Here’s another, slightly longer, unedited video of my boy reading from “Angus and the Ducks” and “Mighty Machines,” which he picked out of our bookshelves.
Very impressive daddude! He is certainly doing very well.
Thanks!
daddude, how long have you been teaching your son to read? Did you use YBCR? Give us some insights on your educational strategy. I also noticed the great collection of power point slides you created for the Brillkids forum. They are extremely well made and informative. May I ask how often you view these slides with your son and do you think he is absorbing most of your work?
Thanks.
Thanks for your kind words…
We started sounding out our first CVC words, and watching YBCR, 18 months ago. For our approach, look at http://bit.ly/1HmyUo and the how-to file at http://www.mediafire.com/FleschCards and especially http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachYourBabyToRead/message/6842 (my
first post to that group) and this
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachYourBabyToRead/message/7275
If you aren’t a member of TeachYourBabyToRead and you don’t want to become one, let me know and I’ll copy the text here… It seems to me I put this info here on BrillKids somewhere but I don’t remember where. One of my posts from many months ago.
How often we look at a presentation depends on the presentation. Some of them he likes and we look them at over and over again. Sadly for me, others are no more interesting to him than plain old books that he just wants to look at once or twice. I’m afraid the art presentations, which take me the longest to make, don’t excite him much. We do end up looking at them multiple times, though, just with viewings separated by weeks or months. I don’t have any set schedule for looking at presentations, the way Doman recommends. I’m pretty sure my boy would have no tolerance for such a schedule; I’m sure you can schedule only a small baby, or a less independent child, that way. This is one reason to catch 'em while they’re younger…a year ago he was much more amenable to passively sitting there and seeing whatever Papa showed him. Now, he wants to be in control! lol That’s OK with me.
I often wonder how much of the presentations he has absorbed. I think it depends on the topic, how many times we looked at a presentation, how much other related stuff we did, etc. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have all the details memorized the way some kids you see on YouTube seem to. For instance, months ago we looked quite a few times at the constellations presentations, but now he isn’t interested in those anymore. Well, recently we were looking at our planetarium (Homestar, $120, highly recommended if you can afford it) and he had no trouble recognizing Orion and the Big Dipper, and maybe one or two others, but he either had forgotten or never really knew most of the others. That’s OK with me. A lot of knowledge is of the “recognition” sort instead of the “declarative” sort–you can’t describe it but you can pick it out of a lineup–and I think that’s good enough for a robust scaffolding. There are some other topics that he is personally interested in that he seems to have memorized everything about: car logos, types of construction vehicles, many animals at our local zoo, map stuff, many musical pieces (not all), electricity, road signs…
Thank you so much for sharing your insights and schedule. As I think you have said in the past, there is very little scientifically that we can model from when we teach very young children. All we have is the empirical data and stories that we share. Nevertheless, to hear about others’ successes does shed some light into what we do and what we try. Thank you again for your perspective.
Good work, DadDude! 
DadDude,
Wow, that is incredible!!! It’s amazing that you just started teaching him to read 18 months ago. Great job. I’m going to go back and read your how-to info.
Thanks for sharing with us, Lori
Congratulations for a job well done DadDude! I’m really inspired! I’m trying to access the links you posted at TeachyourbabytoRead. I signed in as a member. I tried to search “DaDDude” but no results. Where do I go to access your stories? Also, would appreciate if you can share your list of recommended books.
thanks in advance!
Keep up the good work…Looking forward to see more videos of your son…
Pure, unmitigated coolness!
I love your book collection. Makes me want to go to the discount bookstore and stock books for our little one. We don’t have shelves, just one cardboard box full.
Your kid is smart, charming and cute. I personally think he IS a genius, but I know what you mean when you say he’s not!
Search on (I think) “papa123abc” and/or possibly “A. Person”. If you look through the most recent posts there with that account, you’ll find my most recent book list.
