Here's what I noticed when trying to teach my child to read. She was just
under 4 and Daddy was too busy working from home to read to her.
1) She wanted to learn, she asked for it, so HER motivation was there.
Without that, I don't see how it could possibly work.
2) DVD, TV shows, computer games did not work. The TV or the computer
itself was distracting, and she spent more time on the distraction than on
the learning. In other words, she was watching TV, not learning from it.
3) You need a lot of patience and time of your own to put in. She wanted to
learn to read, so she was ready to put in the time. Other children may not
want to learn, or are normal kids, who want to run and play at that age rather
than sit at a table for 30 minutes a day.
4) The following book did wonders. A couple or few pages per day.
If you find this book on amazon.COM, it will have an example of what's in it.
After this book the library becomes a second home. She loves going to
the library and pushing boundaries with reading and math (writing not so
much )
What has been noticed now, age 7, grade 2, has been discussed with her
teachers who were confounded last year, as was her K teacher.
She has an ability to read. It seems she can read and comprehend words
supposedly taught at the grade 6 or 7 level. However, her reading
comprehension is still around the grade 3 level. If given a grade one level book,
for example, the story is much too easy. Given a grade 5 book, the words
are there, but the story gets too complicated for her, and she can't tell you
the overall arc of the story. She can tell you per chapter or two or three.
More than that, she's confused.
Apparently this is normal, a 7 year-old brain isn't wired to comprehend
"complicated" grade 5 stories yet. That comes over time, while she grows.
So it gets very weird. By the time she was going into grade 1, she picked up
a Harry Potter #1 book in a store. She read the first pages. But was confused by
what she was reading, and what it might have meant on the first couple of
pages alone. Yet the individual words or sentences she understood.
Try finding books that fit that scenario. Her grade 1 teacher was completely
at a loss, scouring everywhere to find books for her.
I highly suggest the book mentioned above, it worked wonders for mine,
and continued to lead her down the path of learning to read.
Our eight-year-old read all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia over the summer. We didn't do anything other than read with him when he was small - like alot of other parents on this board. He was just "wired" to read early - started kids' novels in Grade 1. Having said that, I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm totally speechless to learn the Bertuzzied has procreated! My grasp on reality has been shaken!
Our eight-year-old read all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia over the summer. We didn't do anything other than read with him when he was small - like alot of other parents on this board. He was just "wired" to read early - started kids' novels in Grade 1. Having said that, I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm totally speechless to learn the Bertuzzied has procreated! My grasp on reality has been shaken!
hehe. mini-bertuzzied.
too small for his flame jersey.
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Bertuzzied For This Useful Post:
I read The Shining in grade 1. Yes I had bad parents, and nightmares for weeks...
My mom used to let me read anything I thought looked interesting, and she warned me it would be scary, but I said I wanted to read it anyway She used to pick up every Stephen King Book as soon as it came out so it had been sitting around for awhile. I thought the cover looked cool and the movie was out that year but I wasn't allowed to see it so I decided to read it. It scared the crap out of me, but I've read every King book since siince he was the first adult author I ever read.
I also read Animal Farm and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that year.
That's why I want my kids to read early. There's so much out there that you can't read even all the good stuff in a lifetime.
__________________
onetwo and threefour... Together no more. The end of an era. Let's rebuild...
Both of my kids read when they were two years old. I didn't "teach" them to read, we just read books all the time. In fact, I assumed they just memorized the stories becuase they were young. I didn't suspect they were actually reading until they read cereal boxes in the grocery store or sounded out names on hockey jerseys. My youngest was reading Harry Potter in kindergarten. It was really impressive in a sort of circus act "oh my God, he can read" way. To be honest, by the time they're in third grade, all the kids read. I don't think it really matters that my kids were early readers. Yes, my kids are both very bright, but they're not any smarter than their counterparts who showed up to kindergarten not yet reading.
I guess my point is, bright kids are bright kids regardless of how early they master different educational benchmarks. People were impressed that my two year old could count to 100, what they didn't know is that for his time outs, I had him use the Chutes and Ladders board to count and when he was done he could get up. He just happened to be exposed to it. Kids will master anything repetitive.
Both of my kids read when they were two years old. I didn't "teach" them to read, we just read books all the time. In fact, I assumed they just memorized the stories becuase they were young. I didn't suspect they were actually reading until they read cereal boxes in the grocery store or sounded out names on hockey jerseys. My youngest was reading Harry Potter in kindergarten. It was really impressive in a sort of circus act "oh my God, he can read" way. To be honest, by the time they're in third grade, all the kids read. I don't think it really matters that my kids were early readers. Yes, my kids are both very bright, but they're not any smarter than their counterparts who showed up to kindergarten not yet reading.
I guess my point is, bright kids are bright kids regardless of how early they master different educational benchmarks. People were impressed that my two year old could count to 100, what they didn't know is that for his time outs, I had him use the Chutes and Ladders board to count and when he was done he could get up. He just happened to be exposed to it. Kids will master anything repetitive.
