lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (11/11/83)
When our first child, Lisa, gained mobility (crawling) one of the first things she headed for was a shelf loaded with paperback books. My wife and I faced a real moment of truth. We just couldn't see ourselves chasing Lisa away from the books - that would certainly have counted as a negative first experience with books! On the other hand we didn't relish having our book collection shredded. What we did was hover over her saying "nice books" etc. while we joined in the general fondling and riffling party. This worked out pretty well. Unloading the bookshelf became one of Lisa's standard activities, and she never tore a single page. Lisa is now in the third grade and is a regular reading demon. I am recounting this experience in response to Karen Summers-Horton's remarks about early reading programs. I think she is perceiving reading in abstract terms which are inappropriate to the infant's experience. We think of reading in terms of abstract information acquisition. The infant is exploring her sensory world. I think a positive concrete encounter with the tools of reading technology is excellent preparation for learning to use these tools at a later time. Actually, my reaction to Karen's remarks is extremely negative. The program she describes sounds deadly to me. I especially hate the phrase "make learning FUN". This certainly seems to imply that learning is naturally dull and requires considerable effort to make it otherwise. Anyway, this flashcard program sounds more like "make learning torture". Let the kid have books. You know, cardboard books with four pages. Then maybe a few words sprinkled in with the pictures. After a while the kid will notice them and take an interest in them. Our experience was that our children started reading rather abruptly when they decided to do so. Lisa started at a younger age than Max (now first grade) but he really took off once he got started. I understand it's common for boys to start later than girls. Pushing flashcards in the face of a one year old sounds like a real recipe for disaster to me. Perhaps the most important thing is to read a lot yourself. Kids are highly imitative (as we all know) and if you read a lot so will they. Note that "reading" consists in holding a book in your hands and turning the pages. Naturally, this makes more sense if there is something nice to look at on the pages. If the child learns that "reading" is pleasurable, he will continue to regard it as such when the words start to become noticeable. I know I'm rambling, but I'm afraid I'm the typical proud parent that is all to ready to expound to anyone and everyone on the correct techniques and how wonderful his own kids turned out etc. etc., so understand that these remarks are my own opinions. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew
peg@linus.UUCP (Margaret E. Craft) (11/11/83)
The earlier babies know books the better. A librarian friend gave me a book called "Babies Need Books Too" which prompted me to start showing books to my child much sooner that I would've thought reasonable. At 3 months she barely noticed them. At 4 months she wanted to eat them. By 5 months she was recognizing stuff and trying to turn pages. By 6 months she happily sat and looked through her own cloth and cardboard books. Now, at 10 months, books are a daily part of our routine. I trace the big letters and numbers and, in some books, underscore the words, as we go along, and she's started pointing them out too. A connection between the picture of KITTEN, the K, the sounds K and meow - all this is definitely forming... If you haven't already been told, "Pat the Bunny" is a must for a 6 month old, though she won't do all the things until 8 or 9 months. It has Peek-a-Boo (the first of the activities my child did), smell the flowers (her last), etc. It's a bit outdated, with Daddy's unshaved face to scratch, and Mommy's ring to put on, but still worth it. Anyone have other good books to recommend? Peggy
ksh@cbosgd.UUCP (11/11/83)
First of all, my comments DID NOT indicate that you don't give a child books. Matt has had lots of the cardboard books (4 page variety) and LOVES them. But I think its ridiculous to assume that just because you give a child books, they will learn to read. Reading is a learned activity, and there are many ways to interest your child in the activity of learning to read. Reading out loud to them is a good way, making the 'learning sessions' fun is another way, and making sure they have access to books that are THEIRS is very important. I think it's important that you make learning FUN, not because I believe that learning is dull and boring. The way you react to your child could make THEM believe its boring and dull. I have seen parents of older children tell them they were bad so 'go do your homework'. If a child is bad, a reasonable method of discipline is to revoke privileges. Make the learning sessions one of those privileges. This way, you begin to tell your child through your actions that reading and learning is fun, and it will encourage them to do it more. Obviously you can't condense an entire book into a few sentences and have people understand what the book is about. I would suggest that Lew Mammel go to his public library and check the book out for a few days. I would be interested in hearing his comments after he has a little more information. (How to Teach your Baby to Read, by Glenn Doman). We began Matt on this system today, and he seems interested. My initial impression is that he likes the numbers a lot more than the words. Karen Summers-Horton
toml@oliveb.UUCP (Dave Long) (11/13/83)
Programs don't really matter, it is getting the kid interested enough to want
to read. Once a kid realizes the knowledge and entertainment to be gotten from
reading, he will want to learn to read so that he does not have to carry around
an interpreter (of the written word) around every time he wants to find out what
something says.
Writing from the kid's view,
Dave Long
{ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!ios!oliveb!tomlmark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (11/14/83)
Doman recommends two books as "baby's first book". His first choice is one he puts out, called "Who Are You", which begins I am me. Who could you be? You could be who? I wish I knew. I want to know, please tell me so. The book is apparently 27 pages long, the first three pages are listed above. (Personally, I can't see teaching a baby from this book - there are almost no concrete nouns or verbs in the sample, and I don't see how the child is supposed to understand it without already understanding pronouns and state-of-being verbs. If someone understands the logic behind this, I'd like to know.) The other book he recommends is Dr. Seuss "Hop on Pop". We just got it and it strikes me as excellent. Lots of rhyming, with a picture for each phrase showing what the phrase means. "Mouse on House" with a picture of a mouse on the rooftop of a house. Next page "House on mouse" with a mouse balancing a house on his back. If the child can understand Seuss' artwork, it should be a win. Haven't tried it yet, though - should be a few months off. In general, Dr. Seuss books teach rhyming and rhythm, at least the "Early Learning" books, and are highly recommended. One that I can personally vouch for is an activity book. (I think they may be called "cloth books", I'm not sure.) We have a handmade one that has activities on each page such as unbuttoning/buttoning a button, snaps, moving clock hands, touching felt numerals, counting buttons, zipping zippers, tying a shoelacem, and putting things in pockets sewn on the page. This is Matt's favorite book (at 1 year).
mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/14/83)
Yes, "Pat The Bunny" is great! I enjoy it myself when winding down
with my youngest in my lap.
