How do you teach a very active baby?

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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Hi All!

I’ve been less active on the forum these last few weeks, as i was travelling and did not have access to the internet.

My daughter is very active. She was able to crawl, sit and stand early on and has been on the go, pushing the furniture around, trying to climb, always looking for something to play with (as long as it’s not toys, she is not into toys!), banging doors etc. since then. She is able to do a few steps on her own now but most on the time she is crawling or walking pushing an object.

I’ve reached the point when i’m considering stopping teaching her :dry:
I started teaching her when she was 6 month-old. In retrospect i can say that:

-she has never been interested in flashcards. she looks around, babbles, leans over trying to grab them or just ignores me. this has been a pattern since i started 5 months ago. i’ve used all the tricks in the book (using less card, stopping for weeks, being over-enthusiastic, showing them in the morning only, when she’s on the highchair etc etc)

-she likes books now but only when she is by herself and the books are quite small, and with sturdy pages. I will leave her with books and she’ll be babbling and pointing at the images. however when we both sit down and i try to read or show her books, she tries to close it or turn the pages, or simply tries to get away.

-she does not show much interest in Little Reader. she looks around after 2 or 3 words. she does sometimes look back at the screen but not for long. Now when i put in on i leave the room and make sure there are no distractions around her, but still it is not working well.

-i’ve pinned a world map and a few words/posters on the wall. she looks at them sometimes when prompted, but otherwise prefers to remove them from the wall or to bang the door near the words…

i do not want to sound like i am complaining. i’m happy to have a healthy and strong little girl. :smiley:
But when i read posts of mothers reading 5 or 6 books a day to their babies, or that they could read x words by the age of 1, i’m wondering whether it is my method which is not good or i simply have a baby who wants to do things rather than concentrating on something. I read with Doman that if the child was busy achieving a milestone such as learning how to walk, we shoud leave them alone to explore. So should i just stop teaching and wait for her to show me she is ready to slow down?

i should add that her diet is really good, with nothing sugary such as biscuits or juices, only homemade food. Her sleep is fine too with 12 hours at night and two very short naps (45 minutes) a day.

Any advice appreciated…
Thanks!!

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It seems like you are doing a fantastic job . But sometimes a child may want to advance on the physical front (like standing, cruising,walking) first . During this phase , the child will work on accomplishing these goals and sideline the others. I think you are doing great with all the modifications. As discouraging as it may seem, please try not to stop your efforts for reading. Have you done any problem solving with your child? She may be knowing many words.

Please don’t worry about the number of words your child can read or the number of books you read to her. Believe me , if she can read one, thats your boost to keep on showing more. your child will have to face competetion when she grows up. She doesnt need it now!!

This is a game I wanted to try with my dtr but havent done it yet. I have tried to adapt it to your situation .See if it helps you.: Stick card stock with a word on it, on all sides of a diaper box. have 2 boxes ready and tumble both in a fairly open space. Encourage her to crawl or walk upto it or push her walker upto it. And when she touches it , you can enthusiastically shout out the word ,and immediately tumble the other box in a different direction. Just correct the word quickly if it lands upside down.

try to use physical activity while flashing cards, like jumping , tickling, rocking and keep short sessions, just show 5 words a day . Dont be tempted to show more than that. She will show you the cues when she is really ready for new ones. if you have done many single words, jump onto couplets,phrases quickly.

I hope that helps some. And please dont worry, you are doing great, and so is your child.

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Saniso,
Reading your post reminds me a lot of my daughter. She walked when she was 9 months old and crawled very early too, she was so active. I bought YBCR and she didn’t want to wach it. She didn’t like to watch T.V. So, what I’m doing is I play it when she is having breaksfast and luch in her highchair. She didn’t like me to read the books and the flashcards at the beginning but I started doing the actions words as hipatia also suggested to you, the animals sounds and looking for the object in the house that was in the book. I remember also kissing every page and having her also kiss every page as a game after I read the word and that was so funny for her. Now, she quite enjoys me reading her books or YBCR flash cards. The LR 6 months program she doesn’t care much for the part that is only words but she enjoys the pictures and the videos so she watch the words before them. I bought the Baby signing time and signing time, and those DVDs have been a hit. So, now when we read a word we know I also sign to her.
My daughter has slow down a bit, so now things are a little bit easier, but I am still struggling with math. I haven’t found a way for her to get interest on it.
Good luck to you and keep your great work.

