Your Baby Can Read TV commercials

[Mikey]

I keep seeing Your Baby Can Read TV commercials and i'm always bothered by them.

Here's one, just as an example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWVNesAm94Q

I'm bothered because they seem to teach the kid to read by sight of the word and not by letter pronunciation.

This seems like it will hurt the kid later in their school years.

The teacher isn't going to care if the kid can name a word by sight.

To me, this seems like a bad method of teaching

What do you think ?

[RG]

yeah I've seen them, and pretty much think the same as you do. memory is not the same as phonics

[RG]

this is what those commercials remind me of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ht0a2-OnA

great if you think your kid is a bird

[Goblin19]

Exactly right. My friends who are teachers are equal parts amused and annoyed at them.

[HardyGirl]

Yeah, I don't like them either. Site reading is no substitution for phonics. Not to mention the fact that this is not a universal method of teaching. If your kid goes through this program and is a "super reader", he'll get bored rather quickly in grade school where other kids are plodding along learning through traditional methods. Consequently they can get into trouble and act out b/c they're bored. Then teachers may want to skip them a grade, but socially they are still a little kid.

Give me the old school way any day.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I'm an advocate for letting kids be kids. I mean, don't send them to kindergarten unprepared, but teaching them to "read" at 16 months seems to be more about bragging "my kid is smarter than yours" than actually helping the kids.

The most disturbing part about those commercials is when it shows that little boy's brain!

Chris

[Mikey]

If the kid can only recognize words by sight, that's not even really reading.

I kind of remember some schools trying this with math back in the 70's

[SeattleEd]

This is nothing new, IMO.
Never heard of this infomercial and seems like another person just doing what was done already in the past only to bring it back to current times and make money off it.
Is it pressuring kids? Depends on how you go about it. If your child doesn't take to it well then no means of pressuring.
What I've learned as a parent is to read to my child at an early age. I would read a book to her with her while pronouncing each word slowly and clearly. This was bed time reading and she would follow my finger as I pointed at a word and pronounced it.
She is 10 now and LOVES to read. Doing well in spelling. She did it at HER own pace.
Our 3 year girl is going through the same thing. We read to her EVERY night and same pattern. She can recognize words, speak clearly and write her name. She can actually get in a conversation with you but just the basics. Very sociable child since it's in her personality. She is going about this at her own pace.
The only TV she watches are videos we play. She love the old Electric Company which helps TREMENDOUSLY. Loves kids movies and loves to sing.
It's just repetition with guidance. No pressure and at their own pace.
We read to her in Spanish as well and she understands it and knows what things are in Spanish.
Also, I think sound frequencies are important in the development of a child's brain and this has tremendously helped our girls. My girlfriend's mother is a music teacher and harpist in the Portland School District and has had great success with this method.

Bottom line is DON'T pressure children. I feel it has to be fun and not just centered at certain time, but rather interact and communicate with your child ALL the time.

[Sandman9580]

I was impressed when I first saw it on TV. But then, if I'm watching TV it usually means I've made the decision to completely turn my brain off, so I'm not that hard to impress. It was a bit like channel flipping to someone doing magic tricks: it's neat until you understand how they do it. Wow, your kid can memorize things?! Awesome! Hey, you should have him memorize numbers, that way you can tell all your friends he can add and subtract, too! (Point to the 7, Timmy... where's the 7?... YAY, there it is! Who's my little Einstein?)

In all seriousness though, I'm all for early childhood education. Sadly --tragically-- a lot of parents squander their children's potential by taking a too passive approach to their education. So even though I just made fun of them, I'm inclined to give parents who buy this thing the benefit of the doubt. But I'm not an advocate for it. It takes a good idea, distorts it, exaggerates little pieces of it, and then re-packages it into a slick "program" that can be sold to well-intentioned parents for the sole purpose of making a few people a lot of money.

[The Toyroom]

This just makes me think it's the modern day equivalent of the Evelyn Wood School of Speed-Reading

[ctc]

>memory is not the same as phonics

Very true. Phonics kinda went out back in the 80's; although it seems to pop back up every so often. It'd probably be best of they taught both memorization AND phonics. Kids learn in a bunch of different ways, and the best bet is to expose them to lots of different stimuli and let 'em absorb as they will.

Don C.