Hello!
My Name is Vianney and I am really interested in teaching my baby to read. He is 4 months old and even though I’ve been reading about the steps to follow, I have some doubts. Can somebody help me?
The fact is that I should start showing him sets of 5 words 3 times per day, amd after 5 days I should replace one card from the set and so on.
But what happen then? If he is 4 months old how can I know that he has learned a the word if he doesn’t speak?
I understand the whole process but Understanding that kids talk, but what about babies?
Please I need your help…
I think Doman says you are not supposed to test your child at all, so you won’t really know for sure if he can read the words or not 
Otherwise I have seen videos on Youtube where babies point at objects or reach for them (f. e. they grab a banana when being shown the word “banana”, or clap when they read “clap” etc).
Thaks for your answer!
But is it supposed to not to show the word again? Never? I mean once you finished with the set?
Thanks for your attention!
Well I’m no expert as we gave up on the flash cards (toddlers can run away from things if they want to :P).
But I think there’s no problem with showing them the cards later, or taping the cards to objects (ex.: the word “table” on a table…). I would say you can try to show him words he is supposed to know and see what his reaction is. The main point is, he might know the word and show no signs, but it still doesn’t mean he doesn’t know it.
Anyways maybe wait for someone else’s opinion (as I said I was not too successful with paper flash cards).
Thanks!
Hi!
Repeat the cards. I’ll try to be brief with my 2 cents…
Both my boys could read before 1. My youngest (17 months old now) can read about 100 words (I honestly didn’t count but it’s around there) and can make phonetic sounds for all the letters and he loves it. I can show him a word and he will do the action, I can show him a list of words and he could point out what is the correct word, I can show him an object and he could match the word to the object. I didn’t do any of these test games with him until he was about 13 or 14 months old. When he was about 8 or 9 months he could do some of the words like when he saw “clap” he would clap or saw the word “colors” he would say “k” sound an excitedly point (indicating he wanted to see some colors). He knows the shapes, numbers, colors, etc.
The Brill Baby Set they sell looks really good but I just learned about this site recently so I haven’t tried it (maybe I’ll get it in case we have a 3rd ). For me, all I did was:
1.) Show some flashcard games 5-20 min a day. Too much and kids get bored, but doing nothing they forget.
1a.) For the flashcards, I repeated the first 10- 15 words almost every day, or at least every other day. If you don’t repeat they will forget, but if you only do the same 10 words everyday for 6 months it will get boring for your kid (and you ) so switch it up a little sometimes.
2.) Show some fun Youtube videos especially phonics alphabet. I also like to show the shapes, colors and numbers songs (I have playlists of what I used for both my boys on my LearningPlaylist youtube channel…I don’t have everything I used up there yet but I’m building it SLOWLY as a hobby). As with flashcards - too much and it gets boring, but if you never do it they forget. I only do this at night about 45-30 min before bedtime - it helps keep him entertained while clean up as well as get the toothbrush and floss ready (I’m a dentist - you can never floss too much ).
3.) Remember to have fun and kids only have a 5 min attention span. If you’re baby isn’t in the mood for a particular activity do something else. At a young age it has to be a fun, exciting game or they may learn to hate it.
This is what worked for me. I welcome any feedback on ways to improve. It looks like BrillBaby spent a lot of time coming up with good advice as well.