Many years ago I read a book that claimed that babies could learn to read. It was fascinating and I believed it to be true. I already had a handful of children and I saw how fast and effortlessly they learned things. I was actually seeking out educational programs for the TV for my first child because she loved to watch Sesame Street back then. Once she learned her letters, numbers, colors and shapes I thought there had to more she could learn from the television. She loved to watch TV and I loved the results we were getting. Needless to say, I had a nice collection of educational videos and I played them for my babies and toddlers. I found them to be extremely helpful in giving me a 30-minute break while they were actually learning something.
Prior to giving birth to my 5th child I knew I wanted to teach him how to read as a baby. It just seemed to be something fun to do. I looked at it as if it were a scientific experiment. I had many materials to do so. I had stacks of flash cards to teach body parts, colors, shapes, foods, animals and more. I made lots of books to teach words and sentences. I did a little research online and discovered that there was a company selling DVDs that would teach my baby to read. I was a little hesitant to purchase the whole set without even seeing one of them, but I made the purchase and never looked back.
I could not wait for the DVDs to arrive. I knew that I could do the television part of the program. I had already done that successfully with my 4 other children. Asking me to play a video every day for my baby was a no-brainer. I was doing that anyway. I figured that at the very least, I would faithfully show the DVDs and my baby would learn to read something. A few weeks into viewing the DVDs I realized that I could start adding some flash cards after diaper changes. I kept a stack of cards on my dresser as well as some of the books I made and a few times a day after a change I would quickly show my baby some materials. This took about 2 to 3 minutes at the most each time I showed him materials. He loved it, so it was never a chore.
We continued with the DVDs, the flash cards and the books and I began making my own videos for my baby. They resembled home videos except that I included a lot of written language in them. He would watch this video a few times a week to review some of the words I had taught him. I would write him notes on the dry erase board and read them to him and we read lots of books. I had no idea if my baby could read until he turned 1 year old. One day as I was showing him a sentence he looked at it from the beginning to the end and read the last word "up" out loud. I was ecstatic. It was the first proof I had that he could read. Even if he never learned to read we had so much fun that it did not matter, but it was a glorious day when he first read for me.
He went on to read sentences and then books. I know that most any baby can learn to read and so I enjoy telling people that my baby can read. They look at me like I am half-crazy, until he starts to read. Teaching babies to read is so neat and so fun. Why not try it?
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