want to believe the school is fun, I donāt know. I want a program that calls for mastery of a core curriculum, just as you describe we have totally gotten away from that. I want to KNOW, that once my child completes grade 3, he will be able to complete 100 single digit multiplication problems in 5 minutes or less at 100%. And the 100% part is very important to me. I think many would consider me wrong for that, maybe pushy, maybe old fashioned, I donāt know. My parents didnāt have to worry about such things, they sent us to school and they did not waste our time doing ridiculous but exciting āprojectsā where only 1 or 2 concepts are introduced, but none are mastered. āIntegrated unitsā is what I think they called them. Well, I want my units to be segregated. lol
I say early learning is worth it. Iād never change a thing except starting earlier if iād known about it. Thank goodness for YBCR and their infomercial!
My son just turned 2. He isnāt reading 500 words, last I checked he could read 10 words 6 months ago but I havenāt tested or tried to see where heās at since. Weāve gone through stages of bringing out words and then putting them away for a few weeks because he doesnāt want to read them, etc. He can talk fairly well but still babbles a lot. 3 months ago I had him start going to a spanish immersion play group. 2 hrs a day, 5 days a week. This also helps me to get some work done at home since I am full time mommy and have a full time job at home. I wanted to take him to the next level in learning spanish, since heās been listening to spanish music for a year and watching little pim, etc. He is now starting to say some words in Spanish, and I often wonder if his ābabblingā is actually him mimicking or trying to use words from the other language.
Most people have been supportive of what Iām doing, but occasionally I get the snide remark of āwell, howās his English coming along?ā in response to me telling them heās learning to speak in spanishā¦or my cute 3 yr old neice who didnāt know I was teaching him spanish, started giggling at his gibberish when he was little and said ālook mommy! heās speaking spanish!ā I had to laugh because, I really was teaching him Spanish even though thatās not what he was doing lol. My other neice not to long ago asked how can you teach a child spanish, I asked her how does a baby learn English? she thought about it for a few minutes and said, well they learn it by having us talk to them. And I said, exactly! Thats how he is learning Spanish, by having someone talk to him in it. She thought that was really neat, although she did say it sounded like a lot of work. lol. I explained to her that these little ones are smarter than we think and they love to learn. Which is so true!
Anyway, My baby isnāt reading full books, and he canāt talk in full sentences in 2 languages yet, or even 1 language, but to me he is the most brilliant kid in the world and I couldnāt be more proud of him. My baby was over at his aunts house the other day and she had a visitor over who was an educator for special needs kids, she made the comment that she could just watch my child play for hours because he was so fascinating and intriguing. Sheād never heard of early learning or that kids could learn words/alphabets this early. Of course her comments made my day and I was so excited that someone else could see it in him!
I think everyone I know knows that Iām teaching my kid early. That said, only a few have asked to borrow my DVDās and materials (and trust me I offer them to EVERYONE). But hopefully it will catch on soon. I think itās wonderful and exciting! Good luck to you all!
Heidi
Yeah, my aunt has 4 children, the first 2 and last are as sweet as can be, and the 3rd is just inexplicable. She does things which you would not expect from a child, like seek revenge for an insult DAYS later. If you told her she could not have a lollipop when she asked, she would remember, and be sure to pour an entire bag of sugar into your pillow case for you to find later on. Being with her in the house for several days is kind of scary actually, you think she is going to do something to you in your sleep. I am not saying she is a psychopath, but I donāt hold her Mom responsible for her behavior, primarily because the other 3 are absolutely fine children. If she only had the one child though, everyone would think it was her motherās fault, I really try not to judge.