I’m sure some of you have heard of the Your Baby Can Read program offered by Your Baby Can LLC. The Today Show did an intriguing piece on how this program can mislead parents focused on doing all they can to ensure that their child grows up to be an exemplary reader. If you go to the website, it offers NO scholarly support for its alleged results. Robert Titzer, the program’s founder/creator, does not offer any type of credible rationale for this program. He’s not the only one, though. Selected other infant initiatives (Baby TV and Babyfirsttv, and Baby Einstein to name a few other examples) cannot explain the superlatives of their programs by linking it to early childhood/child development theory. I am stating this as my own professional opinion as an early childhood education expert.
No, ladies and gentlemen, infants CANNOT read. They “read.” If they can sound out words that they “see” in front of them, then they are simply repeating what has been repetitiously repeated to them (Machado, 2009). In other words, they are mostly just sounding out memorized sounds (Berk, 2009; Charlesworth, 2010). Infants really cannot see well enough to read because their visual acuity is still maturing (Santrock, 2008). Babies until the age of two are mostly “thinking” with their senses (eyes, ears, hands, noses, mouths). The center of reading is within the mind. Children ages 0-2 cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads (like reading) (Berk, 2009; Charlesworth, 2010). Reading is a complex process that integrates eye coordination, eye movement, alphabetical knowledge, phonological knowledge, phonemic awareness, and phonics into a smooth operation. Just sounding out words that children have seen over and over again (like in the above named programs) is not reading. In fact, besides doing a bit of harm to the baby by overexposing him/her to television at that young age, such programs are actually stifling these children’s growth by focusing narrowly (and improperly) on one developmental domain rather than guiding the child to development physically, socially, emotionally, as well as cognitively (Brewer, 2006)
There are some programs that are VERY credible (WestEd’s Program for Infant and Toddler Caregiving, High Scope’s Infant Toddler Curriculum) because they focus on the developing exploratory nature of the child as he/she transitions from a sensorimotor viewpoint of the world to a more “operational” (mental schematic processes) viewpoint of the world conducive and palatable for early literacy development (which includes writing and talking as well as reading) (NAEYC, 2009). This usually emerges between 2-4 yeas of age.
Please be cautious of these “baby learning programs.” The best way to nurture your child’s development (not just reading) is to interactive with him/her positively, consistently, and lovingly with a conversational bent (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2008; Gerber & Weaver, 2003)…and please turn the TV off
5 comments:
Cv,
I do appreciate your kind comments. Obesity is a big issue in many of my family members and in-laws, so I try to see if I can model (I've dropped about 28 lbs this year) and help them understand it better by letting them know how it affects our children.
Please let me know if I can assist you in any othe way:)
R:)
When I first saw "My baby can read", I knew something was wrong. I knew right away that it was too good to be true, and when my sister told me the price, I was even more chocked. Not until recently I've learned that babies do not have that much ability to read in a couple of months, but because of my human development class, and also this blog I can reassure that even if we try our best to teach them how to read, it would be impossible because their only decorating by what they see. Thank you for your blog, I learned that "My baby can read" doesn't work, and that infants should stay away from television. After all, I'm a good example of believing the commercial by watching their magical images that made me assume things. If this is bad, then I wonder what run through a child's mind when their watching all this crap on TV.
I completely agree with you about "my baby can read" its just memorization and not reading. I have a 2 yr old daughter who has known the name of each letter of the alphabet since she was 14 months and just now we work together on what sounds those letters make because I would rather she learn why a word is the way it is instead of only seeing it as an image. Because Of her love of learning and how excited she gets when we learn something new together, I have been on a mission to create this project that will provide a possitive bonding and education experience with their child. Prior to having my daughter I had over 9 years experience in early childhood education and an animation degree and so I wanted to combine these 2 into one amazing and completely handmade product wich is different than anything youll see out there. My goal in getting the funding and creating this is to bring what a child would see on the TV screen into their hands to interact with. Its my dream to create something truly different and special and I wondered, if you had a minute, could you take a look at my pitch video for the project and the details and let me know what you think? It would mean a great deal to me, and I would love to hear any ideas that you think could be more polished to really make this into something spectacular, so that its not just something the parents put on and leave their child to zone out too... I want this to be completely interactive for both the parents and the children! (link below) Thanks so much!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/38847058/brilliant-bundles-presents-shapes
yes i totally agree with your report on the your baby can read program in that children are jus memorizing the words but this is a great bonding exercise between baby and parent and the educational values are great our youngest has gone on to be very academic after using the program
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