Is it a bad idea to teach babies / toddlers to read by sight?

[fried eggs]

Like with programs such as "My Baby Can Read?" Or does it cause more problems then it solves?

[monmouth]

1. I learned to read at about 3-1/2 because my father would read aloud

and I would use my finger on the page to follow along. After re-reading the stories I was able to read just about everything...It was sort of slow but I did the same thing with my kids and they were way ahead when entering school.

[Warpy]

27. That's how I learned starting when I was two

My mother bought some school books on phonics for me when I was four so that I'd stop bugging her to identify new words.

I do know one thing it did for me: I read very, very quickly. I do that because I'm largely unaware of the letters, I just recognize the whole word at a glance.

[hifiguy]

32. My mom read to me all the time when I was little

and I followed along pointing at the words. I was reading on my own by the time I was three, and I don't pay any attention to letters either, only whole words. Can't remember reading any other way since I was a very wee lad.

[EC]

30. That's how I taught my daughter too.

It helps them figure out the sounds with the words. Just read the same stories time after time following each word with your finger as you say it.


Isn't that the way teachers teach it, by having the students sound it out while following it on the blackboard (well white board now)with a pointer?


On edit: I found that learning the whole words and meanings help with reading comprehension too. Maybe that is why so many have no comprehension skills now a days...too much phonics, concentrating on just pronunciation?

[SouthernLiberal]

37. I learned early, too

I could read before I was 4. No one tried to teach me, but Mom read us a bedtime story every night. I'm not sure I learned to read from that, but I certainly learned to want to read. I think the moment it all clicked was when Mom was trying to teach my older brother to read using letter flash cards. I guess you could call that primitive phonics.

I never really thought of phonics as a way to read. It's a good tool, if you run across a word you don't know, but it's just a tool in a good reader's mental toolbox.

Oh, by the way, the flash cards did not work for my older brother.

[Brickbat]

2. Do you mean whole-word reading? I don't think there's anything wrong with reading to babies and

interacting with them as you read, but there's no need for a "program" or a video or anything like that.

[pscot]

3. It's a terrible idea

because it would leave all those phonics freaks unemployed and inetllectually bankrupt.

[Brickbat]

4. Whole-word holla!

[hlthe2b]

6. heh heh.... and they might actually learn to spell...

Hooked on phonics has its adherents, but damn, I've yet to see many good "spellers" produced among the kids I know were taught to read that way.

Visual memory is powerful and neurologically triggers lots of neuronal growth and synapses to be produced. In short, it stimulates the brain to further develop. I'm sure phonetics has its place, but in the recent past, I think it has crowded out alternative approaches--to our detriment.

[Fumesucker]

8. I was taught to read phonetically..

And I taught my daughter the same way.

Not "Hooked on Phonics" but phonetically none the less.

We are both above average spellers.

[gkhouston]

12. I was taught to read phonetically, after I'd already taught myself

to read by sight. It probably helped my spelling, but damn, first grade lasted an eternity.

[pscot]

39. That is a tribute

to your inate superiority. :P

[shraby]

33. I was taught phonics when I first learned to read, and there

are very few words I can't spell. Always was the last or nearly the last down in a spelling bee.

[hlthe2b]

38. Always an exception that proves the rule... Glad to hear it.

Unfortunately, I have had to deal with an entire cohort of students over the past 15 years, including those performing fellowships to earn their master's degrees. I have to say that many(regardless of university attended)simply can not spell(or write)well at all. I would never have made it out of my public high school with that level of skills. The writing and the grammar, I can work with, but when one doesn't get a basic foundation in spelling, especially words that are not spelled like they sound, it is hard to quickly bring them up to speed. And some did not even recognize when "spell check" replaced an even more ludicrous substitute. Reading early in life really does cement many of these concepts. Visual memory is stimulated and, yes, can supplement whatever was learned through phonetic methods. I'd be willing to bet, you were not one who shied away from reading--whatever the type of material--as you were growing up.

As might be expected with influence on verbal cues, these students had exceptional verbal skills and I would guess that that is what got them into their respective colleges and universities. So, there was that benefit. Of those I thought to inquire, most indicated they had more difficulty with reading and reading comprehension than learning from an instructor's lecture.

