Apologies for the long time between updates here - but I finally got around to doing one:
http://pokercub.blogspot.com/2013/05/early-learning-its-risky-business.html
:laugh:
Thank you for the great blog! Cub sounds like a happy and healthy boy and he looks so cute in the picture!
I’m very excited to read that he can already read! We have been training reading with our 8 month old everyday since his birth but so far there is no evidence he is reading yet, so it is more like “preparing” his brains and thinking for reading :D. It is funny to think that words he hears now don’t go to neither active nor passive vocabulary because he doesn’t seem to recognized 99,9% of the words he has been hearing. I believe words he hears now prepare his neurons and connections in his brains and will emerge as an understanding of the word after hearing it so many times although at the moment it seems like pouring water in to a broken bucket. lol
Great to hear to he is already scribbling. I read a book that baby should be able (?!) to do that only when he is 12 months old! Alarm clock theories seem to be the main stream now although they have been proven false so many times. Our baby is already using a pinch grip but I am still waiting him to learn how to use the spoon first before introducing crayons to avoid putting any pressure or unrealistic expectations on him.
Regarding pencil grip, I think now we are going to use the “traditional route” (I remember there was a discussion about this in the forum). Maybe we will choose the mastery route when we are going to start training ice skating on next winter. I have heard it is possible to teach an toddler to ice skate as soon as they are able to walk, so this is definetly something we will try!
Great work Cub and family! 
Wonderful news on Pokercub. He is developing some great skills. Arms up does seem to be the favourite in the YBCR action words!
Teaching 2 year olds to ice skate is entirely feasible. All three of my kids could roller blade between ages 2 and 3. My boy closer to 3 because he didn’t get much practice, we only skate twice every 10-12 weeks for 2 hours at a time. With more regular practice age 2 wouldn’t be difficult.
It did pose some problems though. Finding quality blades with good fast bearings for size 5 kids feet was impossible! We had to buy Disney crap and change out the bearings because kids skates were too slow for my kids!
Ice skating has less resistance so you won’t have the same problem with the bearings :biggrin: teaching my kids I remember they wanted to have lots of short goes at it. 10 mins with skates on 10 off, 10 on 10 off. Thank goodness for clips over laces!
I expect poker cub will be skating in no time 
I love to hear how Pokercub is progressing! Other than the YBCR program (which was highly successful in our house!) I didn’t learn about EL until Alex was nearly a year old! It is very interesting and inspirational to follow a LO whose father/primary caregiver put every possible effort into research and planning. If I ever have another… lol
One thing! Regarding pencil grip…when Alex was about 15 months old, I happened upon a Special Needs post for Gifted children. The therapist had recommended that the mother take a sock (the child’s, so as to be of appropriate size) and cut small holes for the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger. When you practice pencil or crayon grip, you them do so with the sock on the child’s hand. This forces a proper pencil grip because the ring finger and pinky finger are still tucked within the sock!
I did this with Alex immediately! It took about a week and she has never even reverted once!
Something to try with Pokercub maybe?!
PokerDad, Thanks so much for the update.
I vividly remember watching your swimming clips, squirming with a mixture of delight and anxiety last year. We were just researching how to teach self rescue / swimming to my niece. It was great to see you doing it in real time. I’m planning on starting water safety/swimming from the get go when my bump turns into a little man in the next month or two, i’ll be revisiting your post for ideas.
Its very interesting to me to see the things that you are focusing on and the progress you are making. I look at babies (in the offline world) and wonder how much different an EL kid would be. you give me a very useful point of reference. thanks
And the title picture on your blog post is just TOO cute! 
As always, a great update! Well worth the wait. I liked your idea of showing EK. I did almost exactly the same thing with Cammie before showing them in customized lessons in Little Reader. It is indeed a daunting task, from selecting the words and pictures (I also filtered “large images only”!), to typing to organizing them up in LR. We had 5-6 of pictures only per word because it’s tricky to find many that’s close to Doman’s standards. I would love to share those files but our computer broke before we had a chance to back them up. 
