I have a 3 yr old daughter. Unfortunately , I came to know about this site very recently. I wish I would have known about this earlier. I have not used any tool till date , except the board books for alphabets, animals , etc.
I want to start using Little Reader and Little math for my daughter.
Is it too late to start now?
Can I still benefit from Little Reader and Little Math? Or will be too difficult to cope up now.
Please provide your valuable advice on this matter.
You should be able to use Little Reader successfully though you may need to make some categories of you own in addition to showing her the curriculum as 3 year old children usually need to progress to sentences faster than babies do. Little Reader is a very versatile tool and your daughter should definitely get a lot of benefit from it.
She is probably too old for Little Maths - she should start another programme for math. Look around on the Teaching your child Math board for ideas about what you can do with your 3 year old.
You can definitely use LR with a 3 year old. But use other methods as well, like starfall.com and readingbear.org. Definitely read Larry Sanger’s “How I taught my toddler to read” essay to get more ideas. At this age, the more you do the better.
It’s never too late to start somewhere! I also didn’t start actively teaching my oldest until he was 3.
I also agree with the recommendation of Little Reader but not Little Math for that age. There are many posts about toddlers and preschoolers no longer interested in little math. It’s a great tool, but (in my opinion) you may get better mileage out of a different program with an older child. I keep never being satisfied with any one curriculum, so I’ve been making my own for math, but here are some programs that you could look into:
RightStart Math
Brilliant Minds Montessori Math Kit
Jones Geniuses
TouchMath
Miquon with Cuisenaire Rods
MathTacular
Singapore Early Bird
And check out the mental math post about Ella’s success with learning Soroban!
You may look into the Preschool Prep DVDs and products. I’ve found them extremely effective.
Have you guys looked at MathTacular for teaching tools? My wife and I love them. We started with a complete educational kit for only $49.99 that included:
MathTacular Kit DVD (67 of the 88 activities in MathTacular)
Bear Counters
Color Tiles
Red & White Counter
Mini-Clock
Die
Base Ten Blocks
Pattern Blocks
12" Wooden Ruler
Number Flash Cards
Number Chart
Gram Centimeter Cubes
Geobard with Bands
Popsicle Sticks & Pinto Beans (for place value practice)
Sidewalk Chalk
and Math Manipulatives Guide
I was glad that Our kids found the DVD’s very helpful, which was good for me because my math skills are lacking and I’m finding myself relearning everything with them.
Oh mathtacular. I had forgotten about that one! Thanks for the reminder. I love it, used it with other children at work but oddly never thought to get it myself to use with my kids. It is a great place to start. It’s wonderful for introducing and reinforcing concepts at all levels. I wouldn’t call it a complete corriculum…but it is a great basis for one. Especially with the manipulatives. You will need to take it well beyond the video to ensure your daughter fully understands the concepts. Actually do the activities with her and she will fly.
I might just pop on over and order a higher level DVD for my big girl, she understands her school work but struggles to understand why she has to learn it. Mathtacular is full of everyday real life examples she will love.
I will bet there are other mums on this forum who are using it.
Thanks for informing me about MathTacular. I tried to place an order on their website . But it seems they would not ship items to India.
Any pointers of getting this kit in India ?
It’s available on amazon too maybe that will help, but they may not ship to India either. Also you could try ordering just the video not the kit and find other objects from the kit in India…
My son is three, and I am going to be starting Jones Genius. I like their program because it allows you to progress as fast or as slow as you want (I prefer fast). It says the program can have your child performing at least algebra by the time they are 8 or 9 years old. It appears simple and easy enough and begins at the very beginning with simple learning 1-1 concept and how to write your numbers. They now have it where you can get a digital copy making it easy for international customers to obtain the program. Plus, the organization is a non-profit. There is like three or four levels, and as they advance through the levels they learn to do mental math (which is important to me).
I have really contemplated the soroban, but without the knowledge and know-how of using the soroban abacus myself, I find it intimidating to teach it to my children. Plus, I have concerns that it doesn’t allow the child to develop a strong sense of numbers. It appears to turn more into rote memorization of how to manipulate the beads to answer equations.
Of course, this is how I made my decision. Every person’s circumstances differ. You might find an abacus class near by and that might make all the difference in the world. Out here in the Midwest of the US, there isn’t an abacus teacher to be found. Good luck!
I have been using Little Reader and Little Math for my 3 yr old daughter for some time. We have completed 15 lessons. Few observations and questions.
She doesn’t seem to be interested in Little Math. In the lessons till now , various quantities are flashed. She seems to be distracted by other stuff around. Sometimes she does sees it. Is it that the Flashing of these cards are not going to work for her. Does math flash card work for kids above 3 yrs.
