Teaching your baby to read is not about having a long attention span either.  As a matter of fact, it is designed to work with kids that have short attention spans.  I don't know about the difference between boys and girls.  I have tried this program with my 3 girls and 1 boy.   My boy by far responded the best. My daughter is just now getting it.  But that is okay because we need to learn as parents to accept each child and their gifts. 

We all take breaks because life happens.  We have another baby or we move or something crazy is going on and our schedule gets off, but just as we feed our children's bodies everyday, we need to feed their little minds as well.  This does not mean that we have to have a stack of flash cards and show them faithfully every day to feed their minds.  This is just one way to teach our children.  If you have the MINDSET that you want to teach them, then you will view everything you do differently.  As Laurie says, everything you teach them or show them is making a connection in their little brains.  If they only see a flash card 7 times they have still learned something, it was not wasted time and effort.

You have to get a little creative and look at this challenge as something that is doable.  So your child doesn't like flash cards or the reading DVDs.  Does that mean it is impossible to teach them to read?  NO!  Make letter play a part of your day.  Get foam letters for the tub and spell words with them when they bathe.  Sing the ABC's while you place the letters in order.  Make the sounds of the letters.  Get magnetic letters for the fridge and make words and play with letters there.  These are things the kids can touch and be involved in and they may like this better.  Label items in the house or in their room and walk around and look at the labels during the day.  Play games and make words a part of it.  Have races and hold up the word go so they read it before they start.  Have scavenger hunts outside or inside and have word cards that you read together before they search for an item.  Have fun and figure out ways to show them language while you do life.  Write down what you are eating and point it out to them before meals.  Talk out loud to yourself and them a lot.  And then read, read, read, to your kids. Make reading a fun activity that you do daily.  Get them excited by choosing books they will like.  Point to the words while you read.  Read books that are very repetitive so you can set your child up to successfully tell you what they say.  Read books that you can act out with your voice that are exciting or scary.  Kids love this.  We're Going on a Bear Hunt is a great book.  It continually repeats portions of the story as it builds and you can add some thrill to it.  The first time I read it to my daughter I made it seem scary.  She was hiding her little face at parts and when we finished, she begged for it again and again.  Read the same books over and over while still adding new books.  Children learn so much from hearing the same stories again and again.  Just like you show them flash cards to learn to read words, we read and reread to teach them how to read books.  You can teach your child to read simple books by reading them again and again and pointing to the words.  

If you feel in your heart that you want to teach your child, do not give up.  Make reading fun in everyday life.  Don't worry if you can't use flash cards, figure out other ways to get language into your kids.  Go to the library or order books online from your library.  So many books on the library shelves are lousy. The great books need to be put on hold.  Get on Amazon or look up lists of best books for kids and start with some of those.  Take your kids to story time at book stores and libraries.  Make reading to your kids a habit.  There is nothing to  lose and everything to gain.  Reading is good for us.  It teaches all kinds of things.  We need to be able to read well to function in our society and to advance ourselves in anything we do.  Even if you don't teach your baby or toddler to read, teach them to LOVE to read.  If your baby can read but doesn't like to, what is the point?

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