We have put more money than I’d care to admit into our book collection. I think it’s money well spent, but it has been a lot of money. We get library books but frankly it’s just not the same. It’s great to dip back into old books totally at random… It’s kind of been a hobby for me (like my boy’s education generally). Some discount bookstores (like our local Half Price Books) has a bunch of good stuff, I imagine especially if you don’t have a big collection. There’s more idiosyncratic selection though…the big stores like Barnes & Nobel and Borders have more consistently good quality, I find…and, of course, if you know exactly what you want, Amazon has the best prices I’ve found.
Thanks everyone!
Great many thanks to you!!!
Hey Daddude,
It’s Tobias8 again. I again am grateful for your suggestions. One other question, (which I guess comes from my scientific background and the need to look at primary sources), has to do with the Flesch text. I went ahead and ordered it to review. It sounds like you have minor differences in your opinion regarding the performance of the exercises in the book, (based solely on your “how to use the flashcards” instructions). First, am I correct in my assumptions, and second are there other areas you also disagree with as I peruse through the book, or are there areas to which I should place more attention?
Finally, it does not appear that this method is useful for younger children who have not yet developed the motor skills to speak or make phonetic sounds. Would you agree that the Titzer method remains a good starting point until then?
The exercises as devised by Flesch were meant for kids ages 4-6 or so, not for babies or toddlers. So definitely there will be differences in instructions for that reason. If I remember correctly, I was more than anything just looking for some phonics word lists to follow in making cards, and the Flesch book was ready to hand. For us, starting at 22 months, the differences were that our boy didn’t have the vocabulary comprehension that a 4-6 year old has, and he couldn’t write (Flesch says to teach writing at the same time one teaches reading).
I can’t say I recall any particular parts that I disagreed with the book on, but then, I don’t claim to be an expert. The book is a polemic, not a scientific treatise. FWIW I found the arguments to be very persuasive. You might bear in mind that the first book is over 50 years old, and Why Johnny Still Can’t Read (just as good as the original) is 25 years old. But that’s OK because the meat of both books is in the arguments for what has come to be called synthetic phonics and against the “whole word” method.
I don’t have any useful opinion about what is best for children who can’t talk. For any next children I guess we will probably be using the Titzer videos before the baby is able to talk, albeit not nearly as much as Titzer recommends using them. I am very serious when I say the #1 best preparation for learning to read is reading a LOT of books. We spent at least an hour per day, possible 2-3 hours, reading to our boy when he was between 6 and 24 months. We still read a lot to him, like an hour at least. Reading a lot to a baby introduces vocabulary and concepts a child wouldn’t otherwise have. That’s probably most important, because as I vaguely recall reading somewhere, some study has shown that there is a LOT more vocabulary in even relatively simple books than in spoken language, EVEN IF the parents are very highly educated. But reading lots of books also teaches grammar (which is again surely much more complex in written than spoken language), it also makes it a lot easier to introduce a child into all the mysteries of print (e.g., reading from left to right), and it makes it easier to transition to “harder” stories earlier. Looking at flashcards, presentations, and educational videos SUCK in comparison to books for learning these absolutely basic bedrock skills. As far as I’m concerned, Doman, LR, flashcards, and YBCR mainly develop a child’s ability to decode. They are also good at focusing a child’s mind on important “bits” of information, probably better than most books. But books kick ass for almost all other educational purposes! As you can see, I am a book fiend!
Hi Daddude,
Thanks for the advice on simply reading an abundance of books to help our children progress with reading. I think sometimes we parents can forget that with all the technology of computers, the internet, child development DVD’s, video and youtube, sometimes the simplest of our educational resources, namely “books” and the act of reading them with our children, can get forgotten.
Hey DadDude,
Wow, I’m totally impressed! That is incredible! You mentioned you spent at least an hour, possible 2-3hours of reading a day. I’m quite suprised by his ability to concentrate for this long duration. Do you break that one hour of reading into few short reading sessions? Do you point to each and every word that you read aloud to him? I’m just curious, by reading aloud to him, you can actually teach him to read. That’s incredible. I mean, i totally agree reading to a baby introduces vocabulary and concepts. For a LO to sit for such a long duration while able to comprehend what is being read to him, doesn’t he need to be equipped alots of vocabularies? How are you able to make this happend at such a young age? Any tips on selecting good and suitable books for our LOs?
