OK, so maybe you've seen the commercials about Your Baby Can Read, but has anyone tried it? It's an expensive program if you buy from the website. But curiosity is getting the better of me and I'm wondering if it works?
If you have tried it, please give me a little review and let me know if you think it's worth the money.
Thanks!
I have not bought or tried it, but I know a few people who have, and I was once a teacher. It is not that the child is learning how to read in the sense that they understand the concept of letters (consonant and vowel sounds, and how they combine to make words.) Rather, the child is just viewing the word as a picture. HAT just becomes another picture of a hat to them, so they recognize the visual appearance of the word, but do not understand the phonics behind actual reading. This is not true reading, but merely recognition.
I don't know anybody who has used it, but I have seen moms on here talk about it -- mostly negatively, so I'll let them respond to that. What I find very sad about the commercials I hear for the product is that it boasts that parents don't have to do anything!!! Just plug in the tapes or CDs and watch the baby learn. I think a better way to teach your child to read and to instill a love of reading is to read to them ALL THE TIME. Kids love that. Even my 12-year-old still likes to hear me read to her. I would avoid the program just for the reason that it promotes no parental involvement.
I have a friend that bought it off of Craigslist. She figured she was saving money so she tried it. She got the same reults after 5 months that she got with just reading to her 16 month old son and showing him words and getting him to repeat. She was glad she didn't spend the full amount by ordering from the commercial. She thought it was more sight learning than anything else anyway. She even mixed up words--like clep for clap and her son thought it was clap and clapped his hands. Personaly, I don't think there is any replacement for parent/child one on one teaching. And as others have commented on previous requests, do we really need to push our kids to be faster learners?
We have it. I didn't buy and never would have and wouldn't still.
I have it, my dad bought it for my little guy. It claims to be phonics based, but I think it's more word memorization, which I'm not fond of. I taught my daughter to read before she went to preschool without anything like that. Actually the best thing you could buy is Dr. Seuss' ABC book (next would be Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book but that's not for reading! lol). Since I started reading that to him every day he now points out letters everywhere we go.
Donna