I talked with Bob Titzer (of “Your Baby Can Read” fame) today and he said that he knows of something like four different scientists/scholars (in psychology and education) who are doing studies on the effectiveness of “Your Baby Can Read.” This ought to be of interest to the Doman/LR camp as well. He said that some years ago he encountered terrific amounts of hostility to the whole idea of teaching a baby to read. Now, he says, people are a lot more open minded. I offered the opinion that the reason for this is that people can very easily see babies and toddlers reading on YouTube, and he agreed with that.
So maybe, in the next year or two, we will start to see the fruits of serious scientific study of this whole phenomena. I’m very excited by the prospect. What we do may never be taken seriously by the current establishment in education and much of developmental psychology, but it can certainly make inroads. I predict that this is going to be an enormous growth industry, and huge floods of ink (or electrons) will be spilled as people attack and explain about early reading and early education generally.
It’s hard to believe that this isn’t already talked about more than it is, why there haven’t been many news reports about it, and generally why people still don’t know that babies can be taught to read. I would have thought that there would at some point be breathless front-page news stories shouting, “YouTube Videos Show Toddlers Reading” and “Massive Anecdotal Evidence Shows that Babies Can Be Taught to Read.” But the reason is reasonably clear to me: the people who will report about this stuff are education reporters, and they are trained in and part of the establishment. They have a strong bias against efforts in this direction.
It is exciting to hear that there will be studies, but I don’t think they will change much. The problem is that parents are growing busier and busier and spending less and less time with their children. Most families don’t even sit down together to eat anymore. Kids would rather play video games or watch TV, and that is perfectly acceptable to most parents b/c they have their own things to do. I only see this getting worse in the future, no matter what studies come out. And then there are so many people who simply won’t accept it, saying that young children should be left to play and learn things later in school.
Oh, I’m not saying the studies will change the world or even make a whole lot more people take advantage of the opportunities. But I do think that with more professional defenders of these programs, they are sure to become more popular. Of course, I’m assuming that the studies are going to present positive results…
Well, this assumes that the people studied will be like the people here who tell success stories. They might not be. For example, they might study the program’s use in preschool programs, or whatever, or contrary to how it is intended to be used. Or they might have poor study design in some other respect… But I agree with you, I have high hopes for this.
That was a great post DadDude, and I’m inspired by the positivity which these studies can (and hopefully will) generate in the future.
You’re right - even though this may not make a huge difference in the way people view early learning, the fact that is may become a more popular field can help shape the way future generations will view education, and there is still that possibility that people won’t be so adverse to it knowing there are proven results released as scientific studies.
However, I think this is only the FIRST hurdle that has to be overcome, and unfortunately, this is the easier hurdle - the first hurdle being the myth that babies cannot read. Tons of Youtube videos already disprove this myth, and hopefully the study will also disprove it conclusively.
The bigger hurdle we face is actually the question:
“WHY SHOULD WE TEACH BABIES TO READ?”
This involves the following myths:
Babies do not love to read (and would have to be forced to learn)
Teaching them now is pointless (ie., no long term advantage)
Teaching them now is harmful! (takes away from play time, or whole word vs phonics debate, etc. etc.)
And not really a ‘myth’ per se, but a frequently-heard opinion:
Just let babies be babies! (which is sort of like a combination of the above myths, but which is really just the person saying that “you just don’t teach a baby to read, it’s just not right!” - ie., it’s a “gut feeling” thing, and doesn’t have to be supported by reason.)
Hopefully, the studies will also make some inroads to the above issues, because like I said, I think that’s where the biggest challenges lie.
I have lost count of how many times have I heard the frases
"- Just let babies be babies! “you just don’t teach a baby to read, it’s just not right!” - or the even more personal, Gabi and Georgia are going to be bored at school, you are forcing them with these early learning stuff…
Anyway… I just pretend I have not heard and keep on doing what I believe is best to my family…
I believe that what we do is a family business, we are active on the business of educating our children, and in fact it takes a kind of special parent to take charge of things and not let society dictates what we should or shouldn’t be teaching them, or we do not conform with the norm (because we know better) and our children deserve to be treated as supperior human beings with a brain power much bigger than ours.
The video below is great Childhood Development: Early Learning, the Brain and Society, it is long but well worth it.
This is an excellent video. The demonstration at the end shows why it is important for the baby to see your lips move to learn the language. Interaction is also extremely important and making it fun and interesting. Babies tune out things that do not interest them. I certainly have no doubt that early learning is important. Math and music are just other foreign languages.
