Need Opinion About Teaching 18 Months Old to Read

Don't push it this young. Just read a lot of books with her, Sing ABC's, etc. Let her have fun and be a kid.

flash cards teach by "sight recognition"......I prefer phonics! I begin letter recognition btwn 2 & 3y.o. I always start with the 1st letter in the child's name, & then from there, we progress thru the family. It works, it's non-invasive......& honestly, I hate flash cards!

That method does not teach kids how to read (to decipher the letters into words into meanings). First off, all it does it teach them the word "dog" as a picture, not as D O G linked together. Second of all, in order to learn how to read, many concepts need to become clear to a child. It's kind of like teaching a dog to sit on command. When the kid sees the word they know, they say it, but that doesn't mean the kid understands it or is able to link that word with others in a meaningful way.

If you want to teach your child something, teach her the alphabet. Then, teach her the sounds that go with the letters. And then, after she understands that the letters form words that form sentences, then you can teach her how to read by a phonics method.

If you are worried about her vocabulary, the worst thing you can do is to show her flash cards. TALK TO HER. READ TO HER. Take long walks and explore. The more words you say to her, the more words she will learn. It has nothing to do with flash cards. In fact, language acquisition is dependent on dialogical learning, i.e. one-on-one dialogues with mommy. In fact, on old study found that kids learn best just following mommy around when she is doing her housework. No joke. Just make sure you dialogue with her while you are doing it.

My daughter had a plus 200 word vocab at 18 months and I spend more time cleaning than playing with my kids. No Joke. But I talk to them constantly.

My personal opinion is that parents that try to push reading before kindergarten are doing it for themselves and not the child. I'm talking about a concerted effort to make the child learn, not if it happens to click for them ahead of time, which to me is a natural progression. It is simply so that the parent can feel proud that they are such great parents, or the parent of a genius. And at what cost? The loss of precious play and learn time, playing with momma, being read to by momma. Going outside for playing and exploring their world. I work in a college prep private school in the admissions office and when a parent tells us their child was reading at 3, etc. We inwardly roll our eyes and think "oh, one of THOSE parents". Our lower school principal says that by mid elementary school that the kids settle to where their natural progression is. The early readers aren't necessarily the top of the class readers, etc....

Don't push it - let it progress naturally.

um...your daughter is 18 months old. Why the rush?

No flash cards at this age.
Continue reading books together.
Do not focus on DD reading.
Focus on having shared experiences enjoying books together.
If you point to a picture of a DUCK and she says DUCK, fine.
If you point to a picture and she doesn't know, you tell her.
ZEBRA. Whatever.
Do not drill her.
Do not require her to perform, for you or anyone else.
Just ENJOY BOOKS.
For now.

I don't understand the push to rush little children to read. You do realize that when your child is in 1st grade all of the other kids catch up to him right. I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude.

I have been a reading specialist for eleven years. I have never heard of the Glen Doman's method but that does not mean that it isn't good. I think the best advise I can give to you for a child this age is to make sure that your time spent 'teaching' her is fun for her. The minute she shows disinterest or crawls/ toddles away... stop.

One of the best things you can do is to read TO her (which it sounds like you are doing). She is learning so much from that. What you are reading to her is important too. It should be of high interest to her. For example, my 13 month old loves animals. Right now she is 'into' ducks. Fortunately for me there are board books using ducks as characters.

Have realistic expectations. In some countries they do not teach reading until the child is seven years old because studies have shown that's when the brain is ready to learn how to read. Obviously, much younger children can learn so I don't think you will harm your child as long as you make this fun. Then there are some children that struggle. In fact, 20% of the population will struggle to learn to read.

I have also found that the Leap Frog videos are great and of high interest to children. A good one to start out with is called "Letter Factory Learn Letters and their Sounds".

I have three children. They are 10, 7, and one. The two older ones are both above grade level in reading but especially the 7 year old. This is amazing because he was dianosed with Apraxia of Speech. Children with this speech problem traditionally struggle to learn to read. What did I do? We had him watch those videos in the car, dad read hours to him each night, we led by example; we read a lot, and during the summers I led Reading and Writing workshops for the children we know.