When our now 2-year old was 1 year old she would sit around
for hours and look at books. Each page was carefully turned
and studied. Now that she is 2 that is a little bit too quiet
for her most of the time. But I am sure that books are
in her future.
--
spoken: mark weiser
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs
ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@CSNet-Relayhon@ihuxv.UUCP (Herb Norton) (11/14/83)
I second the reccommendation of Hop on Pop. My kids loved it. Most of the Dr. Seuss books are favorites. The Berenstain Bears books and the Richard Scarry books are also good. Herb Norton
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (11/15/83)
I certainly recommend Dr. Seuss. I remember them from when I was a
kid, and also when teaching my little sister to read (she's 8 yrs
younger than I). Lines like "One fish two fish red fish blue fish"
stay with you for quite a while!
Something else I recommend is letter building blocks. You can teach
even a very young child to recognize and name the letters (often by
the age of 2 or so), and when they get bored they can use the same
blocks for building things.
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!daveblk@sytek.UUCP (Brian L. Kahn) (11/15/83)
I think kids can handle most things. Describing flashcards for an infant as a "recipe for disaster" is surely an overstatement. However, there will be consequences. My sister taught me to read when i was four. She thought it was fun. I enjoyed it also, but when i got to kindergarten i was in trouble. I didn't want to be so different! I pretended that i didn't know the alphabet, like everyone else. These problems continued throughout my schooling. There is so much to learn, why push something like reading? There will be time aplenty later. From my experience, i advocate other kinds of learning. Go out and see things, people, activities. B<
laman@sdcsvax.UUCP (11/15/83)
Yes, the "Pat the Bunny" book is good. Our little girl (~7 months when she started playing with it) loves to smell the flowers. We have lots of books around the house for here. We put "our" books out of her way, so we will not have to tell her to leave a book alone.
hon@ihuxv.UUCP (11/17/83)
In regard to Jan Rowell's comment that teaching kids to read early limits them, no one says that you can't read to them from other books while working on reading skills at other times. Bedtime is a good time for you to read to your child since many times they are too tired to work at reading. Besides if Jan's arguement were carried to its logical conclusion we would never "waste" time teaching children reading since that time could "always be better spent" reading to them from the whole world of literature. Herb Norton
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (11/17/83)
I think some of you are probably getting the wrong idea about these
"flash cards". When we say "flash cards", most of you probably are
thinking of rote drill, with lots of testing. ("What does this say?
Good! What does this say? No, try again.") This isn't what we're
doing. Doman points out that babies love to learn and absorb information,
but they hate to be tested. So we just convey information, over and
over (but for short periods of time) and assume they absorb it. There
is a little testing to make sure they aren't totally lost, but it's
kept to a minimum.
Sample math lesson: we have 100 cards (11x11 inch) each with n large
3/4 inch red dots (n from 1 to 100, one number per card). A lesson
might use 10 cards, e.g. we're on 1-10 now. Show baby 1 card long
enough to say "this is one" (about a second), then go to the next
card "this is two", ..., "this is ten". Then play with baby for two
minutes, doing things you both really enjoy. Lesson is over. This
is repeated 3 times per day, and after a week you increase the bounds
(day 6 is 2..11, day 7 is 3..12, etc.) After a couple of weeks you
hold up two cards (say 5 and 8) and say "Show me eight". Baby points
out the proper card. No speech involved - a one year old can't speak
very well. Eventually, the book claims, we will be able to say "How
much is 37 plus 26 divided by 21" and baby will select the proper card.
There is no question that, by overemphasizing early reading and math
skills, it would be possible to turn the child into a bore and deprive
him of the fun part of being a child. We're not about to do this -
these lessons take up less than a half hour per day (spread thorughout
the day) and the rest of the time is spent having fun and doing normal
child kinds of things.janr@orca.UUCP (Jan Rowell) (11/22/83)
I think it's really limiting to little kids to try to teach them to read--limiting in that you're dealing with hop-on-pop silliness instead of the whole world of literature and knowledge. I'd rather see kids being read *to*--poetry, mythology, dinosaur books (my son's favorite), or whatever excites their imagination and curiosity--rather than concentrating on having them learn the decoding skills early.
preece@uicsl.UUCP (12/02/83)
#R:orca:-31600:uicsl:22800001:000:1233 uicsl!preece Nov 18 23:12:00 1983 I don't think it's any great advantage to learn to read before kindergarten instead of in first grade, but I don't think it hurts, either, if parents don't treat it as a threshold between being a read-to baby and a read-to-yourself big kid. My five year old has been reading for the better part of a year, but she still gets read to daily, both from books beyond her ability and from books she could read herself but wants us to read to her instead. I don't want her to feel she HAS to read, I want her to WANT to read. Seems to be working well enough; she reads on her own a fair part of the time and is making nice progress in figuring out words she hasn't seen before. But I like reading to her, too, so I'm happy to fill her need to be read to. Reading to kids is also important because in their own reading they concentrate so hard on the individual words that they don't have time to appreciate the story. As to feeling like an outsider because she could read in kindergarten, I think those days are gone. About a fifth of the kindergarten kids in her school can read; essentially all of them know the alphabet and some words. I imagine Sesame Street is the prime mover in that. scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece