Thoughts About Babies Being Able to Read
I just listened to the NPR program Can You Have A Smarter Baby Sooner. These are my thoughts and observations. I have to say that David Elkind looked ignorant when he said that the Doman's charge $5,000 to teach babies to read. He should have his facts straight, especially if he wants to sound like the expert he claims to be.
To say that kids can't learn to read before 6 or 7 is plain ignorant. I don't know how he can claim to be an expert if he doesn't know that kids can learn to read far before entering school. All of my kids read by age 5, and not on a Kindergarten level. Pre-Doman I taught them to read at 3, phonetically. Post Doman we began at months old using sight reading.
My 5 year old reads extremely well. I don't know what level he reads on, but he was reading The Lightening Thief to me the other day. I believe it is for 9-12 year olds.
As we were doing his schoolwork last week he had to read a bunch of "ea" words. They were in random order. This was a great testimony to refute David Elkind's comment that they can't differentiate between the letters when they make different sounds. He had to read words like feather, steak, preach, health, speak, weapon, flea, deaf and so on. He didn't miss one of them. And he could do this long before now, but I paid particular attention to this lesson. He didn't learn this phonetically either, he learned them by sight reading and figuring it out for himself.
The argument for the other side is so poor. I wish if they were going to debate whether or not little children can read and then whether or not they can understand that they could come up with something better. The point that Janet made, that we speak to our babies immediately was valid. Do we think that our babies understand what we are saying when we read to them from birth? Not immediately, but do they understand by 1 year of age? Certainly. Or do they need to be 6 or 7 to understand what we are reading to them. Kids that are read to have larger vocabularies and better comprehension. Kids that are taught to read have been stimulated and are brighter than they would have been had they not had the stimulation. I can see in my 5 year old that he is a deep thinker. He has tremendous reasoning abilities. I know this is because he was taught to read as a baby. Does this make him better than other 5 year olds? Certainly not. It makes him better than he would have been had we not taught him to read.
To say that kids can't learn to read before 6 or 7 is plain ignorant. I don't know how he can claim to be an expert if he doesn't know that kids can learn to read far before entering school. All of my kids read by age 5, and not on a Kindergarten level. Pre-Doman I taught them to read at 3, phonetically. Post Doman we began at months old using sight reading.
My 5 year old reads extremely well. I don't know what level he reads on, but he was reading The Lightening Thief to me the other day. I believe it is for 9-12 year olds.
As we were doing his schoolwork last week he had to read a bunch of "ea" words. They were in random order. This was a great testimony to refute David Elkind's comment that they can't differentiate between the letters when they make different sounds. He had to read words like feather, steak, preach, health, speak, weapon, flea, deaf and so on. He didn't miss one of them. And he could do this long before now, but I paid particular attention to this lesson. He didn't learn this phonetically either, he learned them by sight reading and figuring it out for himself.
The argument for the other side is so poor. I wish if they were going to debate whether or not little children can read and then whether or not they can understand that they could come up with something better. The point that Janet made, that we speak to our babies immediately was valid. Do we think that our babies understand what we are saying when we read to them from birth? Not immediately, but do they understand by 1 year of age? Certainly. Or do they need to be 6 or 7 to understand what we are reading to them. Kids that are read to have larger vocabularies and better comprehension. Kids that are taught to read have been stimulated and are brighter than they would have been had they not had the stimulation. I can see in my 5 year old that he is a deep thinker. He has tremendous reasoning abilities. I know this is because he was taught to read as a baby. Does this make him better than other 5 year olds? Certainly not. It makes him better than he would have been had we not taught him to read.
I love teaching babies to read. It is so much fun to do and really allows you to bond with your child. If you would like to check out the best, most complete and fun baby reading kit go to www.intellbaby.com.
Posted by Krista G. at 3/31/2010 9:20 AM 
Categories: My Experiences
Tags: babies reading baby reading kit
Categories: My Experiences
Tags: babies reading baby reading kit
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