The reason i set this poll is because i want to understand, or i believe we all would like to understand exactly the meaning to each parent the meaning when they said their baby can read. AS i begin to find some realities along the yrs when i teach my baby to read. And i do find that in our right mind classes … i do find some interesting and puzzling expressions from parents who thought that their baby can read.
First of, when we do flash cards yes after you do it, and test them immediately the baby almost always picked up the right answer. Does this show the baby can read? or does this show that the baby understands the difference and simple short term memory is at work?
Secondly, after showing the cards say for 5 days, and after say more than 1 or 2 weeks you jumble them up with the rest of the old cards, did you try asking if they can pick up the word from the pile? or if your baby is younger maybe to use 2 or 3 cards and ask them to pick up the right word without doing a flash and read with them immediately prior or withing that 1 or 2 weeks?
Thirdly, after weeks or months of not teaching them the word can they still remember the word from the flash cards, can they still picked it out?
Finally, for kids older where some parents show that their kids can read books etc, have you tried to let them read a book that they have never read before but whose words and content are almost similar? The idea is to test if they can really read and not using memory playback from the pictures and the designs of the words, that is similar words but juxtoposition it or wors you think they should know but written on a board or paper with a different storey line an dlet them read it out all by themselves without you reading it to them prior.
Reason is because, i find that the first option, babies maybe using short term memory, but some people confuse that as being able to read, unless they have retained them in the long term memory. But memory is memory and that does not mean they know how to read, because when the fonts changed, the settings changed, the storyline changed, they still stick to the same old story line or they suddenly can’t read. So that isn’t reading that’s simply memory at work, regardless the words. Anybody observed that?
I have not tested my baby - who is about to turn 9 months. As for my older son - who is now 3.5 years, he has been able to read before he turned 3 but I don’t remember exactly when. He would point out words that he sees in newspapers, on menus, on signboards, etc. It was sporadic, but with increasing frequency as he grew older. These days, I sometimes spy him reading segments from books out aloud to himself (with mistakes - he usually guesses the words he doesn’t know). If I get nosy and go too close, he pretends he can’t read and asks me to read it for him.
nobody taking the survey?? Looks like its going to be pretty hard to find the true … either nobody did any testing or would not want to believe otherwise is possible?? Afterall most of us have been doing it for 2-3 yrs now, more or less we would have known the results now that they are much older around 2-5 yrs old …
Also anybody continued on with the maths and after their kids turn 3 … were they still able to rattle off the entire equations? or at least count to 100?
I do not take the survey because it is about the flashcards only. I think, reading is when someone can read words which he/she has never seen before. No matter, are these words on flashcards, books or sand.
Precisely that’s what i thought too. But i found many people posting videos and comments about their baby reading … so i am just trying to figure out how many actually thought choosing between 2 cards means their baby can read. Or that following a repetitive pattern as in ST memory is called reading.
Yes i am looking for results, but real results and not just short term memory work. Most of us would have been in the GD program for 2 yrs now. And i am surprise my child though can read some words under condition 4, it is only a trickle i think i can use my hands to count. As compared to the thousands and thousands of words i thought her. But i do find that she has very good memory, we can read a book 2-4 times, and all we have to do is read the first 2 words and she can rattle off the rest of the sentence, and even the rest of the book or any other books we taught her. But same words different storys she can’t, hence to me that is not reading.
But her vocab is large, she sees pictures she can recall the names etc, … this may go to show that multi sensory do help but not necessarily in reading. I have also taught her phonics when she was like almost 2yrs old, but taught alphabets 2-3 mths earlier. She is starting to use phonics to read site words, though not very succesful yet. That is words outside anywhere etc. This may also say that shichida is more correct than GD too. But then again we started with 3 languages and now narrow to 2 so … maybe slower also, but to find if my hypothesis is correct i need to collect some data.
