Hi everybody,
I’ve been using LM (and LR) with my 20 months old son since he was about 12 months. He learned the numbers so quickly it was amazing! He loves to play with numbers, count steps and recognize them where ever we go. However, once I invite him to do the LM sessions he is reluctant to come (he never refuses the LR and even asks me to do it and when it ends he asks for more…). He can sits through the numeral part of the session and then wonders off. I continue the other parts of the sesions hoping that he at least absorbs something by listening. I’ve noticed that when i do that he talks to himself and somtimes repeats (some of ) what he hears. I wonder if anyone has a suggestion how to help him fall in love with the program all over again and what do you think about the auditory absorbtion of the naration? And another thought I have to share is the fact that I try to practice Domann’s “mantra” not to test the kid therefore I am not really sure whether he recognizes the amounts flashed or not. Has anyone managed to find a way of discovering/ monitoring the kid’s knowledge without testing him or at least without letting him feel he’s being tested?
Have you tried giving your son a break from LM or switching the fonts and background color?
My son started losing interest in LM and we as were going through the lessons he refused to look at the screen. I continued playing the lessons for him for a couple days because atleast he was listening. But I also often recite numbers, and different operations to him so I tried playing his LM lessons inbetween his LR Chinese and English lessons.He also loves LR and can not get enough. But he became quite agitated during the LM lessons and I did not want to have him dislike numbers so I gave him a break for about a week and now he has been loving his LM lessons again. I have had to give him a break twice now since he was five months old.
I did not want to test my son but he was always holding two of the same number magnets so I was curious and asked him to get me a number. He got all the numbers I asked for twice in random order 1-9. I confess I then tested him once on higher numbers and he had fun showing off his knowledge. He has all the preschool prep apps on his ipad and so far I have only been allowing him to view their flashcard apps because their other apps seem like a test where they show three choices and say the one you are to pick and once you pick the right choice you see the cartoon come to life. I would love some more insight on why we are not supposed to test our children. I suppose it has a little to do with not wanting to discourage them if they get an answer incorrect.
I just wanted to add that I saw on one of doman’s videos that it was ok to ask in multiple choice. i may be wrong and/or confused, but my understanding was that with choice, it was ok, but that they discouraged testing without choice. of course, i’m new to doman and was winging it the first two years with my son. we ‘tested’ him all the time and he loved it. we keep our tone playful and inquisitive and praise quite a bit. if he answers incorrectly, we still praise for making the effort and trying and let him know what the correct answer is.
we’re also new to lm/lr but have been doing ybcr for the last two years. i noticed that he’s definitely over ybcr now, which is a shame because i ‘have’ to play it for our daughter (8 mo). i did take the last two or so weeks off, though, playing it here and there. (i’m out of town at the moment, so our routine is out the window). he has always loved flash cards, though, and has recently been inspired on his own to start trying to spell, practice letters and numbers, and has been doing better with his reading. i KNOW that this is expected, but it’s still neat to experience 
with lr/lm, he’s been telling me that he’s not so interested in lm, but i’m thinking once we get to the computations he’ll be more interested.
do your children speak?
interestingly enough, today while doing LM joey repeatedly said that he wanted the big images and couldn’t stand the smaller figures. i don’t know why, really - he can see just fine, but he was pretty adament about it. maybe if you try only large images your kids will prefer them too - just a thought.
also, with LR he doesn’t really love it yet, but i’m thinking it’s because he already knows a lot of the words. when we do it really fast, he pays much more attention and he is quick to have me repeat certain words/images that he finds more entertaining for whatever reason.
i’m looking forward to what this next year has in store for both kids and the program
thanks for replying my post and thank you for the suggestions. I’m going to give my son a short break from LM and then change the fonts/ background color etc…
My son speaks a little bit. His sentences are constructed of no more than 3 words (he’s 20 months old). And this is why i do get feedbacks from him showing his knowledge. As i’ve written “i try not to test him” but i, as Queriquita, also give him the 2 choise “test” ( with the Doman’s Math kit). Although most of the time he gets the right answer i feel it is by a coincedent. i can’t get over this feeling so i decided to stop the 2 choice test ( we cal it the dots riddels).
hope the new strategies will work for us
Hi Galitm,
Also try switching the icons to favourite characters. My son loves Mickey Mouse and Angry Birds so I turned off all the other icons and only play icons with characters from Mickey and Angry Birds. Also, I started shifting from just dots to written numbers and numerals. Seemed to bring him back.
I don’t test, but I once gave him some number magnets and he was sticking them up onto the fridge and saying them out aloud to himself. A few times I’ve asked him to get me a number and he gets it right all the time. He was also in class once and they were looking at 91-100 and he correctly matched numbers that were the nineties (this was before he turned 2).