Yeah we did something similar as well. At first we had him count to twenty, then fifty, then one hundred. Then when that was mastered he had to count by twos, fives, then tens. Now he will have to say times tables during timeout.
__________________
onetwo and threefour... Together no more. The end of an era. Let's rebuild...
Last edited by onetwo_threefour; 09-09-2009 at 08:10 PM.
My niece used this program and her dad-a doctor told me it worked great. I still really doubt these "baby can read" programs and think it has to do more with memorization of shapes of the words.
If you want to look at outcomes of kids and what parenting techniques have positve effects on kids in the future there is a fantastic section in Freakanomics by Levitt and Dubner.
Levitt is an econmist and he took a abunch of data at did a bunch of regression on things that parents do like read to their kids, take them to cultural things, put them in extra curicular activites. His results found that their was no correlation in the things that parents DID and the kids income when they became adults. He did find however their was strong correlation between what parents ARE (education and income level).
So my take on all of this data is that it doesn't matter what you do the mere fact that you are concerned and aware about it will make you successful.
The toddler in the strait jacket was most excellent.
As for a 10-month old learning how to read -- it isn't going to happen.
And the kids who "read" Dr. Seuss when they are 2 or 3 years old, they aren't even looking at the words with all those big pictures there. Type out a few pages of The Grinch That Stole Christmas on a blank piece of paper and see how well they read it. The fact that they are being read to often enough and enjoy a book enough to remember the words is about the best thing you can do to get the ball rolling, but they aren't reading yet. But you've guaranteed that they will be, so Mission: Accomplished.
It's like the times tables. I know a tyke who knows that 12 X 12 =144. She doesn't have a clue what 12 X 13 is because the sheet she practiced on and the cards he has end at 12's. She's not doing multiplication in her head, she's reciting rote numbers.
We bought Your Baby Can Read when my daughter was 1, about a year ago, and while I do understand that it really isn't teaching our daughter how to read in the traditional sense, it has taught her that letters mean something. It is essentially the same thing as Baby Einstein, for roughly the same price, but with the added word focus.
If nothing else, it is very similar to me opening up her One,Two,Three book with her and explaining to her what each number and animal means, and having her repeat it, as we go through the story. She is at an age where she understands that she can watch shows on the TV, and I would much rather her ask to watch the "Baby Read Show" than "Dora" or "Treehouse" that her cousins watch.
When she watches it, she is almost never alone. We are there explaining what is on the screen the same way we explain what an unusual animal is that we see at the zoo. She might not understand exactly what she is saying when she badly mangles the word Giraffe, but to claim she isn't learning anything by the exchange would be stupid.
As with any other thing in life, you can only expect to get out of these DVD's what you put in. Your kid won't teach themselves and these DVD's won't change that, however I think that if they are going to be watching TV at some point anyway, you might as well make it something that adds to the bigger picture of education.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
It's like the times tables. I know a tyke who knows that 12 X 12 =144. She doesn't have a clue what 12 X 13 is because the sheet she practiced on and the cards he has end at 12's. She's not doing multiplication in her head, she's reciting rote numbers.
I am glad that by me memorizing my times tables in grade 3 that I was denied the ability to learn things the proper way. Bottom line is reading is about memorization, in the same way that a lot of basic math is. Unless when you add 4 + 3 there is some other method you have for coming up with the answer other than pulling it from your memory. Oh wait, I guess you could count on your fingers, that would make so much more sense.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
The toddler in the strait jacket was most excellent.
As for a 10-month old learning how to read -- it isn't going to happen.
And the kids who "read" Dr. Seuss when they are 2 or 3 years old, they aren't even looking at the words with all those big pictures there. Type out a few pages of The Grinch That Stole Christmas on a blank piece of paper and see how well they read it. The fact that they are being read to often enough and enjoy a book enough to remember the words is about the best thing you can do to get the ball rolling, but they aren't reading yet. But you've guaranteed that they will be, so Mission: Accomplished.
It's like the times tables. I know a tyke who knows that 12 X 12 =144. She doesn't have a clue what 12 X 13 is because the sheet she practiced on and the cards he has end at 12's. She's not doing multiplication in her head, she's reciting rote numbers.
I think this was directed at me somewhat since I mentioned those books and my daughters age corresponds...
Well, I did mention in my post that I think it had a good deal to do with memorization, I will say that she was most definitely following along with the words and learning the words in addition to looking at pictures. I know this because anytime I was interrupted while reading she would immediately point to the word I had stopped at (especially if I skipped a part, she would say no dad you are here and point to and say the word). She also continually asked what words were (especially bigger ones). We would also pick out words on a page and ask her what they were and she almost always got them correct. In addition to that she was picking out words in books that we read, in magazines, anything in print period. I am sure words were memorized, but like I said it progressed shortly to sounding words out etc.