Please post a video of Cub swimming! We would love to see him
Keri, what a fantastic idea about the socks! I’ll make sure to use them with Robert as he loves to write everywhere-including his body. LOL
I understand not wanting to correct bad form. I didn’t give James even a crayon until he was probably close to 2. I can’t remember. But he wasn’t little. He too to had a real grip easily, however he reverted a little recently with the use of real regular length pencils, a grip helps with that.
Instead we worked on fine motor strength and dexterity. We did things like putting Pom Poms into a baby bottle and progressed to beads in the bottle. I cut a slit in a yogurt or cottage cheese container and I had him put poker chips into it. Something I sure you have plenty of. James would sit for at least 30 minutes at a time doing these menial tasks.
He also had a rice pit to give some sensory feed back. I let him finger paint in the bathtub with a mixture of flour and colored water.
At 9-12 months he was a pro at putting balls into holes, stacking cups or rings, putting boxes inaide boxes and putting his shapes into a shape-o. If I had peg puzzles at the time he would have been doing those too.
Oh and playdough or oobleck (cornstarch and water). These 2 things alone will help with his final pencil grip.
I mention the above things because I think it is a sensitive period for cognitive and fine motor development. His gross motor skills are progressing nicely.
James too couldn’t stand until he was able to walk decently. If he fell while walking he had to crawl over to something and pull himself up. Seemed quite backwards.
Thank you all for your support, encouragement, and ideas!
As requested, I went ahead and video taped a little segment the other day. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. My wife wanted me to add how happy and how much he plays in the water - that wasn’t really the focus of this little video, but I get her point. He plays almost the entire time we’re in the tub; it’s like a giant water table for him. His favorite toy is a fishnet that he dips into the water and then allows the water to come off onto the side or the floor. He often makes puddles. He also cruises around the tub fantastically.
Anyway… here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0PDxnWQYw4
I love that you posted this. And I am so glad tha you bit the bullet many many months ago and decided to get him gin the that hot tub :).
It is evident how calm and comfortable he is in the water.
He looks happier floating on his back when you let him go! He gets this little grin just after he realises no one is supporting him in the water. Obviously he is happy in the water :yes:
What a treat to see Cub displaying such skill and enjoyment! A big congratulations to the family. To see such progress is so inspiring. It struck me how calm he is and I just thought that this kind of calmness and control have a big positive impact on EQ skills too. I’m just curious, would you say he manages his emotions better (for an 11-month old) with all his practice at being such a cool little guy at swimming? Thanks for posting!
Such a great video, he looks so happy
I know it’s been quite a while. I thought I’d just type something up really quick (no photos, videos) as something is better than nothing. Time has been extremely short these days
http://pokercub.blogspot.com/2013/09/14-month-update.html
ideas? thoughts? suggestions? questions? a “hello, nice to hear from you again”? lol
speaking of questions…
I'm just curious, would you say he manages his emotions better (for an 11-month old) with all his practice at being such a cool little guy at swimming?He was fairly good at keeping his emotions under control. I have no idea how he compared to others in that regard though. I can say that we've taken a few months off of the swimming; I've since noticed that he scares with loud noises, on a plane taking off, and the likes, and he expresses unhappiness quite loudly - I don't see how this would be abnormal though. Also, he's kept the skill of the swimming, but he's not always so eager to go alone in the big pool (after a few days in a row, however, and he'll calm down). Not sure if that answers your question
Yay for the update!
So sweet about the candle blowing. What a tricky skill. But such a great motor oral skill. It may even be beneficial with his speech. Speech pathologists have children blow cotton balls across tables with and without straws to strengthen their oral muscles. Likewise, blowing bubbles with a bubble wand helps also.
As for your question about verbs I would imagine it would be as simple as doing ans showing the card. Tell him to sit, when he sits, show the card. Or you could demonstrate also.
