My daughter is 12 months old. I have tried introducing the written word to her through LR and YBCR a number of times (6 mo, 9 mo, 12 mo), and she initially responds well but turns from it within a few weeks. I’ve set it aside again, and will try again in the future. She is very tactile, doesn’t enjoy being read to, and will only tolerate touchy feely books and for a brief period. Her interests: lacing beads, drawing, climbing, putting anything in her mouth, etc. (notice the trend).
This is my second child. I had a very different experience with teaching the first to read (although I didn’t start trying to teach him at such a young age–we started at 17 mos), who was essentially obsessed with reading. I’m not pushing this with her, for that surely would be counterproductive; however, any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I do wonder whether this is not a common experience with the younger child.
1.How about making words from playdough? It has a lovely tactile feel and she can join in
2. Pin up words all over your house and when you walk past them you can point the word out running your finger from left to right and then she see words as part of her day.
3. Buy the foam bath letters for the tub and make words while she is the tub,
4. While she is distracted at meal times play LR then and then that way she can see the flash cards while eating.
5. Introduce sign language which will give her a tactile feel for the word you are teaching.
6. I let my dd 2 have things in her hands while I play LR for her she likes putting things in her mouth to.
7. Since she is already beading why not make words out of the beads.
8. take a trip to the beach or even if you have a sandpit and introduce the alphabet by getting her to ‘write’ letters in the sand with her finger or words.
9. See if you can make your own sand paper letters (A Montessori tool) and let her play with the letters and make words from that.
10. Fridge magnets make words on the fridge with magnets.
Not all kids respond to flash cards but there are ways around it. My DD1 went through a stage where she didn’t want to look at the screen so I changed the location of the computer and would give her, her lesson when she was in the tub. (I have a lap top) Your little on might just be bored and needing a few different things to spice up the learning a bit.
Trust your instinct, you know her best and change things to suit your little miss and yourself. I hope this helps
My little guy also preferred to touch than focus on letters - but I think that’s completely normal. I, too, didn’t want to push it, but I knew that I needed to give him opportunities to enjoy books - and provide him with the type of books that DID interest him.
I made up a few books that had large print and tactile/interactive opportunities. For instance Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star - I cut out stars of different textures - velvet, cardboard, sand paper, etc - each page had something for him to touch, but also had a few largely printed words on each page.
The book he loved the most was “Wheels on the Bus” where I had a picture of his dad and glued on a bus driver’s hat with a moveable arm that my son could move for “move on back”, a picture of a window with straw wipers for “swish, swish, swish”, a family picture attached to a stir stick that he could move “up and down”, 3 pictures one of me, my mom & my mil on flaps with the sound “shh” written under each flap, etc. This was and is still a favourite - even after two years!
My daughter was pretty tactile and I always wondered why it took her a little longer than my sister and her child to get into reading. She was eating books at 8 months and I would give her one to eat and read another at the same time. We used a lot of touchy feely books too just because she enjoyed them. I stuck flashcards on the walls and showed them to her often letting her pull them off the wall while I read them. We laminated cards that she could throw in the bath and I read them to her in the bath. When she got older we played running games where she would run and fetch the word I called or even just choose a word to run to touch it and then I’d read it to her. It did take a while til I could read to her the way some people imagine “reading to a child” should go - often I’d just read while she played and show her the pictures if she wanted to see them - children can concentrate on two things at once and tactile learners learn better that way. Later on (age 3) we’d read some of a story that she read to me and then act it out - it worked as a reward for reading it and kept her interested. I believe that tactile learners take the most work to get them to achieve something especially if tctile learning is not your thing, but with a lot of imagination and hands on activities they learn a lot and retain it well and it can be a lot of fun for you and them. All toddlers are tactile however so to know if your child is truely a tactile learner you will have to wait a while and see.