I found this old recording of my baby reading
How old was he?
That’s wonderful. How old is he? for long have you read to him? what resources have you used?
oh, and the cards, did you do them yourself or printed from the computer?
I have a 7.5 month old and I want to star with her soon… I’m not sure what and how to do that yet…thanks,
Lucy
I’m not sure of his exact age, but think that this was recorded shortly after his first birthday. We had progressed to short sentences prior to 18 months and Sam was reading the Oxford Reading Tree books at level six, with ease, at 2 years and 3 months.
Most of the cards were handmade but Sam seemed to prefer the bolder printed cards. We started showing flash cards once we knew that Sam was able to focus and he was seeing 25 words each day by the time this was recorded. Some of the later words were taken from a baby’s picture book (First 300 Words).
Chris
Thanks for your answer Chris, one more question, when did you started the program? did you use Doman’s or Little Reader, or any other resources? thanks!
Hi Lucy,
This is an old video and LR wasn’t available when we taught Sam to read. We followed the GD method and started teaching Sam from birth. I had replied to your question earlier but my reply and several subsequent responses appear to have been deleted? ?
We started with the words Mummy and Daddy written on cards 6†high by 24†long. The letters were about 5†high with about ½†between the letters; they were red and in lower case. Sam was then shown body part words -these were a little smaller with 4â€high letters. As his awareness increased we introduced new words like chair, door and window. I used to carry Sam around the house and garden to teach him what objects were called so that additional nouns could be introduced. At some stage I reduced the print size to around 2†high as can be seen on the video. I probably tested Sam to determine whether he was ready for smaller print. We also taught new words by showing the word and pointing at the item being named.
We read to Sam daily, occasionally discussing the illustrations and asking open questions to develop both his understanding and vocabulary.
I posted this in case you hadn’t seen my original reply.
Chris.
Wow. Amazing. In addition to the reading, Sam’s focus and concentration is astounding. I was so impressed that I went back to your profile and read all of your recent posts. I have been struggling with phonics vs sight wording reading. So I really enjoyed some of your informative posts on those topics. My daughter know lots of sight words but sometimes confuses similiar words - frog and dog, tiger and finger, etc. So I’ve been getting worried that it is just too much for her to memorize. I’m at the stage where I have been trying to decide whether I should teach her some abstract words (common dolch words) or go into phonics. I’ve been feeling that if she can memorize some of the abstract words then she might make the big transition into sentences. She loves books. Once she starts reading complete sentences, then she will be unstoppable. Your video and posts have inspired me to stop worrying so much and just try the abstract words (I, is, the, you, etc). We are doing the Brillkids Curriculum so she is getting some patterned phonics anyway. We also have done some YBCR and homemade flashcards. However I’ve never introduced a new word without a picture so I haven’t done any abstract words yet. LOL, my daughter is learning to read in spite of me ( I overthink the whole process). Anyway she is 28 months old, and I would be pleased if we just experience a portion of your incredible success.
Thanks for sharing your video and knowledge, Lori
Hi Chris,
I am a new member here. I read about your msg and watched Sam reading’ video. It’s amazing. I have a baby boy only 8 mths old and he is very active. I tried to teach him the flash cards two months ago, but he couldn’t sit quietly for me to teach him. He keeps crawling here and there. May i know what should i do now?
Thank you…