Thank you for the suggestion Korrale4kq.
After posting, I realized there were countless words I forgot when I typed this up the other night. I went into the post and added 11 more, bringing the total on the post to 35. Seems like a decent number for a kid his age, especially a boy.
I have thought of two verbs that he uses: eat… and bite, though I think he uses both of these more as nouns. eat = “food” or “I want food”… bite = the same as eat, except I can say “bite” to mean that I want whatever food you happen to have at the moment
Back during the 10 month update, I mentioned (at least I think this is where I mentioned it - if not, I certainly posted this somewhere on the BK forum) that I got him to attempt to talk a lot more by requesting that he say the name of the food we are eating. This works really well for foods that he really likes. For instance, he learned “Ice” for Ice Cream in a single attempt while with PokerMom at the zoo one afternoon. Apparently she got a free ice cream cone for some trivial mess up on her lunch order - later that day I was with him when I ordered a soft serve cone at the local IKEA. When he saw it, he shouted “Ice! Ice!” over and over again until I gave him some
I turned to PokerMom and asked, “where did he learn that?”
lol
If anyone reading this has a Language Development Survey or can get a copy of one, please PM me or post in this thread. I’m very curious as to the norms and such.
Do you still use “Talking from Infancy”? If so, how do you do it or what does a “lesson” look like for you guys? I kept a list of my sons words too until he reached a hundred and then it was pointless. We did signing and it doubled his expressive vocabulary. For some reason some words he could say and not sign and other words he could sign and not say. Other words he would do both like “more”. Have you considered signing with him too? Just curious. Thanks for the update.
I don’t really set aside separate time for talking from infancy work. For those not familiar, Dr Fowler would spend purposeful time with a child and bring a play kit with specialized toys for the sole purpose of language work while playing. I do that on occasion, but nothing systematic and it’s really infrequent. However, knowing the methods, I’m able to emphasize and label quite a bit just randomly. I think Cub is getting to the point, however, where I need to do more complex language work with him and perhaps need to actually take time to do more of that systematic play time.
FYI, Fowler found that spending (not sure on actual minute time, but guessing 10-15 min) time 3x per day was enough to erase any environmental disadvantages. Therefore, in his testing daycare, they purposely tried to get to each kid a few times per day and used a checklist.
I believe Cub learned “eat” from baby signing time. We haven’t done a whole lot of it, but we like to sing the songs and he enjoys the videos. He does sign “finished” but conflated this with waving bye - so he’ll often just say “bye” and wave whenever he’s done eating. lol
Back to the Fowler stuff, one thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve gotten better at it as time has gone on. Some of that was to be expected, but some of it was simply from watching YBCD and patterning from it. There’s so many good things in those videos and they are his favorite (I’m pretty sure this is where his fascination with “bees” comes from (disc 1)). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught myself narrating an action with him and then saying something like, “and there you have it, a nice ____” then I think of how much I sound like those videos ha ha.
Thank you for the update! We are already waiting for the next one! :yes:
We have been following Fowler’s advice after first reading about it in your blog. Our baby is now exactly 12 months old and is using just over 10 words with purpose and he seems to be learning one new word each week. We are also in day 144 with Little Reader. I am very excited to wait for the next year if he would show us that he has learnt any English while watching it!
Please keep posting to your blog!
I will do.
Our baby is now exactly 12 months old and is using just over 10 words with purpose and he seems to be learning one new word each week.
This is a great outcome! I don’t think Cub had that many at one year and the ones he had, he sort of stopped using for a while there. I’m sure that very soon, 1 word per week will turn into 1 per day. Cub’s vocabulary is exploding right now. I’m going to get some video to post soon.
Yes, I think your post on Fowler was influential for a lot of us. I am using his techniques now with my new baby. She will be 7 weeks tomorrow and she is just beginning to converse with us with coos. It is so sweet.