[damntexdem]

11. Yeah, but they'd still be hooked.

;-)

[gkhouston]

13. OMG, just the prospect of children on corners, begging for fricatives...

:scared:

[pscot]

40. Watch it!

You'll get the thread locked. :evilgrin:

[rucky]

35. hukt on fonics wurkd fur mee

[monmouth]

36. You know when all of that phonic stuff came out I quietly laughed to

myself. At least some people had jobs and though they were being oh so forward thinking...LOL.

[Warpy]

41. I learned those second and once I'd sounded out a word

and figured out what it was, I added that whole word to the storage bank.

I'm sure adding the phonics also aided my spelling later on.

People who think it's an either-or proposition simply aren't thinking, at all.

[Ian David]

5. I'm still waiting for the "My Baby Can Drive" DVD.

It's bullshit.

http://sciencebasedparenting.com/2010/11/03/my-baby-can-read-later/

[patrice]

7. Research??? otherwise, it's Opinion. Question: If you only memorize that 2 X 2 = 4, what happens

when you encounter a real world situation in which an understanding of what multiplication is is necessary?

What happens when children who have been trained by sight ONLY encounter an unusual word they've never seen before, in a context that is either ambivalent or offers no clues?

I just don't get it, unless people are assuming that children will not grow up to read anything that is outside of their habitual limitations.

[gkhouston]

9. I think it's a waste of money.

Talk to your baby, not at him/her. Read to your child often--kids love it and it's great for a distraction or to lower the kid's activity level before sleep. Read for pleasure yourself, because kids are great imitators. Your child may teach him/herself to read early, and if that happens, fine, but I don't see a point in rushing things.

[patrice]

15. 1+++++++++++

:hi:

[Obamanaut]

16. We talked to ours, from day 1, as if we expected a response. Miz O

would sometimes talk 'baby talk', but since I didn't know how, I never did.

They ended up with great vocabularies, and I've never heard either one say "like" or "you know" as part of a sentence.

They don't use "just sayin'" either.

[gkhouston]

44. Yeah, I used to get the hairy eyeball in the grocery store, apparently

for using language that was "above" my daughter's head. It was always priceless when she responded in a way indicating she understood me. The cognitive dissonance of that tiny pipsqueak voice using "big words" got 'em every time. :7

[nxylas]

10. Different children learn in different ways

I'm suspicious of anyone who pushes either phonics or real books as the one method to teach every child.

[mainstreetonce]

19. Possibly

I think if the child tends to pick up whole words and recognize them on sight, such as on billboards etc., then you might try a program like this.
If you are spending a lot of time with it when a child doesn't recognize words easily , you might hinder them from learning another approach when they are five or six and more "reading ready"

I really don't see an advantage to teaching a baby to read words this way. Spending a lot of time reading to them from books with a rich vocabulary is a much better use of time.


(former primary teacher)

[patrice]

22. It is true that whole word could help early on when conceptual apparati are not yet fully

developed, but later conceptual development ALSO contributes to CREATIVITY, the ability to use skills and concepts in new ways. You don't give a kid a toy piano and no music training, no real piano, just because they demonstrate some ability with the toy one.

Good educational environments offer a full spectrum of resources and provide gentle guidance that does not ensconce limited notions of "learning style" as the exclusive determiners of curriculum. Broad functionalities within varied contexts should be a goal of learning.

[DainBramaged]

14. Here we go......

:popcorn:

PIT BULL OWNING, CIGARETTE SMOKING, PUBLIC BREAST FEEDING, OLIVE GARDEN EATING, EARLY READING FOOD STAMP CHEATING SODA POP DRINKING MOMS WITH KIDS.

[Fire1]

17. LOL!!! n/t

[HopeHoops]

18. We taught ours basic sign language long before they could speak.

Milk, more, cracker, peas, banana, -hmm - yeah, mostly food words. All three picked it up almost as soon as they could sit upright in a high chair. It took the mystery out of the "gimme" problem. Our eldest is 20 and going into her junior year of college - getting a minor in ASL. :)

[applegrove]

20. I never learnt to read phonetically. It was all memorization. I'm a terrible speller.

[hedgehog]

21. Apparently, I accidently taught at least one of my children

to read by age 4 just by reading aloud to her. All of them were early readers.

I had a couple of hard cover Asterix comic books in the original French. I used to read those aloud, translating as I went. One of my kids was very frustrated because when she learned to read, she attempted those on her own and couldn't figure out what was wrong!

