I’ve used: LR, YBCR, Doman flashcards, Tweedlewink and my own flashcards on powerpoint. I agree with nhockaday - the more variety the better. It is difficult to keep my children’s interest for long and switching around helps a lot.
When I started my older boy on flashcards, I didn’t know anything about Doman, LR or YBCR or any other early reading program. Because I didn’t understand how a child’s brain worked, I showed him the same cards over and over until I literally bored him to death. I also flashed them too slowly thinking he needed more time to absorb them which was my second mistake. After a while, he got so turned off flashcards he would immediately turn away when I brought out the flashcards.
I dropped the flashcards and showed him YBCR which worked well because it was multi-sensorial. But since I started doing flashcards with his little brother, he now wants in on the action and we’re back to flashcards again. I swap between Doman flashcards and computer flashcards just to keep the variety happening for both boys. Sometimes it’s just the words, sometimes the pictures, and sometimes both. With my baby I also tell him the names of objects we encounter during the day to reinforce the meaning behind the words he’s learning.
I think twice a day is plenty. My older boy sometimes only needs to see it once a day and it’s enough - I don’t think I could get him to do it more than once anyway. You have to play it by your child to see what she responds to. The important thing is not to bore her. If she’s losing interest, it means you’re not going fast enough.
There are two methods to teach a child how to read: “whole word” and “phonics”. LR offers both, YBCR is purely “whole word”.
Benefits of teaching children to read using “whole wordsâ€:
* children learn to read more quickly
* children can understand what they read
* children can start reading their first books within a few months
The disadvantage of teaching children to read using “whole wordsâ€:
* children cannot read words they have never seen before
Although Glenn Doman believes that if you teach a baby to read enough words, the baby will eventually be able to extrapolate and apply what he has learned to new words he has never seen before. That said, I’m not sure if YBCR teaches a child enough words for them to extract the rules of phonics and apply them to new words.
The advantages of teaching a child how to read using “phonicsâ€:
* children learn the rules of letter pronunciations
* children can read words they have never seen before by applying the rules they have learned
The disadvantages of teaching a child how to read using “phonicsâ€:
* takes longer for a child to learn how to read
* children usually take about 1-2 years before they can read their first book
Ideally what you want is to teach your child both methods. A younger child will do better on the whole words methods because it means more to her. “Cat” refers to the furry animal she likes to play with as opposed to “c” is “kuh” which means nothing to her. Once your child has armoury of words under her belt, I believe she will be more responsive to phonics which will teach her to read other words independently.
Oh yes, languages - I’m using EuroTalk which is a CD ROM program for adults wanting to learn a foreign language. I do this because I cannot speak any other language other than English but I want my kids to be multilingual. The program works well for my older son. With my younger son, I’m using TweedleWink World Languages DVD, and Wink to Learn (which is a Chinese flashcard program on DVD). That way my kids learn the correct pronunciation even though I can’t speak the language.
