If you’re wondering what’s with all the book reviews lately, it’s because I went to that sale again where they sell books by the kilogram. So of course
I go for anything baby related! This book is all about how to teach your baby to read.
Being an educator this title immediately interested me. You don’t need to convince me of the power of early education because I’ve seen it in action.
In Taiwan I watched as Chinese kids who were exposed to English on a daily basis through their foreigner teacher easily picked up the language. This was at a kindergarten where I’d estimate the youngest was about 3.
After teaching there I did a Montessori diploma. Maria Montessori wrote a whole book about “The Absorbent Mind” and how open little kids are to learning at this age. This mind is not like a sponge, but rather a crystal, combining into itself and growing. It matures through active learning and repetition. That is why a child needs a rich prepared environment to satisfy the needs of this mind.
At the school I worked at I saw three year olds learn their 26 sounds, the four and five year olds phonetic words, and the six year olds non phonetic. Of course that is a simplistic summary, each child was on their own program depending on their needs. But it was so amazing to watch the superiority of those who started earlier vs those who only came in Grade One. I had to have different levels there too to accommodate them.
The authors of this book work with brain damaged children, and actually make the point that Montessori also started out with a group who had been classified as retarded. Both parties have succeeded in bringing superior education where previously there was only neglect.
So how exactly do Glen and Janet Doman suggest that we teach our little one to read?
They are proponents of flash cards. You make all these cards 6 by 22 inches and your words 3 inches high. The words must be in red. You can use a marker. On a computer I put the document in landscape and did two flash cards per page. Grade One font is the best, and for that I used the size of 300. For some reason there is a problem with a space in front of the “y” in this font so for those words I used Century Gothic 240. I landed up using the red marker after all as my printer was out of red and the words came out yellow!
The idea is to present the words very fast, to prevent boredom. You start off doing five cards three times a day and it builds from there. Start with familiar words (child’s name, Mommy, Daddy), and from there you go on to body parts, objects, food, animals, actions, colours and opposites. Once you’ve done single words you move onto couplets (eg orange juice), phrases, sentences and then books. You’ll have to read the book for more detail.
I have two criticisms of this book, or rather areas which I think should be open to more debate:
1) The flash card method.
I can’t help it, but I do prefer the way I have been trained. You start with the alphabet. It isn’t flash card based. You do things like a three period lesson where you present 3 letters at a time and you do things like match the letter to plastic animals or objects. Montessori believes in writing before reading, although you have tools like the large movable alphabet to make this happen, and sandpaper letters to trace the correct writing sequence.
The Domans argue that letters are too abstract and words are more concrete. I can see their point, especially if you are doing this for a baby, but to me, once you have those phonetic sounds, you can figure out most words, and they are a vital key for this. In any case this brings me to my second point up for debate.
2) Age.
I cannot imagine doing this with a newborn baby, in between everything else that you have to deal with. No problem, we are told. Just make your flash card massive (5 inches high) and show it to him ten times a day. Just put it at the nappy station! (The poor kid!)
Well at least by 3 months they can see a bit better, so what the heck, I thought I’d give it a go with Nicky. He actually did seem interested. I did: Nicholas, Mommy, Daddy, Milo, Coffee. I couldn’t bring myself to do more. He is just so little now. To me it makes more sense to try this a bit later. I would initially think 3, but maybe I could try 2. I mean it helps to have some speech in place, surely? Although they make the point that because the baby can’t move around yet you can do 50 flash cards at a time before he starts crawling and then you can only do 5.
Oh well, we will see. Right now Nicky is having a good nap in my lap and building that emotional stability is way more important to me than getting him to read at this point!
Realy interesting Heather, thanks for sharing. I have always been very interested in the Montessori approach.
Very interesting! Food for thought, maybe I will try it as there is times during the day when Kyra is bored with me and her toys, I have been googeling to see what I can do. Maybe this is an idea!
So interesting. I have heard of this book but never read it and I agree with you that a newborn is just too little but it is interesting to hear about especially since I think Boo will soon be ready to move on from letter sounds.