But, as I said earlier, this all just developed from reading to them often as they developed a love for books and had the desire and interest to learn - the biggest part of it BTW.
Here's what I noticed when trying to teach my child to read. She was just
under 4 and Daddy was too busy working from home to read to her.
1) She wanted to learn, she asked for it, so HER motivation was there.
Without that, I don't see how it could possibly work.
2) DVD, TV shows, computer games did not work. The TV or the computer
itself was distracting, and she spent more time on the distraction than on
the learning. In other words, she was watching TV, not learning from it.
3) You need a lot of patience and time of your own to put in. She wanted to
learn to read, so she was ready to put in the time. Other children may not
want to learn, or are normal kids, who want to run and play at that age rather
than sit at a table for 30 minutes a day.
4) The following book did wonders. A couple or few pages per day.
If you find this book on amazon.COM, it will have an example of what's in it.
After this book the library becomes a second home. She loves going to
the library and pushing boundaries with reading and math (writing not so
much )
What has been noticed now, age 7, grade 2, has been discussed with her
teachers who were confounded last year, as was her K teacher.
She has an ability to read. It seems she can read and comprehend words
supposedly taught at the grade 6 or 7 level. However, her reading
comprehension is still around the grade 3 level. If given a grade one level book,
for example, the story is much too easy. Given a grade 5 book, the words
are there, but the story gets too complicated for her, and she can't tell you
the overall arc of the story. She can tell you per chapter or two or three.
More than that, she's confused.
Apparently this is normal, a 7 year-old brain isn't wired to comprehend
"complicated" grade 5 stories yet. That comes over time, while she grows.
So it gets very weird. By the time she was going into grade 1, she picked up
a Harry Potter #1 book in a store. She read the first pages. But was confused by
what she was reading, and what it might have meant on the first couple of
pages alone. Yet the individual words or sentences she understood.
Try finding books that fit that scenario. Her grade 1 teacher was completely
at a loss, scouring everywhere to find books for her.
I highly suggest the book mentioned above, it worked wonders for mine,
and continued to lead her down the path of learning to read.
ers
Great advice as we also have this book and it is basically our blue print right now. For $15 to $20 you can't go wrong! We all have fun working through this book. Besides I was raised on Don Williams, Bobby Vinton, Nana Mouskouri, and Charlie No-Pride so why would I give my kids Mozart....save it...
You can't blame parents for wanting the best for their children.
My beef is with snake-oil salesman pushing products that can't do what is promised.
If anyone thinks that plunking your kid down in front of a video will teach them to read, they are on crack.
Although my sister has come up with a method for improving all her kids reading. She turns off the volume and turns on the closed captioning whenever the kids are watching TV. It keeps the noise down and has improved the reading level of her youngest by a large margin.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
Bottom line is, well, that's wrong. Here, a test! Read this:
The hissenfroth in my dining room broke down and I needed a phartinpot wrench and a bottle of Ignobretious gel to fix it.
Now, if you can read that, and reading is about memorization, when did you memorize the words hissenfroth, phartinpot and Ignobretious? You never did, because I made 'em up. But you could read them, right? Because you sounded them out intuitively, because you know how to read.
They use nonsense words and tests like that to teach kids how to read all the time. You just can't memorize the English language, you have to know how to actually read. There are some people that have memorized or just know a ton of words on sight and it looks like they are reading, but they have just brutal comprehension skills.
Quote:
when you add 4 + 3 there is some other method you have for coming up with the answer other than pulling it from your memory. Oh wait, I guess you could count on your fingers, that would make so much more sense.
Nothing wrong with counting on your fingers. That's actually doing the arithmetic. You and I know it because we actually did it. We weren't just told a million times that 4+3=7. If that's how we learned it (by memorizing it through repetition) we'd get 4+3 everytime, but 4+4 might be a headscratcher.
Bottom line is, well, that's wrong. Here, a test! Read this:
The hissenfroth in my dining room broke down and I needed a phartinpot wrench and a bottle of Ignobretious gel to fix it.
Now, if you can read that, and reading is about memorization, when did you memorize the words hissenfroth, phartinpot and Ignobretious? You never did, because I made 'em up. But you could read them, right? Because you sounded them out intuitively, because you know how to read.
Well to be honest, you learn to form the phonemes (the sounds different letters or groups of letters make) of the English language when you learn to speak, and memorize those. Then when you learn to read you learn the association between those phonemes and the different English representations of those phonemes, and you memorize those. I am sure you could learn them in the opposite order, but it wouldn't be typical.
So because you made up those words, and people can still identify likely phonemes that could be associated with those letter combinations, regardless of if those words are actually English or not. If there is someone who understands a different set of phoneme for an identical Latin letter, then they would have a different word result from your gibberish.
Everything we ever learn, and by learn I mean retain in our brains for future recall, is done by memorization. Just because you didn't sit down and memorize the dictionary doesn't mean that it isn't.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
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