Wish there were libraries around in my city… but I guess the bookstore helps some. Anyway it is encouraging for those of us who did not start so early.
AMAZING. Your story was exactly what I needed to read. I came onto the site to post about teaching my son his alphabet. He already knows so many of the letters and their sounds, I’ve been wondering if I should augment that with doing letters of the week etc. I thought it was discouraged in the ‘Doman method’ for a period of time, so I wasn’t sure how to progress. Well, you answered my questions. We too have been doing YBCR and Doman style words with LR/LM. I’ll certainly check out starfall.com, librarything.com and not shy away from letters any longer.
Thank you for sharing your story. Congratulations on finding and sticking with a method that worked for your daughter!!!
Jeimy34, great to hear your work and how you taught your daughter to read! I’m also in the same boat, trying to teach my daughter to read. She’s now 13+ months old. I’m using LR exclusively as I find it more convenient rather than having to make my own flash cards. Here’s how I do it. We’ve been at it for ~1 month.
- I show a word quickly, followed by a picture of it.
- 6 categories of 5 words each.
- Due to time constraints, I can only show her 2x a day for each category.
The problem is that I do not know if she’s actually reading the words. She pays attention when I show her the words and pictures on LR. I tried testing her at times, but she doesn’t bother much.
I have a few doubts.
- Am I doing the right thing by showing words followed by pictures?
- Or should I just flash purely words quickly one after another?
- Do you stop on every word and explain the meaning of the word? If not, how will she appreciate the meaning of the words?
Hope you and the rest of the forummers can shed some light to my questions.
Thanks!
Great question from Mooncake regarding words and pictures. Basically, when I was doing the Doman-style cards with my daughter, she was 16-18 months, and she already knew the meanings of the words we were using. So most of my cards didn’t have pictures. For some of the cards, I found pictures from the internet and pasted them on the back, but that was very labor intensive, and I’m not sure it was necessary. For the most part, I just flashed the cards really fast while saying the words. But sometimes we talked about the words, or I flashed “refrigerator” and asked her to point to the refrigerator, etc. I think the rapid flashing of words is what really helped her to learn to read, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked if the words didn’t have any meaning for her.
Making the cards was relatively easy. I bought a box of card stock from office max, and then I went to the “Copy Max” next door and had them cut it into thirds, so that each card was about 8 by 3.6 inches. I started with 3 groups of 5 cards, and flashed them once or twice 3 times per day. After 5 days, I took one card out of each group and added a new one to each group, and then I did this every day. On the back of each card, I wrote the date that it was added to the rotation. Then at the end of each day, I took out the 3 cards that had been in the rotation for 5 days, and I created 3 more cards to go in. I kept everyting organized in an accordion folder. It was super easy and not a lot of work, and it was very easy to create word lists. You can use “baby’s first word” books for ideas: parts of the body, animals, foods, people’s names, plants, action words, clothing, and anything your child happens to be obsessing about. I always decided what words to at the end of the day and didn’t prepare materials in advance.
Hi Jeimy
Do you mean that you make sure your daughter knows the meaning of the words before flashing them before her? Since there are so many words to introduce, I often flash words that were never previously explained to her. Is this ok?
Part of my dilemma is this. If I slot in 1 picture for every word, I won’t be able to flash those words fast one after another. Is it ok to flash one word quickly (1 sec), then followed by a long pause on the picture while explaining the meaning of the word? I’m using this method every day, hence I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing.
just joined this website/forum.
it is an inspiration that your daughter has learned so much at an early age.
i’ll be checking out those resources you have mentioned!
thanks for sharing with us.
How do you feel about the money see monkey do dvds. Just as good as your baby can read?
Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope to hear more from you.
Hi there,
what is "money see monkey do "
is it avalible to download on this site
MOnki see Monki Doo is a dvd program similar to YBCR but less expensive. Have not bought so not sure how good they are. Looking for any info. You can find them on the intellectual baby website
Jeimy34,
Thanks for the link to Librarything. Looks like a good list you’ve got . I think I’m going to start using this, too. What a great idea fir her to pick her books.
Hello all, thanks for your sharings. I love reading your experiences. And here is my experience. I am 30 years old and mother of 11 months old Mehmet. He has always been happy baby thanks god. He was also very active and alert baby. For this reason I couldn’t keept him on my breast for long and he started to refuse breast feeding because he was stearing around a lot:)Then I started expressing milk and giving formula milk after his 4th month. The only way we can keep him steady was showing number flash cards. He loved a lot liistenng us counting and showing cards to hiim. After some time we asked him to show any number, and he showed us what iit is. it was very surpriising for us. This is how we started learning. Later I bought a turkish book which advices showiing words to babies. Then I started to show 10 of any words at the same time. He was just very curious and very consantrated during that times. and now I have prepared another 10 set of words and started to show him with pictures. He sometimes cries for another round with words. My concern is I guess I am very slow . I found that site 2 days ago. And I guess I am not doiing teaching properly:S My another concern is he has not started talkiing in turkiish-mother tongue. Before that I don’t want to start teachiing english. But it is very difficult to find turkish materials in Bristol.For ths reason I am printng out myself. What do you advice me to do after that stage and do u thng we r on the rght way? sorry for the 'i’letter. mehmet has lost it:D
cheers esra
I just love all the information that is available out there and the fact that it can be shared with other parents, ie. librarything…Thanks :biggrin:
I also love the fact that you can teach your baby to read with little or no money ie… fancy programs… although there is nothing wrong with them, it can be done without them.
Thanks Moms
That is incredible!!! Hats off to you for your patience and dedication! My son is already 4 years old. Can I still do that to him now? He likes books very much and I noticed that he recognizes the word ON. I hope that is a good indication. 
When he was just an infant I did my own flash cards in addition to the ones we bought and did that every day. But I got lazy. I hope it’s not too late for me and my son.
Thanks very much for sharing!!
I’m using YBCR though I stopped for a while because my LO didn’t seem as interested anymore; too active. Now I’m showing once a day or a few times a week. A question about starfall . . . how often do you do it and how many letters did you do a day/week? I’ve been using it for quite some time now and before would just do two letters a day and then move on to our other two learning sites but I just started a focus letter a week though I still do two (a review or with the upcoming letter).
Now, I started doing two letters a day but focusing really on one letter a week, showing her power point flashcards of just that letter, words beginning with the letter, the letter around the house and short clips from sesame street I saved on youtube as a playlist. I’m not stressed about her learning the letters but thought, what the hay. It helps to organize our day, and so far, she seems to like it. I just was wondering, is a letter a week too slow?
I’m still doing power point flashcards but she really likes the letters so started that too.
I’ve always read to my LO but she only really became interested in sitting to read books with me since I weaned her (at 18 months). She always liked books but mostly wanted to take them to “read” on her own. Now, she reads several books before naptime and bedtime and is interested in stories rather than picture and her toddler board books. I think she really likes the books we have (it’s a set from Scholastic) because I can pick out books with things she recognizes or that are familiar to her day. Also, the books are very simple (they teach site words to older kids) so don’t have many words on the page.
Sorry, I ended up sharing more than asking but was just wondering about what I’m doing and what you thought.
I’d see what your child thinks. I did two letters a day with my daughter until I had done about 8 letters and then she seemed to jump to wanting the entire alphabet so now I just show her a few letters whenever she seems interested. She also has an alphabet book with small letters printed in it (b rather than B) and she seems to know the entire book now anyway, though she may be guessing some from the word and picture. If I ask her what a letter says she very often will just say a word that starts with that letter.
I am starting three letter word phonics with her now, but have taken a while to get organised so it may still be slow.