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Don’t worry school stuff will come in time. I have one of those LO as well. He is 13 months old and now is showing interest in school stuff. I believe in hands on approach. If the slideshows, flashcards, videos, programs isn’t working try new ways to visualize your content, have posters up, let her help you open the mail, or notice the words on cereal boxes, have banners and posters up, label the items in her room or her play area. Play with her, you can learn by playing and doing, Sing to her while she crawls, play music, play slideshows even though you may think she isn’t learning she is. Don’t worry about others LO learning everything, reading, etc. every child is in their own pace when it comes to learning. There are tons of learning songs, games, poems, that you can do and read to her.
Be patient, be calm, and have fun! Sometimes babies can sense that we are concerned about them, my oldest would read by himself like yours but when I came to read with him he jumped up and dropped the book. He only wanted small, hard board books, nothing else, so I made my own books and after a while of a repitious routine everyday he now sits and reads with me, patting on his little toddler bed for me to join him.

for math I hid his small cars, old milk lids, and other small objects into a brown lunch bag and let him seek what is in the bag, he counts the items now. We also use this method of matching letters. Sometimes hide-n-go-seek with items is an awesome way to teach math. Matching stuffed animals; teddy bears up and having a teddy bear dance is another fun way, like I said hands on schooling is hard to beat.

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I had this “problem” with my son was was very active too. I took the opportunity when we were in the car to play eduational songs on the radion and eventually got a car DVD player. Shows that were not interestig in the house became interesting when there was no other choice. Good luck!

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Hi Saniso. Thank you for this long and enlightening answer! I’ll definitely try your idea on sticking a word on a diaper box. I’ll tell you how i go.
On the wall, we have the portrait of a little girl and whenever my daughter sees it she points at it, so i tell her that this is the ear, the mouth etc; and I have stuck a few words around this painting. So I point to the nose and say ‘nose’, and then i point at the card and repeat ‘nose’. i can see that she follows my finger towards the word. We only started the words yesterday.

In regards to problem solving, she did two successfully when she was younger (7 and 8 months if i recall) Since then, she won’t do any (not that i’ve tried that many times anyway). she will ignore me by looking around or crawling. yesterday she crawled on both words :blink:

Hi Xica. Thank you too! I think she will love the kissing game. she’s a cheeky one. i forgot to say that there is one thing she loves watching, and that is Little Pim (Chinese). We started showing it to her 2 months ago on the high chair and she did not seem that impressed. Now when i bring the computer over (i play it on a little notebook in front of her) she gets really excited, stares at the screen and has started waving in the air everytime the panda comes along! That’s very encouraging for me so i’ve purchased the French dvd (which is her first language) and the Japanese one. that is quite an investment but worth it in my opinion.
i usually show Little Reader (3 or 4 playlists) before Little Pim, but like i said, she only peeks at LR…

Hi Mother of faith. I have two questions for you. When you label the room, do you just leave the stickers on and let him see them on his own or do you point at them as you walk past? About making your own books, did you write a post somewhere about how you make them? do you make them with pictures of your child?
Thanks!

  • Thank you Cristofori! I have her listen to french nursery rhymes during bath time.

And please keep on posting!!!

