i see these all the time. it just bothers me so much. these parents think this is such a great idea. i'm a parent too, sure that's cool if my 1 yr old can read.

but...i am trained as a pre k teacher too. and i ask, why can't those kids be playing outside, or being read to, or doing the many things kids love to do, none of which include flash cards?

i debate with myself if the flash cards work, even if they do, that just seems wrong. toddlers don't need to be reading. they will learn just fine, playing, being read to, pretending to read, did i mention playing? they learn everything through play. they're kids after all! that's what they should be doing. but us adults have to go shoving all this down, way too early...they just need to play.

ok rant over. i can't be alone in this.

Several of my friends feel exactly the way you do about this. As for me, I kinda have mixed emotions about it I guess. I have 3 children & they are all completely different. My daughter, who is 6 now, has always been very interested in learning. She has always loved books & would pay attention to them at a very early age. The first time she ever smiled was while looking at a picture of the cat in the hat while I was reading to her. She has always seemed eager to learn. So I think she would have really enjoyed the flash cards & stuff. I think that would have been playtime for her.

My son, who is 4, is a totally different story! He just recently got interested in books. When he was younger, I would be reading & he would be singing. He was always in his own little worls & showed no interest in learning anything new until now. If I had tried that with him I would've had to force him to sit there & watch. Then he probably would've cried & never have even noticed I was holding a flash card! So a program like this would have been terrible for him & he would have had a lot better time playing.

So I am both for it & against it. I think it depends on the child. If it is fun for them & they like it, then why not support their passion for learning by teaching them as much as you can? However, if they would rather be playing peek-a-boo & patty cake then that is exactly what they should be doing!

i agree it depends on the kid. i was one of those kids that wanted to learn and went to kindergarten with some rudimentary reading skills. i like the idea of working with your kids and teaching them, a lot. but i also thing there's a time, age and place for it and forcing it on a small child can have a negative affect too. kids need to be allowed to be kids and to learn at their own pace, especially ones that young.

Just like food preferences, kids often want what the parents have. My kids saw us with books constantly (college textbooks) so they wanted to read books early. (And yes, we took time to read to them from their own books and spend time with them.) So yes, our kids were both reading early. My 14 month old granddaughter's favorite activity is to have daddy read to her. She LOVES BOOKS! She is increasing her vocabulary with these and other early learning materials.

i'm all for encouraging the learning process. however, a 3 yr old reading charlotte's web aloud isn't what seems appropriate. the original version of that book is very difficult, prob. a 4th grade level book. my 2nd grade son can read it, he's fairly advanced. but a 3 yr old, that's taking it too far.

also, showing some of the kids doing flash cards in their high chair brings visions of them being confined for too long, forced to do what their parents want. prob. those kids don't mind being in the high chair. my imagination goes a little nuts sometimes.

I love the concept but I don't like their methods persay. My niece Addison lives with me and she loves books. LOVES books! She wants to be read to atleast 6 times a day and at 16 months sits with her books, turns, the pages, and moves her mouth as if she is reading. She doesn't talk yet so I don't know if she is really reading anything or pretending but she picks out certain books for certain people so she can atleast distinguish between them. She has no interest at all in Flash cards though and gets irritated with me any time I try to sit her down and go over them. If someone can get a baby to sit in one place for long periods of time and look at the cards more power to them but it just doesn't seem like something that would work out for her or most kids that I've dealt with.

I taught myself to read when I was 3-4 listening to audio books and turning the pages. I firmly believe that reading books and learning to identify words in context is more effective then just random pictures with words. To be perfectly honest I don't believe in focusing on each individual letter of the alphabet either but rather words as a whole but that is the way our education system is set up.

The only reading "aid" I've found that I like in addition to us reading daily is the LeapFrog Tag reading system. But this is entertainment for my son, it has games, stories, and characters that he recognizes and he's not forced to sit there with it. If he wants to play with it while I'm cooking, more power to him.

I just feel that children learn about LIFE (not just to read) through play (sometimes structured and guided) and I don't want my son to miss out on it. I want him to be covered head to toe in dirt, harass the dog, build robots out of his legos and pretend to be a pirate in his cardboard "ship". Besides, he asks questions about what's going on around him... the general how, what and why phase. A child misses this if parents try to force one thing on them most of the time which is how this "Your Baby Can Read" system seems to me. Just like food, everything in moderation!

