I have been using flashcards with my son who is 9 months old now for two months. He just turned nine months old. I am not sure if he knows the words on the flashcards. How can I tell if he is unable to say the words for choose from two cards the correct word. I know that GD method said not to test the child ever, but I am so curious if it is even working with him.
I wondered the same thing when I first began teaching my son, but I learned that at that age they are taking it all in even if we (us parents) are unsure if they are really getting it. Just continue doing what you are doing and when he is ready he will show you what he knows. My son has and he still surprises me to this day…a couple of weeks ago he said to me “Mom, then he looked up at the moon, and said moon as he signed it”.
Good Luck with everything!!
Sahar
That’s one of the drawbacks of just using word flashcards - you’re not teaching the meaning. You’re only teaching the association between the word and the sound of the word (ie., the pronunciation).
We always recommend doing more than just that, and try multisensory methods when pictures and videos are shown, and even sound effects, etc. Great thing is it becomes more meaningful to the child, and meaning is also taught. Even if you dont’ test them, you’ll find them letting you know they can recognize the word, for example by clapping when they see “clap”, etc. etc.
I went to the Robert Titzer seminar last year and he mention that young babies tell you they know through signals (if they are unable to point ect). He demonstated with a 9 month baby who was at the seminar as the mother asked the same question you did. He showed the baby two cards clap and smile??? and asked her which one is clap. She looked at both cards and went back to the word clap and smiled!
I had the exact same doubt and found an acceptable solution in Glenn Domansbook, It suggests problem solving opportunities.
“the purpose of problem solving opportuniies is for the child to be able to demonstarte what he knows if he wishes to do so”
according to the book.
A simple example of problem solving would be to hold up two cards say apple and banana and ask where is banana? If your baby looks at the card banana or touches it , you are naturally delighted and make a fuss. if he choses the other card , simplysayThis is apple and this is banana. the complexity of question varies with age.
This is similar to what divaseven has replied.
I tried problem solving this morning, it worked , I limited it to 2 questions.
I have yet to try LR multisensory approach, all my single words at this time are based on the words which my child knows the meaning of as I am just starting with this. I wish i knew about these approaches before hand but nevertheless…
Hope that helps
Before I found on brill kids and doman method, I learnt that babies brain grow fastest from 0-3yrs and v should feed the cells otherwise they will not be active, so I thought I’d just read and show and teach…
My son being a late talker, he started speaking at 22months, and 2days after he first started really talking, meaning he had something like 10-15words in vocabulary, he showed a wooden shape sorting toy he had and said “CIRCLE” I wont eve forget that day, for then he brought his magnetic board and said “Mummy, oval, draw oval!”
So I totally believe in this though I came across Brillkids software too late!
Thank you all for your responses. I guess I just have to be patient and wait for that special day until he shows me he understands. I am starting to use the powerpoint slides that I downloaded from this site with pictures and words. I am so excited. :laugh: I hope this all pays off in the end that he is learning and having fun at the same time.
[b]I would LOVE LOVE to hear more responses from parents who first discovered their child really knows and understand.
- What methods did you use?
- What age was your child when you first started?
- When was the FIRST time you knew they understood everything you have been doing?
Share your special moments with all of us here and that and that will help me keep my hopes and inspire me that my child oneday will let me know he KNOWS![/b]
I started YBCR at about 8 months with my son. I had no idea what he was absorbing for months. Then he started a signing explosion, and he was able to show that he knew many words. He has shown me that he can read over 50 words! And I have no idea how many others he knows because we don’t know all the signs yet (and he doesn’t talk), and I don’t test him. I have a feeling that he knows all the words though since we have been doing the program so long.
We had heard from elders that children in early age absorb a lot what they see and hear, though they may not react or respond immediately. We started showing flash cards, reading small stories with pictures, to our daughter when she was around 10-11 months old. Even we would regularly sing small phrases & songs to her. She would jsut stare and give blank face, and we wondered at times if it was of any use. But then after few months, she started surprising us by recognizing and repeating the words.
