"Your Baby Can Read" update

A lot of people asked me to keep them posted on this program. First let me explain how it works.

It's a set of 5 DVDs & each DVD has a book & set of flashcards that go with it. You are supposed to show the DVD twice daily for the time specified in the schedule (some are for one month & some are for two months) & review the book & flashcards daily. Each time you move to the next DVD you are still supposed to show the previous ones at least once or twice each week. The current one is always shown twice daily.

The program is designed to be started at 3 months of age (or when they start tracking objects with their eyes). I started it 2 days prior to turning 5 months. Dr. Titzer (the guy who created this) states that with young infants usually 5-6 months will go by with NO indication of learning at all. And then you will suddenly start to see signs that the baby is actually learning. He also says that the first 50 words learned take the longest. Once they learn 50 words or so things really start speeding up in the learning.

Before I actually bought the program I went online looking for negative stuff about it. Mostly I found people arguing about "whole word" learning vs. "phonics" learning. People who favor phonics language learning didn't like this program. (Although Dr. Titzer states it does incorporate some phonics in the program) BUT I must add that "I" personally learned via the whole world method & I always excelled in reading & writing. So I made the choice to disregard those folks' opinions & go with this program.

I usually show him the DVD while he's drinking a bottle. It's a good time for him to sit & be calm & actually watch it. And he does enjoy watching it. This weekend will be one month since we started & we will be able to move to the next DVD.

Having said all that I can say that in the beginning Joseph wasn't very interested & his interest in it (both DVD & book/flashcard) has grown tremendously over the past few weeks.

I can also say that when I tell him "arms up" (one of the things on the DVD) he does put his arms up. (I tell him this when I'm going to pick him up). And when I go through the book with him the last word is "wave" & every time I say it he puts his right hand up as if he was going to wave good bye, but he doesn't actually wave it yet.

I know that's not much of a report, but considering I was expecting to not see ANY signs of learning for 6 months I am really encouraged by this.

I will definitely be posting more updates later on. Stay tuned.