I used some of those for my now 5 year old when he was three to help him work on speech - he liked them and they said the words very clearly and urged the child/baby to repeat after them. They were helpful for that, and he actually did start recognizing the words. However, I think that's just sort of the way he works - he can't read phonetically even now, but has a huge inventory of sight words to pull from. He still has a lot of speech issues that interfere with his ability to learn phonics. Anyhow, I think they're pretty silly for babies. I can see no reason why a baby would need to learn to read and no way that it would be helpful. My oldest started reading a bit at 2.5 and was reading fluently at 3, but that's just the sort of kid he was.

I would totaly do the flash cards cause you don't need to do it all day long. Children learn the most from birth to age 5 and its the time to give them an edge, but its not something that should take away from play time, and rest.

Either way its up to the parent to choose to use it or not. I'm not sure I'd go for it cause I heard they use video too, and I don't think thats effective if you just plop the kid in front of the tv and leave them be.

I'm not a believer in flash cards. The way to teach kids to read books isn't to wave bits of paper at them as they're held captive in a high chair, the way to teach kids to read books is to...well, to read books.

I learned to read when I was about two and a half (I don't have kids, but I think that's a fairly early age to learn to read) and I never got the flash-card treatment. What I did get was two parents who read voraciously and constantly, books in every room of the house (yes, including bathrooms ), and an older brother and sister who frequently read aloud to me because it was one of the few things that'd make me stop babbling.

Everywhere I looked, reading was a modeled behavior. Everyone did it all the time, so if I wanted to be like Mama and Daddy and Bubby and Sis, it was something I had to learn just like I'd learned walking and talking. Modeling behavior doesn't guarantee a kid who reads early, but I'm convinced it gives them a vastly better chance than does a behavior that doesn't relate to real-world reading very much at all (e.g., flash cards).

Does anyone else remember those Little Golden Books? My first book memory was of one called "Color Kittens." I doubt if any kid would have happy memories of boring flash cards. Foster a book-friendly household by reading books to kids and reading books for pleasure yourself; use flash cards if you want a flash-card-friendly household, I guess.

My mom used them on me and I grew up learning to read at an early age, and loving books despite my parents not really having a lot of books around, (other than kids books), and later in my life, my dad said he loved to read a lot when he was young too. There was no modeled behavior for me to really pick up on.
My mom didn't do flash cards with my sisters. I was one when my first sister was born, and 3 when my second sister was born, so my mom was running ragged. My dad would read to us at night and mom let us watch educational programs, but my sisters didn't really develop a love for reading.
When my brother was born, I was six and being "mommy's helper" and she had more time for him. She used flash cards with him too and he grew up loving to read as well.
Maybe its a coinkydink, maybe not. But if I have kids someday, we will be a flash card friendly household.

Edited to add that I would read to my kids too out loud and encourage them to cultivate a love for reading. Flash cards would only be part of their early education.

I agree with the concept of "everything in moderation". My gd uses the program, enjoys it as games, has a growing vocabulary, and still torments their two cats, loves her stuffed animals, mechanical toys, and books. She loves to ride in her stroller while Daddy runs. She runs and plays in the yard and at the park (and, of course, in the house). She takes life as a huge discovery.

There is no locking her into the high chair. Her parents shower her with love and praise, and she is an active, thriving, happy child. She knows the Disney princesses (and knows anything with them on it is for her, LOL) and she is the princess of all our lives.

we have that book! lol. i found it at a salvation army and bought it for my niece and she loves it. the dancing eggs and stuff is a little weird but brush and hush are adorable and it rhymes really well.

I bought this for my son when he was a 8 months old. He loves it. He is 22 months now, and looks forward to it everyday. I don't confine him to the house, he has his toddler playgroup, plays outside and still has a normal life like any kid should. I somehow don't see a older child like a 3 year old jumping right into the program as they are set in other ways and its hard for a child to want to sit still to watch the dvd's as it is for a child who started younger. Just saying it works for my son and its fun.

I read somewhere that they use the method of memorization, and that the children don't understand what they are reading. They don't grasp the concept of each letter having a sound. But I've never used it, or known anyone that has. I just read this on a website about people hating commercials. lol.