Hello
I live in Colombia, and we speak spanish and I´m trying to teach my kid to read. My son is 23 months and I started Glen Doman method with flash cards at 9 mo. At some point I noticed he didn´t pay much attention so I stopped for a while. 10 months ago I discovered LR and at first he was very excited about everything, and asked me three or four times a day to show him the words and he always wanted more and more. We did 5 playlist three times a day for three months and we used to changed weekly the groups of words and what he most enjoyed were those with word + picture + sound. We were doing very well but after three months, he didn´t want to watch the computer and every time I said let´s go and watch some words he said NO!
He has never liked the TV and is not interested in cartoons, or anything similar or videos of any kind and I don´t want to insist because I don´t want to create the habit of watching TV. I tried baby Einstein videos a few times and he is not interested either. Besides, I don´t find them very special.
What he most likes are books. He has like 10 books I bought when he was a few months old with pictures or drawings of different things and the name below. For example parts of the body, fruits, vegetables, the house, the garden, the bathroom, transportation, etc. One theme for page. The images are very little, 8, 10 or 15 per page, and the books are not big. He recognizes almost 100% of the images in the books and if he doesn´t know he ask me pointing the image so I can say the name out loud. He takes the book and starts reading page to page naming everything he sees. The letters are very small so I don´t know if he pays attention to them, but he is amazing. He absolutely love those books. His vocabulary is incredible, he repeats every word I say and immediatly memorizes it. He is using long sentences and also sings 6 o 7 songs and every body can understand him. He loves music. Loves puzzles too.
Since I noticed he didn´t like te computer, I started making books myself. I buy a big sheet of moderately thick and shinny white paper, make it cut in a book size and make two perforations in the left side of each sheet. That is the material. Then every magazine I see, or even in the newspaper, I look for a picture, cut it and glue it on a sheet. I write the name on the back with a red marker and in the next sheet I write a simple sentence related to the picture in big cases. Every book has 5 pictures with the words on the back and five sentences.Then, I put 2 laces through the perforations on the left side of the sheets and make a knot and there is a book. For example if I have a picture of a kid giving a kiss to his mommy, I write Kiss on the back and in the next sheet I write : the boy gives a kiss to his mommy. Now I have made more than 200 books like those. He loves them and he likes reading them several times a day. He looks for me in the house , takes my hand and take me to the sofa where we always read and ask me to read the home made books. I give him 5 books every week and read them two or three times a day during the week and every week I change them. I buy a lot of “normal” books for him, but he still prefer the ones mommy makes o the 10 little books with figures and the name below.
During the last week he doesn´t concentrate easily. After one book, he leaves and go for another activity. He distracts very easily and is very mobile. I am worried.
I sill ask him if he wants to watch the words and pictures in the computer and he says NOOOO!
If I sit him in front of the comuter and start LR, after 2 o 3 words he want to stop and ask me to stop.
The only thing he likes to watch in a screen are a few videos in you tube. I chose 20 very popular songs for children and ocasionaly I sit him in front of the computer and he stares at it listeing to the music. He can stay 15 o 20 minutes watching the videos. He loves it. When I try to show him LR he ask me for the videos.
Do you have any suggestions for me to teach my kid to read? Those homemade books he loved, now I don´t see him very interested.
What shoul I do? I am worried because he doesn´t like flashcards, computer or videos and now it seems that books either.
I´m a dermatologist, so I work 7 o 8 hours a day. He goes to the nursery from 8 to 12 from monday to friday and loves it. We used to read before I went to work, then in the afternoon and before bed. Now I don´t know what to do.
Please help me.
Mommy