Because your daughter is obviously coming from a home that cares deeply about reading, she will learn, just keep doing what you are doing, keep it fun and of high interest and the rest will fall into place. Good Luck!

honestly, kids are trying to take in so much at that age and just learn everyday things, that reading is going .to be overkill. Let your baby be a baby. It sounds like she's your first, and we tend to want out first babies to grow up so fast. enjoy the time you have while she's still a toddler. She'll learn to read soon enough. and when she's bringing home bad joke books from the library and reading to you all weekend, you'll be wishing she'd waited even longer!!

My kids learned their alphabet in preschool at about age 4 and learned to read in 1st grade at about age 6. I already think too much is pushed down at too early an age. Let her have a childhood, at least until she is 4 or 6! I would not try to teach my toddler to read even if it was possible. Enjoy her curiosity, take her for walks, blow raspberries together, tickle her, read books to her, play with her. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that early readers are better readers or enjoy reading more (I have researched this since my daughter is dyslexic). Just have fun.

.

My brothers wife was raised this way... She was reading and entering beauty contests before the age of 2... Today she is a mom of 3 and a beautiful person... If you ask her about her childhood, she will answer that her mother put too much pressure on her at too young of an age and has some resentment towards her mother that still lingers..... Her mom has video of her reading at a young age and she wants to find it and burn it... She also demanded that her mother not try the same thing with the granchildren... Just an fyi

your child should be learning how to play and interact with the world around her not memorizing flash cards. why does she need to read at this age? do you think that is going to put her ahead? all the countries that start "school" earlier actually are further less in academics...Finland is at the top and they dont start formal school until age 7. Your child will read when she wants to and when she needs to ...right now she is 18 months old and should be building towers and knocking them down

I didnt see that you had this resolved! sorry for being one more in your ear! LOL

I am going to give you my opinion from an Early Childhood Professional standpoint and a mommy standpoint.
From a ECE standpoint, it is a waste of money and totally against the way children are intended to learn and grow. These kinds of products are a ploy to get anxious parents to buy things to give their kids the "advantage." Young children learn best through play and experience. TV is not interactive (which is why studies have been shown that babies who spend a good amount of time in front of a screen are slower to develop speech.) The same goes for flash cards. What you'd want to do is continue to expose your child to books by reading to him and enjoying the story. Literature rich (not flashcard rich) environments are what truly makes reading meaningful and fun for children. Point out the ways words are used, show him all the letters and words in our world, do puzzles, play sequencing games. There is SO much more to reading than just recognizing words. There's comprehension, left to right orientation, phonetics, etc. Our goal as educators is to have a child not just read but ENJOY reading, and to be able to understand and apply what they are reading. Also, research has proven that children that go through these programs may seem ahead for a little while, but even out sometime between 1st and 3rd grade.

From a parents perspective, what is the motivation to push an infant to read in such a manner? It's a completely unnnatural (and developmentally innappropriate) way to learn. If you are thinking how at this age a baby can learn anything, what would actually be beneficial and would have long term effects is to have another language taught to him. Our children are pressured to know so much in such a short amount of time that childhood gets lost. Why put on more pressure before it has to begin? Enjoy your baby, he will learn to read when he's ready.

Also, I had a son that was VERY interested in letters and words from the time he was around a year. He is 6 now and reads 3 grades above his age. I never used a flash card or a program. If you follow your child's interest and involve his environment then you will most likely have more success in teaching him things that will stay with him. In my son's case he learned through his books that we read, through puzzles, blocks, the elevator, the parking lot (all have letters) the street signs, to common words we see in the book (a, we, the, it). Make it fun, make it interactive with a REAL person, and it will come when it's time.
I am sure there will be someone who's kid is a "genius" because of these programs. I can guarantee it's a rarity though.

My youngest child has been attending a school based on the Waldorf perspective. One of the more scientific writers about this is Joseph Chilton Peirce, who wrote "Magical Child". There is much to be said about his concepts of brain growth, physiological development, and the resulting cognitive capabilities a child grows into as this happens.