Secondly on LR , she watches the complete lessons. Do I need to do something else as well to enforce the words.
can I use some other product along with LR and LM. For example YBCR etc.
will it benefit if I use the physical flash cards and dot cards? I was attending a course and they are providing english flash cards and math dot cards. Will it be of use if I use these flash cards along with LR and LM. But the words that are in LR may not be available in the set of cards.
What methodology does LM and LR follow- is it Glenn Doman or something else.
can we use two programs to teach reading at the same time.
Lots of questions
Ok so for LM have you downloaded new icons? My son was very bored watching fruit and dots but will happily watch spiderman, bob the builder and dinosaurs. We loaded heaps of new icing so he is keen to see a different one each time we watch. At 3 I would also introduce numerals. But that’s my preferene. Also LR isn’t a complete math corriculum it is only numbers. Math is so much more, introduce shapes, fractions, measurements,…tonyour child also.
Now LR at three you could use many programs along with LR ( you don’t need to yet but you can ) I use also almost every day starfall.com for ABC recognition and phonics. I let him have free choice and he usually does 2 to 4 letters a day.
Others use reading bear, which my son has only just shown any interest in…I really think reading bear should wait until the the kids has some concept of letters and the sounds they make. I might think differently when teaching a younger than 3 kid but…
Next year you could use readingeggs.com but at three its quite labour intensive for us mummies, at four you give them a mouse and say have fun and go do the washing!
There are no rules. You can use any flashcards you like so long as your rugrat enjoys the process. You can use any program you are both happy with. You can spend a fortune or have a stricken budget lol I would recommend you add something to teach phonics at a faster rate than LR does. Even if it is physical flash cards of the letters. Hope that helps.
Hi, I think other than the methods you mentioned earlier on, you can also try flashcards. Personally, I think that flashcards is a very effective method on young kids. From what I know, flashcards is effective for children below age of 4. =)
The iBooks are all about the different type of animals in the world. they have fun facts, photos and videos. So maybe you can use this to tell a story to your child, teach her simple words from the iBooks and etc. I purchased the Amazing Rainforest one! my gal likes it alot. =)
Glad to see you starting Jones Geniuses Early Learning. One good thing about living in the times we do is that there are many options, quite a few of them are very good. I just reviewed ZooPhonics which is an excellent early learning program for learning sounds. Unfortunately, it is limited to only teaching sounds and is not suited or designed to teach sounding out words. Conceptually it is almost exactly like our program at that stage. I have no idea if they used our program as a template for theirs. However, our Threshold to Reading program is different since we seamlessly go on to sounding out words and reading connected discourse. Generally, your child ends up at a second grade reading level after finishing Threshold to Reading and the primer 100 Easy Lessons (takes months not years). In general, I find it too easy for parents to spend a lot of money on many things that deliver too little in the way of results, a program for colors, one for shapes, etc. It all adds up. Prioritize your objectives. Focus like a laser on letter-sounds and digit-quantities. Those are the keys that open the door to the universe of knowledge.
[quote author=cokers4life link=topic=13368.msg82535#msg82535 date=1331083220]
My son is three, and I am going to be starting Jones Genius. I like their program because it allows you to progress as fast or as slow as you want (I prefer fast). It says the program can have your child performing at least algebra by the time they are 8 or 9 years old. It appears simple and easy enough and begins at the very beginning with simple learning 1-1 concept and how to write your numbers. They now have it where you can get a digital copy making it easy for international customers to obtain the program. Plus, the organization is a non-profit. There is like three or four levels, and as they advance through the levels they learn to do mental math (which is important to me).
My son is almost 4. We used LR when he was a baby. It is a great program. He didn’t learn to read sentences from it, but I believe that this played a huge part in his understanding that words have meaning. As a baby he learned body parts, numbers, alphabet colours etc… significantly faster than his peers. He was also talking from 8 months. His ability to communicate made for a much happier baby in my opinion. For an older child it is good to teach facts along with reading as well as some phonics.
Now that my son is older (as in your case), the Joneses Geniuses program has without a doubt been the most effective in helping my son to read sentences and go to the next level. I love it’s simplicility. It is straight forward with no fancy bells and whistles. It just works! We have the Maths program from JG too which is also very good. Haven’t had much luck with my son though. He flat out refuses to do it so I haven’t pushed it. Will try again soon.
I also recommend that you take a look at readingbear.org. It is a fantastic phonics based program. Best of all it is free. We have to thank Dadude for making it possible to have access to a free resource to help our kids learn to read.
For math we also use singapore math earlybird kindergarten mathematics which has been good to teach basic key mathematical concepts.
ops… teaching to the 3 years old may give you some challege on it! I found that the montessory method is very workable for the small kid. And it is good. But I am using three methods - montessory , shichida and doman method. I love to change the method of teaching so that My little baby girl concern here is the new thing for her to learn! Keep changing your technique of learning for her is very important ! Find out the tips where i have use in my blogspot : http://littlemommy2012.blogspot.com/ :rolleyes:
There are so many resource and methods.