I read Glen Doman’s Teach Your Baby To Read, and I am trying to use that method of homemade flash cards. I like the idea for any child, but especially for my daughter since I’ve read that kids with Down Syndrome tend to be visual learners. I am hoping the flashcards will increase her spoken vocabulary as well as give her a head start on reading.
We don’t have a color printer so I’ve been printing pictures at the library, then pasting them onto the cards and honestly, its too much work. Do you think the photos are necessary? Would I be ok with text only flash cards?
I think it really depends on your child. My dd refused to read cards without pics until recently. We have around1000 cards with pictures. It was very time consuming & cost a fair amount at the end when she was going through so many cards each week. I was so happy when she became willing to read a word written on an index card with a felt marker.
You could alway try words only and see how your dd does, or even do a mix of word only and word plus picture cards. As long as the word only cards are things she understands, you should be fine. The biggest benefit to using a pic is that it helps with understanding.
I’m sure my dd’s speech has been greatly helped by reading. When she first started speaking, the words she learned through reading sight words were much clearer than those she learned through hearing other people speak. Kids with DS are visual learners, so what better way to help them learn to speak than a visual method like reading.
I also hoped that sight words would give my dd a start on learning to read before school, however I was very pleasantly surprised when she began reading books at 3.5 years of age.
That makes a lot of sense. I think I will just make text cards for things she is familiar with, she’s only 7.5 months old and not mobile, so she seems to enjoy the flashcards even without pictures. Then if its a word she won’t have a meaning for, I’ll try to find a picture. I think this will help me get ahead in making cards,which will make me more motivated to make more! Great advice, thank you!!
For words that don’t come up much in conversation or books you read, or which you don’t have examples of readily available, pictures are absolutely essential if your child is to understand the words. I gather that some people don’t really care so much about their kids understanding words–mostly, the priority is to get them to decode words regardless of meaning. That isn’t my approach. Basically, I want my children to understand all the words I tell them. So I try to use cards with pictures. That said, I’ve been using some cards that came with YBCR, which have no pictures. They work because the words are introduced in the videos.
By the way, in the new reading tutorial I’m working on, we have, first, a picture, and then the word is used in a sentence, and the sentence is illustrated with a video.
Yes, I think using the words in sentences is great and I’m trying to figure out how to move into that step. We’ve done about 60 words so far, and I know the next step in Doman’s book is 2 word phrases but she seems so young to start that. Would you all stick to words only for an 8 month old, or start working on phrases? And if you would, HOW?
Wendy, Doman’s advice is probably better than mine, but since you ask…
I read books to my baby (7 months), mostly “baby board” books that simply label pictures, but sometimes some with sentences. I’m not really designing the reading tutorial program with the tiniest babies in mind. If I did, I’m sure I’d add a few things. But anyway, I don’t think it hurts to use short, simple sentences with babies, especially if they are illustrated very well either by pictures or videos. For what it’s worth, the baby really loves the demo I’ve got going. It’s just that I prefer to use text that my baby has a chance of understanding. So I guess what I’m saying is that my own baby probably won’t be able to understand a lot of the sentences in the program (he probably will have a better idea of what they mean when he’s one or two), but that won’t stop me from using the program with him. The program I’m making is supposed to be usable by all ages.
If I were to make a “strictly babies” feature, I would omit a lot of the words and use phrases or very short sentences instead. Who knows, maybe I’ll do that.
Dad Dude,
How many month old should be the baby to start following the tutorial you are preparing?
What range of months would they be if you prepare a ‘strictly babies’ one?
Have you tried the free downloads (look in the menu bar), there are some power point presentation with pictures. Also if you have power point on your computer you could easily flash words and images on the computer without having to print anything.