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try starting with couplets and phrases, i think she will like the novelty. You could also try to use problem solving wiht the diaper box game: ask her to "zoom "towards the particular word or throw the ball at the word. emphasis on the physical aspect. Hope that helps

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I first labeled everything, put a alphabet banner up, made a color wall (the colors word), made a phrase wall (how are you), made a vocabulary wall (word wall posters), made a story wall ( put up colorful posters of the books we tried to read), and a phonics wall is coming, we also made a number wall in the kitchen so he can count his cheerios while he eats, then we made a food wall on the refridge itself ( i glued magnets to the back of my word cards). Now grant it a live in a mobile home so space is limited. I placed new words every month in the hallway to the bathroom to reinforce the potty training.
I used blue pieces of card stock for the alphabet words, I used white for the color words, and so on…
I set up a routine that went along with my curriuclum, Mondays-alphabet wall review, Tuesdays- color wall review, etc.
Oh I forgot we even made a science word wall out of our window. I placed the words in the window, double sided cards that had the same word on each side. He loves to point to the words as he sees those things outside. This is where we do our weather. Oh and their is a sign language wall-with the poster of the month.
whew! i think that’s it…

One tip on the phrase wall cover your flashcard with wide tape or contact paper so you can wipe the phrase of the week off and change it from week to week. i placed my phrase of the week near his bedroom door so we could review it everytime we went out the door, ex. How are you? Thank you for coming.

Oh and I forgot the curtousy wall, it is on the back of my pantry cupboard door where he can see it when he eats ex. I want more _________ please. He has to pick the card of the food he wants more of and I place the card on the velcro strip where the dashed line is.

The flashcards that I use now are the ones are the strips that are made for printing for preschoolers. I use colored paper and print the lined paper on it then handwrite the word in, then cut out, cover with contact or wide scotch tape like packaging tape that is clear. Sometimes I don’t even bother with covering. I even add sometimes the picture of the object in color, just depends. I will post the link to the writing paper http://www.kizclub.com/writing/lines.pdf I chose the last page. The bigger for my LO the better. Make sure to print on cardstock paper.

One more thing, KEEP ALL WORD CARDS AWAY FROM THEIR TINY HANDS. I have placed mine just obove where he can’t reach yet. Eventually he will get the idea to not touch the cards. It has worked so far.

I will try to find the video that I ahve of my word walls and post it.

The board books that I make of my child with his photos I keep private. I do not post them anywhere. But I do create board books and I have shared them on here and in the video section, and on my rolom website the link is below.
I have posted several ways on how to make a board book, and in other peoples posts as well.

I hope all of this helps!

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That’s great! I had completely forgotten I could start couplets now… I don’t think my daughter knows most of them but I have shown her more than 50 words now. Could you advise me on the first couplets you used with your LO?
I’m thinking of Hello Mummy! How are you? i am hungry… that type of thing, is it fine (do not have Doman’s book nearby to check…)
Thx!

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Some of the examples of couplets which I have been using are like: happy baby, red butterfly,tall giraffe full cup, blue book etc. essentially these are words which she has seen before just coupled together. If she has not seen adjectives before (these are called as modifiers by Doman) , you can show words like roll ball, clap hands, . Doman suggests using modifers whcih include words like red/blue (as in colors) , opposites (like tall/short, full empty) —in short adjectives . Hello mommy, sounds like a good example . I think even if you havent shown her all the words, couple them with words she has seen before. Show 5 couplets for 5 days and then add one /remove one . If you think she likes them , keep the number same or else show less couplets. Then after showing about 20 or so couplets move on to phrases which can include : like your example:How are you?, I am hungry etc. Hope that helps. Even i do not have the book, these are just some things I had jotted down when I read the book.hope that helps

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Hi Mother of faith
Great ideas… Grouping words by theme is very clever. i have grouped the human body words, up on the wall where she can’t touch, and i’m having great success: whenever we walk by, my daughter points at the words.
Your advice will help me for months to come!
How old are your babies?

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1 yr old and a 2 yr old. They are a handfull. But the little one can learn from the big one, good and bad things. I will be uploading some videos of my word walls in a few days. Look for them in the video section.

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I think that many of the Native Reading techniques http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/native-reading/msg7799/#msg7799 would be helpful teaching an active baby or toddler.