[patrice]

23. It's not just about spelling. It's also about application of language concepts.nt

[MicaelS]

24. My co-worker has an 15 month old nephew

And he says the kid is obsessed with books. He wants books, not the normal toys boys that age want. He can sit there and watch the little boy look at a book, and kid is moving his mouth puzzling out the words. The kid's parents bought them the whole "Baby Can Read" videos, and apparently the videos work for him, anyway. The little boy has a twin sister, who doesn't care a whit about books.

Holy shit! 15 moths old, and reading. :woohoo:

[Jersey Devil]

25. My son read at 3 learning by sight

I read Richard Scary books over and over and over to him every night after dinner and he couldn't get enough of it. Soon he was pointing to the words near the objects in the books and reading them to me. He used to read story books to his nursery school class. I don't know how that could possibly be bad for anyone. I do think a program for it is a bit much though.

[ixion]

26. My dad taught me to read the old fashioned way, I guess you'd call it...

Starting with the various phonetics of the alphabet, but when it came to actual reading, he taught me to break down the words, to be aware of common prefixes and suffixes, and to understand the Latin roots of the language.

I've always placed in the top 5% or better on vocabulary tests.

[rug]

28. Yes, they should learn Braille first.

[sinkingfeeling]

29. It's better than teaching them to read by Braille?

[snooper2]

31. It's just another tool...Jesus Christ it's not like "thats the only stimuli"

:eyes:

We use it and it's just another tool along with all the other things you do to teach your child. Sitting at the side of the lake, what's the duck say honey.. cak cak :)

[roody]

34. One teacher's opinion

Read to and with them any way you want. It is all good. My second grade brother taught me to read when I was a preschool age. I don't know what technique he used. My home was full of books and magazines. Engaging the little ones in conversation is equally important.

[ecstatic]

42. I learned both ways. My parents never read to me

but I learned to read by memorization from shows like Sesame Street. Then when I started pre-school at around 3, I received the glue (phonics) to put it all together and read new words. I think both ways are important. Memorizing words increases speed, and phonics help when it comes to unfamiliar words. I've seen people who only learned by sight (memory) and it's kind of scary to see their attempts of spelling words they don't know how to spell. It's usually so far off from the word they were shooting for (but it "looks" similar to the word they want.

[SheilaT]

43. If you never learn phonics in some form or another,

you have absolutely no way of sounding out a new word.

Read "Why Johnny Can't Read" and "Why Johnny Still Can't Read" by Rudolph Flesch. The first one originally came out in 1955, and details the history of teaching reading, and the back-and-forth between sight reading and phonics.

If you teach only by sight, a person has to memorize each and every word as a completely separate entity, with no kind of connection between them. If you teach phonics, once a person has the basics, he can read anything and everything he can comprehend.

And then there's the spelling issue. Something like 85% of English words actually follow rules of phonics, even allowing for how complex those rules are in English as compared to say, Spanish.

added on edit:
I can be made crazy by the parents whose children learn to read early and easily, who somehow convey that their child is therefore vastly superior to those -- like my oldest -- who learned to read later and with much difficulty. Meanwhile, my kid was ready to race ahead in math and had to stay with the plodding pace of math instruction in elementary school. He was trying to do algebra by fourth grade, but wasn't given the opportunity to move ahead in that field. By that time he'd more than caught up with the early readers, but was still stuck with their pace at math.

[JoePhilly]

45. Talk to you kids like they are adults from the start ...

I don't mean expect them to UNDERSTAND concepts that took you 30 years to understand, but treat them with respect and speak to them directly.

If they do not understand something, break it down, as you would a friend who does not understand your high tech job.

Yes, you can play with them, and be silly, but don't treat them like they are "children" who are incapable of understanding the world.

The can understand far more that we give them credit for.

Do this, and their reading ability, and their willingness to read harder material will expand.

[Prism]

46. As long as it is part of a broader approach

Infants and toddlers pick up language from a variety of sources. Some of it is verbal, some of it memory, some of it repetition, and some of it context. Context is very important in how a child develops vocabulary and semantics. So, while reading by sight at an early age won't hurt, it shouldn't be relied upon as a solution unto itself.

The biggest source of child language development is verbal interaction with other people. So, if your concern is reading, the best way to help that child along is to read along with them.

The baby can read stuff is merely supplemental. Children acquire the ability to understand the symbols required for reading at an early age. It's their expression of the symbolic that lags as they develop. So, if they are able to read, good. It's not hurting them.