All three of my daughters are AMAZING readers...and that may come from heredity (I could read at age 4 and don't really know how I learned), or it may have to do with my following pretty much my own mother's approach, which was to read and read and read to us, to herself, talk about what she read, point out words on signs, have lots of books and magazines around, and take us to the library every week to pick out our own. I've been reading to my children since they were babies.

But...each one of them was different in how quickly they were ready for reading. The eldest really did not pick it up until about 3rd grade--she went from low 1st grade level to 4th grade level in one year! And she then went on to read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and perform excellently in Shakespeare plays in 5th grade.

The middle one was more average.

The youngest was, like me, picking up random magazines and reading the little paragraphs on their covers at age 4 on her own. But didn't really go a lot further until 1st grade.

ALL of them were reading high level chapter books by 5th grade.

Theoretically, cognitive research shows that true symbolic understanding--the ability to accurately not only translate a symbol to a sound, for example, but to also turn that into word recognition (as opposed to individually sounding out letters) which is REQUIRED for reading comprehension--doesn't really happen before spoken language and movement skills are much more sophisticated than an 18 month old would be.

There is other research which suggests the current drive by some parents and professionals to use the early developmental toddler period to try to teach such subjects as reading actually can slow the process down later, because what toddlers are REALLY geared for with all that learning is to understand relationships with people, emotions, fine motor and gross motor skills, and spoken language (which is, in itself, a symbolic ability, but not written symbols). Then, the more advanced symbolic thinking such as written language is more easily developed from those skills--this is in alignment with cognitive learning theory. If you try to leapfrog the earlier skills by focusing too much on the later skills, the whole thing can get turned around with the child having less sureness with either.

So relax. Enjoy your little one. If she's interested in these symbols, make games out of it and play only as long as it holds her interest. But don't worry...if you are reading to her, and she knows you enjoy books, she will be interested and learn when she is ready.

Fiora, MS Ed

Hi K. - Wow, there seems to be a strong consensus among the 14 respondents so far that your interest in teaching your daughter to read at an early age is pushing her in a bad-parenting sort of way by making her grow up too early and equipping her with an unnecessary skill at her age. I think "Grandma T" and I may be the sole voices of dissent - not because I think it's important to teach a child to read at an earlier age than "normal," but because if you want to, and your child shows an interest and aptitude for it, then what's the harm? The ability to read is very empowering and confidence-building for a child.

It's interesting that you mentioned Glen Doman's method of teaching your baby to read. I'm 42, my one brother is 44, and my other brother (who is deceased) would have been 47. My mom taught all 3 of us to read by the age of 2 using the Doman method - so that was many years ago, and I've never heard of anyone mention it other than my mother. According to her, my oldest brother was reading at 18 months, and my other brother and I read at 24 months. We all grew up with a love for reading and did very well in school. My oldest brother skipped kindergarten and was doing well in college when he passed away. My other brother and I are both attorneys.

If learning to read at such a young age harmed any of the 3 of us, I am not aware of how. It didn't turn us into anti-social bookworms or rob us of our childhoods. In hindsight, I can only see that it was beneficial to us, and I cannot recall any moment as a child when I felt pushed to read - I wanted to read.

I am now a mother myself, with kids ages 7, 5.5 and 2.5. Honestly, I am too busy to be dedicated to implementing the Doman method like my mom was devoted to doing. She was also a SAHM, whereas I am not. Life is different now for most moms than it was back then. I also don't prioritize teaching my kids to read at an early age as much as my mom did. However, my mom has been using the Doman method with my kids since each was about 24 months ("late," in her opinion, lol). She wanted me to do so, but I would rather spend time with them in other ways. Maybe if she hadn't been around to teach them to read, I would have made it more of a focus myself, I don't know. Anyway, my older 2 two kids read by the time they were 3, and ever since starting kindergarten, they have been moved up to reading groups in the grades above them. My 2.5-year-old is recognizing words on the flash cards that my mom has been using, which he seems to love and think is a game. I think that's the trick of the Doman method - the kids think it's a game, plus their little minds are hungry to learn anyway.