GD mentioned that baby’s can read and there is not preset time or age where baby can read, but i am beginning to doubt that. I think by age 3, wher ethe left brain begins to take over, the child is better able to cope with words and therefore will start to recognize words easier, as compared to GD’s words. Even montesorri classess are taught to toddlers 3 yrs and older, so i suspect there is a 3 yr age mark, as compared to GD’s no age mark. But there are externalities, and a few black swans not make the mean.
Thanks for bringing this interesting poll up.
I’ve been teaching my 2.5 year old boy to read in two languages since he was 10 month old. I was using flash cards an LR later, wasn’t too much consistent, not according to Glenn Doman schedule. So, my son is not reading books, or simple sentences yet. All he can do is to pick the right word from two given choices. I think if I was more consistent and maybe was showing him more words a day he would have been able to read at least simple sentences by now.
We use english with her. But taught her chinese mandarin, japanese and also because its HK, alot of cantonese around. We didn’t teach her cantonese but she caught on on some words by herself. And i suspect she has forgotten her japanese too. But that is not important as it was just to build up her awareness of the language and its tones. SO that subsequently when she wants to pick it up later, hopefully she will be able to pcik it up easily. Theoretically speaking of course.
This is interesting - I agree I only count it as reading when it’s a totally new setting and/or words they haven’t seen before. However - I believe those doing the first several things are on their way to reading very soon because they know what reading means.
Have you seen this video - http://forum.brillkids.com/mgallery/?sa=item;id=1717? She was reading off a sign at a hotel at 21 months. Does that fall under number 4? How does that compare to your age 3 thought?
My son has really taken off in the last week or so with reading random signs/labels or words in books. He just turned 2. It’s been a HUGE turning point. It’s the first time I really consider it “reading”. Sometimes I really can’t recall if he’s seen the word before or not. Before this - it was just catching him in the mood when testing with flashcards he’s seen a ton. I’m really getting excited now :). I curious though how much it has to do with speech - because his speech has just recently taken off in the last two weeks as well. Seriously, a huge difference - he went from a couple words to full sentences.
Hi TC, just saw the video … i am not surprise with that action, because my B did that too, but … i don’t know if that is reading as there is a big cafe there and the parents may have introduced it to her before. Eg my daughter knows we lik eto drink starbucks coffe … we brought her there and showed her the menu and the big green logo. One day we passed one and she read starbucks … that was ard 20 mth old also … we thought she can read … so we wrote it on a piece of paper one day and asked her what it was … she couldn’t read … we noticed that she recognise the place, the colours, the theme, the logo, but not the word if its written differently … hence none consistency … there i wouldn’t put that as reading because she had clues like pictures, logos etc to help her figure it out … But in so saying there are externalities and therefore i do believe some can read by 2yrs old, but the average like us probably 3 yrs old … hence why the hypothesis and data collection …
Yes around 2 yrs old or around 22+ mths they start sentencing … but by 24+mth we got to be careful what we say … they tend to copy what we say very quickly word for word with full facial expressions … LOL.