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Thank you! I have printed the whole discussion to read it in bed. I’ll let you know. Days with my very active 12 month-old leave me exhausted. She is adorable but i just can’t stop her being a tornado!
A few improvements though:
-she likes looking at countries on the map. she can point at australia and canada so far (i’m starting with big countries :slight_smile:
-she points at words on the wall (she get very interested when i tape them).
-she can now last a few minutes without touching the book i am reading, but i can only read one a day (in bed while she is having her bottle)

So still no flash cards, but i’m guessing she is learning other things…

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my story is as the first posted, ive been dedicated to teaching my son how to read i started at 3 months reading books and he loved it so much i started flash card sytem, doman and you can teach your baby to rea, i have tried every thing, well im hoping i havent i feel i should give up…kevin is so active he does not want to look at words only pictures no problems, ive done high chair, no distractions, always praise, excitement, even play the game until he comes to me, he only wants to stand, jump, on cards, he really does not like words, video, he always like, songs, clips and pictures as soon as words come up he turns away. help

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Josiah went through a stage for a short time where he did not want me to read books. He wanted to turn the pages and very quickly. I started holding the down the corners so that he couldn’t. And once I had finished a page, I would quickly lift only the page that needed to be turned (by simply sweeping my thumb underneath it) and tell him that he can now turn the page. There were times that he got a little upset about this, however, I felt that it was necessary to teach him a little bit about respecting books. There are many things that children have to be taught how to do. Sure, there are many things that you can just let them have a go at, but I believe that children have to be taught the proper way to read a book AND how to learn from a screen (i.e. the tv, computer). And that means that we have to show them ourselves.

Even now, there are times when he wants to turn the page very quickly, but if I haven’t finished reading the page, I gently grab his hand and say “Wait” and then I will again tell him that he can turn the page once I have finished reading. Now that he is older, I find that following along pointing as I read does more than just show him what word I am reading. When I lift my hand from the paper, he knows that I am done reading that page and he may turn the page.

The reward with being consistent in this, is that he now will wait patiently, pays closer attention to what I am reading, and will even turn back to pages that he has missed when reading to himself. Thus, he has learned how to read a book, even if he can’t read all the words.

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I also want to add that Josiah is pretty active, even with the TV going. And he hates flash cards done the Doman way. When we do LR, it requires a whole lot of mommy participation. I am doing all of the actions very dramatically (with YBCR as well).

When we are using material flash cards, we do it one of two ways:

  1. The flash cards are in a pile and he hands each flashcard to me. I tell him what it is. He finds it very important that he touch them. I allow it and he has learned many, many words this way. We use many Montessori materials in this way. I even leave the cards in his reach (in index card holders, at first) so that he can decide when we read the words. Now that he is older, he can open the holder himself and will run all the way across tha house to bring me a card, so I can tell him what it says, and he will run all the way back to do it all over again.

  2. The flash cards are in book form, with one word per page (or very few words) per the method described in Doman’s EK recommendations. And again, he is in control. He turns the page. At first, I held the book down and lifted one page at a time. With one word per page it goes very quickly and can be fun. Now, he does the page turning all by himself, allowing me to say the words. He will even grab my finger and put it on the page if I don’t point to the words as I read lol asif to say “Mom, you’re doing it wrong.”

Over time, I have realized that my son is a very deliberate child. Something that I believe comes with him being so active. Allowing him to have some control over the procedure has made it a pleasure for him. And allowing him to move as much as he pleases has appealed to his active nature. He just won’t sit still for flash cards. And I have come to accept that. In fact, it makes him mad… he will scream if I try to flash them quickly the Doman way.

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And finally (one more, I know you’re getting tired of seeing my post on here… but I keep forgetting). Josiah had a few posters and some books that had a collection of info on one page. One book in particular was a book about colors. the first two pages had all the colors laid out with each name below. I would lay the page out in front of him and point to each color as fast I could and say its name. He LOVED this. So much. I would literally fly through as fast as I could say the word and move my hand. He got so excited. Then I would do it with his hand (if he would allow it).