So do what you feel is best for you and your daughter. I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other; I just wanted to provide an opinion that doesn't condemn you or express shock and dismay that you would want to "teach your baby to read" (as Doman's book is called, which I'm sure you already knew!).

I completely agree with Robyn. You need to think about not how cool it will be how it really will effect your child socially in the long run. Working hard to teach your child to read at this point is completely ridiculous. IF you are successful, you may be hurting her more than helping. In my opinion, many children who are pushed to read early experience more problems in school, not less (as a former teacher and a mom of 2 preschoolers and a baby). Either your child is going to be out of place with the other children in her class when she gets to preschool, or she may hate school because she may be totally bored. I have a friend with a 3 year old reader, and she wouldn't have done it on purpose. It isolates her child and makes him feel different even though he thinks it is fun to read. She now has to decide whether they can afford exclusive private schools to keep him interested in what they are doing.

Instead of pushing your child to accomplish things that are not normal for 18 month olds to do, take her out to learn about nature, take her to the library to learn songs and social skills, focus on teaching her about life.

Personally, I think kids should be allowed to be kids! When first grade starts, some kids can read and some can not, but they all end up reading in the end, right on track. Learning to read at 18 months is not going to put your child ahead. If you want to do it, that is all good and fine, but I decided I would rather let my kids spend their time playing at that age, and just being kids.

Children this young do not read. They do not need to read. It is not part of thier developmental path yet. If they can read, or if they are super gifted, it will happen without any help from you other than reading to them.

You are expecting them to suplant natural, typcial, linear development with something that they neihter need, nor is there any evidence will be helpful to them in thier future, and goodness knows what she will be missing while you spend time on this endevor.

She needs to learn to speak, and children are hard wired to do this with you just talking to her, showing her things, reading her books, and doing everyday stuff. Enrich her enviornment, instill a love of books and learning in her by reading to her and letting her see you read, but don't bother trying to jump start her learning. Frankly, and some have dug up remote resources that say otherwise, but the most upto date reliable resources note that early gains from quick learners even out by the time children enter the 4th grade. You can enrich a childs life with more opportunities, but you cannot produce giftedness where none existsts. That is why good gifted programs do not begin until reliable testing can be done.

Let your baby develop as she is supposed to, and do what works, which is age appropriate enrichment and plenty of it.

M.

Dear K.:

Congratulations on your wonderful little girl! You must be so proud of her! I think comprehension is one of the most amazing milestones in a toddler's development. So, as a Mom, of course you want to help enrich and enhance her comprehension.

Other parents made good points about photographic memory and different forms of communication -- talking, pictures, etc. I know nothing about Domans, but I do know that my son enjoys interacting with Flash cards. (I just made my own when his My First Book of Animals fell apart!) I like having them on hand not necessarily as a means to teach reading but as a means to let him interact with picture-book concepts in a different form. They're very portable. They're great to have in a restaurant, where a book would be too unwieldy. They're flexible. (A duck flashcard might result in me making up one story about the duck one day and a different story on another day.) It's like having a little gallery of artwork to talk about with my son. Finally, they're very tactile -- throw them up and they cascade to the floor! Lots of fun, and just another idea to have up a parent's sleeve!

Best wishes!

Not much to add really, except that at 18 months, your child would be better off widening her spoken vocabulary - by listening to you rather than by any formal method of teaching. I don't really understand how you could possibly teach a baby to read who only has a few words in her vocabulary anyway.
Most babies around that age have incredibly photographic memories when looking at books. If you try to skip a page, even though they can't read, they know immediately that you've missed the page and will stop to tell you.
If you continue to think she could read early, perhaps enroll her in nursery school and the professionals will be able to help you. In the meantime just talk and read to her a lot and she'll reap the rewards.

My DIL uses flash cards for my 2 yr old granddaughter, she started at about 15 months. She is reading at first grade level now, it's pretty remarkable.
The flash cards she uses have a picture on one side and the word on the other side.