But we felt that for those flash cards, that had impressive pictures (real world photos as well as cartoon type photos) and our repeatition of words done regularly, gave better results.
Good luck
Laurana was 12 months old when I started doing flashcards and Little Reader with her. It took two weeks til she showed me that she could read one of the words I had been showing her (she said “do” and pointed to the card that said Dog)
She is now 18 months and I still do not know exactly how much she knows - she has shown me she does know a lot, but everything??? I think that will take longer to know. We do flashcards everyday and I am still using Little Reader - though more for stories now with the vocabulary she knows than with single words. I find she can show me she knows the words better if I do actions with them or sing her a song with the word on the flashcard in it or pick a word that she has seemed excited about earlier in the day or week.
I started Taylor on the slideshows at 4 months. She is now 6 1/2 and lately she has really been responding to the animals download. as soon as Bird and the image and sound come on she starts smiling and when we reach the Pig at the end of the slide her legs and arms shake and she lets out a grunt of what I can only imagine is “its finished next” cause as soon as we move onto colours the arms and legs are shaking and when we get to yellow another grunt!! Its so funny, don’t know how much she is actually taking in but definitely know she enjoys it. As soon as the lap top goes on she starts banging the keys and grabbing for the mouse! she knows that they do something to get her slides working! Can’t wait til she really starts reading like some of the parents have expressed because it is simply facinating
Hi
My baby is 11 months old. I started to do flash cards to my baby about 1 and 1/2 week ago. Now I am doing about 6 sets of 5 words per day and 2 sets of red dots. She goes to childcare during the day so we do 1 flash when she gets up, another one before sleep. Someday when we have time and she is in a perceptive mood we do another flash. We don’t have time to wait 15 minutes between sets actually so we do all at one, separated by compliments, encouragement, or some little fast silly game like hi five, peekapoo, clap hands, find things under the blanket etc… As we go out of the stated rule of spreading out the flash sets, whenever she shows sign of disinterest or not so enthusiatic then we stop or drop the undone sets to another time. So far so good. However I must note here that we’ve noticed her focus span has been pretty good since she was little.
Trulypearl, I think if you watch your baby, he will guide your way. My baby does not show much interest the 1st day or 2 though she looked at all sets presented, then we noticed the difference in her eyes and her sitting posture when we bring out the cards. Sometimes she touches the cards and talks to me though I don’t understand very well since she can not really speak yet. I think she tries to tell me the word. Her eyes are also different whenever we add a new set. She giggles or makes some other sounds to let us know she recognises that is a new set.
KL is right in the multisensory method. Whenever possible or remembered, we show her things like touch the nose and said nose etc… She also likes to look at the presentations in Little Reader since they have image, voice, noise attached to a word. My fault we have not used it much as we will have to set the computer up for that and connect it to the television for big screen, and my living room (where the television is) have many distractions compared to the bedroom where we use to flash cards to our baby. I also have to consider the number of sets shown to her per day to keep her interested.
A few days ago my husband accidentally asked our baby “Where is Mommy?” and we did not expect any answer. I think he slipped it out not on purpose. Amazingly she pointed to me (nearby at that time). And we’ve just shown her that word with a picture of me on Little Reader the day before, and we don’t teach her that word before except on the word set starting a few days before that. I’m not a native English speaker so we’ve been trying to get her call me Mom in a different language.
After that I was burning to know more about her understanding. So yesterday (wickedly I know) I presented 2 red dot cards to her, asking her which one is 14 (out of 13 and 14). She looked at both and looked back at 14 (on my right side). We congratulated her on her achievement. I wanted to be sure so presented her with another 2 words (can’t remember which word now for a sudden). When being asked, she again looked at 2 words then look to the right word (this time on my left side) and smiled to it (she can’t talk yet). These 2 words have been presented to her for about 2 days.
Now I know for sure she understands at least nearly everything we teach or show to her. And I’m not going to present any other problem solving situation again until much later (depend on her interest).
When we started learning about early learning for our baby, we were prepared to do it without knowing her understanding for quite a while. Info about Shichida methods said you may not see the results for a few years. Now we feel much more encouraged and thrilled.