This is really impressive! You’ve done an awesome job teaching your son! It shows you have a real passion for teaching him. Looking through your posts - I have a couple questions. First, do you print all your presentations (and make books)? Or do you just read them to him on the computer? Second, the phonics cards you made obviously have very similar words. I believe I’ve read in other places (maybe Your Baby Can Read materials), that the words should be different so the baby can easily recognize the difference (like hippopotamus and dog). I realize there are two different objectives going on. Did you only use the phonics cards? Or did you simultaneously use a vocab set with different looking words? Thank you so much!!! I hope you continue to share your progress!!!
Thanks Susan. I work at home and his Mama is at home as well. So I go down and eat all three meals with the little family, and mealtime is our main “study” time. This is about 45 minutes per session. We also read about 30 minutes or more before sleep. We frequently (not every day) do other educational things as well. Using what might otherwise be “idle” time really adds up, as you can see. At mealtime, too, he’s a captive audience. When he was smaller, I frequently just sat him on my lap and read a bunch of books to him. When he was very small, concentration was never an issue–I don’t know why–probably because it was a little “closeness” time. He still likes to sit in my lap while I read although we don’t do it that way so much anymore.
I do have a tip about book selection. It is very important to select books that are not too far above a kid’s level. Always include stuff that is on the easy side. Recently we’ve been going back and reading some Little Golden Books, even though at night we’re reading Little House in the Big Woods and even things a little above that in level. Before he was 12 or 14 months or so, I think it was, we focused almost completely on baby/concept books. Only then we moved into the really, really easy picture books, like Biscuit and the simplest Dr. Seuss books. And so forth. By always reading to him a lot at his level and also always a little above his level, he’s progressed pretty quickly. I have noticed that when I try to read too much that is above his level, that’s when he starts to get impatient.
Thanks! Well, I have never printed a single one of my presentations. We just sit in front of the computer. Usually after he gets up from his afternoon nap (oops that would be another regular teaching time we have). But I never did this with him when he was a baby (that I recall). We started doing ppt presentations only about a year ago, when he was around 28 months.
As to the second question, I don’t know whether the Flesch word list or my cards could be used to teach very small babies. I would be very interested to learn if anyone had tried. But when we started, he was 22 months old and had finished learning to recognize all the letters and letter sounds. So he had no trouble distinguishing between the words because he was learning to sound them out. What look like little differences to someone looking at “the overall shape” of the world end up being plenty big enough, I guess, when you’re looking at each individual letter (albeit very quickly).
One idea I’ve seen some people mention is that they would do Doman-style presentations until their child was older, then they would introduce phonics. Sort of makes sense to me. We did YBCR and the phonics cards at the same time, but that was when he was almost 2.
Thanx for your reply and the wonderful tip about book selection. I too notice that she gets impatient when i read too much that is above her level. Concept books? What do you mean by that? Any of those to quote? Would appreciate if you could comment on the question i asked earlier, - “Do you point to each and every word that you read aloud to him?”
This is a topic that fascinates me (how to read to children). Earlier, as I read, I pointed to everything. I pointed to the words as I read them, and then (in picture books), if there was a word or name that I thought he may not have understood, I’d quickly point to what the word was referring to. I used to do this a lot more, when he was 0-2 years old. Now that he’s nearly 3.5 years old, I point to things rather less and also read a little faster than I used to.
“Concept book” is I guess librarian jargon for the sort of book, mostly found at libraries (not so often at bookstores), that introduce concepts like the seasons, colors, occupations, numbers, ABCs, etc. In short they’re very similar to some basic Doman presentations (and my own presentations) but in book form. We read a lot of them, got them from the library, when he was 1-2. I was always a little surprised that Doman folks don’t tout them more, these books are right up their alley. The only unfortunate thing is that there aren’t any concept books (that I’ve ever found) about many “advanced”-seeming, “encyclopedic knowledge”-type topics like history and science–although there are some.