Hey, that’s my Ella in the video! :laugh: I’m happy to report that her reading the sign in the video was no fluke. I also define “reading” to mean reading words and sentences regardless of font, color, or whereabouts without pictures to give them clues about what the words mean. The video was taken about 4 months ago and, since then, she has made wonderful progress in reading both English and traditional Chinese. She just turned 2 years old a month ago and can now read long English words and sentences phonetically and also phrases and sentences in Chinese. One of her favorite games is asking us to make up sentences and write them down on paper or on dry-erase board for her to read. I was actually one of the first people to take your poll and I voted for # 4. :biggrin:
Aangeles, that was tarrific … there are externalities … but may i ask can you kindly give all of us a description of events or conditions … that you think could help…
eg, i am working nights, and sleeps ard 4 am, and wakes ard 9am to look after my girl, i feed her, change her, bath her, do all the housework, grocery shopping and cooking, my wife works in the day and does niether housework nor cooking the typical hongkee, i also have to prepare all the learning materials, do research on what to teach, and of course do the teaching, from english, chinese, music, japanese (teacher), motor skills, toilet training (no diapers needed except sleep), disciplining (like manners, behaviour modification to cut out bad behaviours like biting, throwing tantrums, putting toys and books back, removing dangerous behaviour like jumping off bed, moving on escalators and behaviour in public.) and gym and swimming. This is on top of my usual work at night, when my wife would take over in just feeding her a bottle of milk and going to sleep, since i cooked dinner before i start work. She always speaks cantonese even though i told her many times that we are not teaching her that she should not be speaking cantonese all the time. but … and she likes to put the girl in front of the tv watching whatever … while she surfs the web…
Also during the last 2 yrs my wife had been on a emotional wreck, she would hold the baby and scream and cry and kick up a huge tantrum scaring the hell out of the girl because she felt confine due to the heavy responsibility of having to care for the baby at night 2 hrs before the baby sleeps, means less night outs with her friends, she took alot of adjusting to even though she does little. She wasn’t psychologically ready for family life, nor responsibilities, kind of like she had to have a baby because she was turning 34, but still feel like a over-aged teenager. (most of her friends are exactly that way and most are eithe rnot married or Married without kids). Which actually i think screwed up the teaching process alot. I have told her many times not to do that no matter what the circumstances but …
I am not whining , i am just stating out the conditions that i have been facing over the last 2+ yrs since my girl was born, and wondering if anywhere along the way something wasn’t quite right, so perhaps you could give us a copy of your daily routine and environmental conditions that may play a part in the conducive development.
Yes i am stress all the time, its a one man show from day 1, lately only wife helps a little, because the girl has been very well behave (after behavioural conditioning) and is very well liked by teachers in her PN class. I have not been doing Flash cards since oct of last yr but does LR. As we have to teach her survival skills in PN, and teaching her survival skills in K1 starting tomorrow. She would be amoung the youngest in her class some older by a yr or more.
Lately we did a shichida class assessment she is considered slight above avg among her age group, with good ESP skills. (yes we did that training too). However, lately when i told my wife about trins inability to fully read, she noted otherwise, as she often says trin does know how to read and that perhaps i was having too much of an expectation and i was also disciplining her, so she was afraid to read in front of me. That may be true because of the thousand words i taught her i would have expected she should be able to read at least 400-600 words, by now. But … anyway we got someone else to test her yesterday and we do find that she can read alot more than i thought she could read with me testing her, but nowhere near 200, more like 80 words unfortunately.
Apparantly stress do play a part, but teaching discipline and surviving in school currently seems to be an over-riding factor now. Given, HK parents prefer to send their kids to school late, simply because they felt that if their son is too young he will be bullied whilst if he is older he can bully others rather than be bullied. It’s sick, but its a fact in HK, and schools like to cover that up.
I go with number 4 also. My son has been reading for a while now, but I really didn’t realize how much he knew until he started reading for other family members. I avoid testing my son and for the most part he prefers I read everything while he sits back and takes it in. He has an amazing memory and loves learning and reading new words. Every night he asks for "his words and so I write down a list of words, most of them being his first time seeing, and he reads them. My challenge now is figuring out where to go from here. He reads/speaks in any of the several languages he is learning when he feels like it, which happens to be everyday
As for math he doesn’t show us much. From time to time, but not at all like reading. Nonetheless I continue with LR in addition to having completed Shichida and Doman. He enjoys it very much and so I continue doing it with him. I plan to begin two other math programs with him in the near future and continue to have fun as we have in the past. Since beginning the math program he continued to get the problem solving questions correct once we started the equations part and counts to 100. Some months ago we were shopping and he saw a shirt that had the number 91 on it and he said “Mom look that’s the number 91” Even though he doesn’t show us much I do not get discouraged from teaching him, I stay motivated in knowing that he is taking it all in
Thanks for starting such an interesting post Trinity Papa! I thought about this a lot when my son started reading. You seem to have a lot on your plate in addition to all that you do with your daughter. She is very fortunate to have you as her dad and keep doing what you are doing. Remember to have fun and whenever possible take some time for yourself as well.
