Hi Kimba and everyone! I’ve started my daughter on YBCR video when she was 2.5mos (the recommended age is 3mos-up). I just tried showing it without making a commitment to start the program but she’s already REALLY interested in the words! She would laugh & her eyes would twinkle when the words are displayed. Her interest is the same with the flashcards. However, after a couple of weeks, she LOST interest! Her eyes would dart elsewhere. Should I continue the program or give it a pause then try again when I feel she has regained interest? Our program is in jumbles now because most of the time, she’s not looking at the words at all no matter how enthusiastic I am so I tried to repeat showing the words I feel she didn’t “see”. Please advise. Thanks!
i found about about doman when my son was 3 weeks. i found the book by chance. it was my first trip to a book store and i was looking for something on development. i found how to multiply your babies intelligence. i started the program on him.
it has been a truly wonderful and blessed journey. he is 20 months and can read the word shoulder even when i scribble it on a page in my not so neat writing.
i dont test him and i was surprised when he saw the word clouds in a book and read it. he learnt that from little reader lite.
the possibilities are limitless and i plan to make good use of this time period.
i have made a weekly lesson plan which helps guide us.
Dear mothers, I want to tell you about my new method.
I started some teaching 3 months ago but stopped after few attempts because it was boring for my doughter. I repeated some 3 or 4 times but it really was boring also for me, and maybe I was too serious. At the beginning I used cards, then powerpoint.
These 5-word sets were boring for me, so I know I was not very successful in expressing the artifitial joy. I felt like telling lies.
Twoo weeks ago (while I was reading discussions on this website) I got an idea.
I made powerpoint file with short sentences and pictures. One word per page. One picture per one or two sentences.
Since that day, my child is watching the text with great interest, and is allways asking for more.
I added also dot cards.
Word set like “boot, dog, ball, fly, sheep” is boring, boring.
Story “Lelde (my doughter’s name) has boot. Dog has ball. Ball is rolling. Sheep says booo. Lelde is very sweet.” (we speak Latvian) is fun. Lelde likes to wach the sentences about herself, her parents and toys. So we get enough fun also for dot cards.
I think, this is an upgraded version of Doman’s method 
Starting with sentences and pictures and not with single words. Nowadays it is also easy to include pictures. I can include sentences of our ewerydays communication. I also write down what Lelde says about the pictures, and her first sentences.
Its been 10 months now since I started with LR and with flashcards. My daughter is still only talking in single words although we do get the occassional two and three word phrases. She has an enormous reading vocabulary and can read many words out loud now as well as point to or retrieve the correct word for us almost every time we ask.
I am planning on starting her with the ladybird key words series very soon - as soon as she can read all the words for the first book out loud and can match the flashcards with the smaller written word too (I plan on making a few words written very small just to check) She can read words like “and,” and “has” out loud although she has never used these words in her spoken vocabulary.
I have started a very basic phonics programme with her, but am not very good about doing this consistently. She does seem to know all the letter sounds and I have shown her how to build up three letter basic phonics words, but I don’t think she gets it yet. As soon as she has read the first few ladybird books then I suspect I will do a more intensive phonics course with her. At teh moment we are working on playing games like jump on the words, read them to your teddies, put coloured shapes on the colour words and so on which seem to keep it fun for her. She loves playing with her flashcards and occassionally we let her just throw them all around the room because reading is not such a serious thing after all - its all just fun.
i started to teach words just 10 days back to my 5month old son.before that i taught him using pictures.All powerpoint presentation.He was very much intersted in pics.But later i learnt that acc to GD,first we have to start eith words.So i prepared flash cards,but he wasnt intrested much,then i showed words on powerpoint,he is ok now.But i wasnt satisfied 'coz i have seen him so eagerly looking at [pictures before.Now he is nt that interested. i wsitched the black font to red,his reaction was ok,then switched the font to white with red background and now its better.But i dont know how long he will be interested.Infact i’m not interested in wordsit makes me bore as the response is not so good,i dont understand how to move on with this.May be after completing 200 words i can add pictures too along with the sentences.Will it help???
Vani,
You can add pictures too for the words if you want. Show the word first, then the picture next. But you may not be able to show pictures for all the words you may want to show, (like for adjectives long, short, thin, big, fat etc). So you may start off with names of objects or other things that might interest him. No hard and fast rules, except don’t show the word and picture on the same page. This is because the child may be interested in looking at the picture than the word.
Before I bought LR, I tried changing the font color and the background color every time, so that kept me going. Now with LR, my baby is interested with the different pictures and videos he gets to see for the word. If LR is an option, you can try that.
Questers.
Questers,
Can the size of flash cards be half of A4 for words?Earlier i prepared flash card of A4 size,but i could not flash the cards in a second.and i dint get thick paper earlier.Now that i get thick paper,and its easy to flash it in secs also,i just wanna know the size.Holding A4 size cards,i feel is big!!!Just trying to get my baby out of the computer for few more months.i’m afraid the resolution may affect his eye!!!i donno.so trying to make out something on flash cards…
ur comments and suggestions pls…
Vani
I’ve made all my ‘Step One’ single word cards (referring to Doman teaching), with 8-1/2" X 11" (I think that’s A4 size, isn’t it?) and I print the words in 180pt or 200pt bold red letters lengthwise across the card (I adjust the margins smaller so it can fit more too). I print 2 words per card and then I cut the card lengthwise across the middle. I’m sure this must be big enough print… maybe not for the baby starting very VERY early (shortly after birth), I’m not an expert. I can’t fit ‘hippopotamus’ with this size, but if I leave the really long words until a little later, I figure that I’ll just gradually decrease the print size and keep the same sized cards. This size is very easy for me to manipulate, and to store too.
When I spoke to someone from IAHP, they said that this would be fine… do what works best for you. The books are only for a guideline for how the program should be done, but the details like exact number of times you show the cards or exact print size you use or exact materials… those aren’t as important as having a method that you can do consistantly and affordably (we can’t all laminate everything!) and it will still work just fine. The guidelines in the books are just guidelines… just get started and have lots and lots of fun and they will learn. (There are plenty of little people who never see word cards even, and never have such a systematic reading program, but their parents are reading to them and exposing them to words everyday consistently and they are also learning to read at younger ages).
thanx momtomany