I actually dsagree with all the options given above although if forced to pick I would say option 4.
The reason I disagree is that the definition for reading is: To derive meaning from text.
A child is then only reading if 1. He knows what the word is
2. It is meaningful to him
So therefore if you show a child the word “tiger” but they have never seen a tiger, heard a tiger, touched a tiger or at least seen/touched a tiger toy or have some association with a tiger and some meaning for them behind the word then regrdless whether they can tell you it says tiger r point to the correct word when shown a card of tiger, they are not reading. Of course if they get another meaning from the word tiger then it would be reading though no one else would be able to follow them (If for example you showed a child a spoon every time you showed them the word tiger they would associate the word tiger with the spoon and so attain meaning from the word - but the meaning would not be valid - so is that reading then??? I’m not sure.
My child showed she could read two weeks after I showed her her first flashcard - she was 12 months old and read the word “dog” While she could not even say the word dog (she said “doh”) I knew she was reading it because she pointe to the word and then to out dog who was walking past and associated the two with each other.
My daughter is now 3 and she has started reading beginner readers. She could read these words on flashcards and could read them in books when I pointed them out and is now reading them in a wide variety of conetexts accurately and with meaning. She was reading sentences on flashacrds before age 2 and deriving meaning from that too and I know this because she was also speaking and would discuss what she had read too.
So for me the answer is: My child is reading when she/he can derive meaning from text - even when she reads the name of a shop an associates it with the food or toy she gets there and possibly even if she can only read that sign when it is written in the same form as the print above the shop - it holds meaning and it is text therefore it s reading.
Another example of context was when my daughter told her teacher: You forgot “Leon” off the star chart - she had watched the teacher write everyone’s names on a new star chart and she (the teacher) had not been reading them while writing. My daughter had read every name and known which was missing and these were words/names I had not taught her to read. The meaning for her was that someone had been forgotten and she needed it fixed which is the only reason she showed she could read - in general, children if left (not tested) will only show they can read when it means something to them.
This compares well to speaking vs babbling - a baby is only said to be speaking when he utters a word that someone else understands (while it doesn’t have to be said accurately it nees to have meaning - the baby needs to know what it is trying to say and be trying to convey something) else it is all just “babble”
To me, I think that being “able to read” is about being able to look at almost any printed material and reading it. I expect that my children will read with fluency any printer material that they come into contact with by the time they are 4 or 5 years old.
I plan to teach my infant to read with Doman style flashcards, labels on everything around the house and intergrate some phonics into that naturally. Plus read 3+ books a day, listening to books on tape and watching QUALITY learn to read programs such as Between the Lions, and other dvds/video programs. (Some of which I may produce myself before the child is born)
I’m not 100% sure how to work out my reading program, I’m going to use the Doman method of flash cards and such, but I’ think that I will teach a certain amount of phonetic patterns also.
I plan to use the Spalding Method of teaching to read through spelling (They teach using phonograms) when they’re a little older, maybe 4+ not 100% sure.
Spalding teaches:
* Phonemic awareness
* Systematic phonics
* High-frequency vocabulary
* Word meanings and usages
* Word parts
* Grammar
* Composition
* Literary appreciation
* Text structure
* Fluency
* Listening
* Reading comprehension
I hope that my child will be able to read in 3 languages by 5 or 6 at the latest. (In English, Spanish and Arabic at least)
I also define “reading” to mean reading words and sentences regardless of font, color, or whereabouts without pictures to give them clues about what the words mean. The video was taken about 4 months ago and, since then, she has made wonderful progress in reading both English and traditional Chinese. She just turned 2 years old a month ago and can now read long English words and sentences phonetically and also phrases and sentences in Chinese. One of her favorite games is asking us to make up sentences and write them down on paper or on dry-erase board for her to read. I was actually one of the first people to take your poll and I voted for # 4. :biggrin: