Lychee Update

We talk so much about her big brother on here and Lychee tends to largely get ignored. This is for the most part because I feel like a lot of the posts would be very repetitive if I told you what we did with One child and then repeated it when the next one came along!

However, with regards to reading the children have learnt VERY differently. We tried the flashcard and YBCR system that worked so well with Cosmo, but had very little results with Lychee. She just wasn't interested. However she loves Starfall.com and we noticed that unlike her brother, who learnt using the whole word system, she was able to name individual letters by their sound. 

With this in mind we started using the hooked on phonics videos with her a little while back. Today she started sounding out words that she had never seen before by herself for the first time. She still pronounces each letter separately ('T-H-I-S' instead of 'Th-Is) and annunciates VERY clearly (it takes a long time to read when you pronounce each letter as a syllable) but it is a great leap forward developmentally and a step in the right direction decoding sounds ready for reading. 

I'm absolutely thrilled. If you want to see the video she was working on, it's here. 

The Wonder Weeks

I haven't read the wonder weeks, but my friends in cumbria swear by it. It's a book for parents of babies, which helps to predict when developmental 'leaps' will occur - resulting in crying, clinginess and crankiness.

I think the idea is that knowing why your child is acting up (and that it should only last a short time) will help you have more grace and give you strategies for helping them through a difficult time.

Like I said, I haven't read it, but if you are interested, the wonder weeks are giving away the introduction and first chapter on their website Christmas Giveaway.

My Baby can read too!

I write a lot about Cosmo's development on here, and not so much about Lychee so far. I feel like this is fairly predictable as she is so much younger and doesn't do much at the moment.

However we have had a fairly major break through recently, and using the YBCR system she is now (at 9 months) consistently recognizing the words 'tongue', 'wave' and 'hi'.

It's a little earlier than Cosmo (not surprising as we got her started on the system earlier) but also a little less consistent than he was. She started to recognise words a month or two ago, but didn't always respond to them and only recognizes a few. Cosmo showed no signs of recognition, but then at around 10 months he could suddenly read with a startlingly wide vocabulary.

Not sure if it's a boy/girl thing, just thought it was interesting to note.

If you are interested in using the Your Baby Can Read system, you can buy it here.

 

How did I teach Cosmo to read?

I get asked this question sooooo many times, so I have finally got around to becoming an affiliate for the program. If  you would like to know more about it, ore purchase a copy to start teaching your little ones to read (I highly recommend it!) they are doing a 30 day money back guarantee at the moment, so it's well worth a look.

Your Baby Can Read

Get Your Baby Started Reading Early

Proven System. Money Back Guarantee

www.yourbabycan.co.uk

The Pros and Cons of learning to read...

Some of you may know that I started teaching Cosmo to read very young. I did this because I whole-heartedly believe that if you enjoy reading, no subject is closed to you. I'm also dyslexic, as are several members of my family, and I thought 'if he is going to struggle with reading, I want to give him a head start'.

I needn't have worried, because as it turned out he recognised his first words at around 10 months old.

By two years old he was beginning to sound out words and at 2.5 he is now reading sentences and paragraphs competently and even enjoying his very own toddler bible.

You would think this was only a good thing, and it should be. Sadly though, we live in a town where people don't seem to have very much respect for public property. I love to take Cosmo to the park where he can run and jump and climb and generally go wild and have a great time. Unfortunately the park is heavily graffiti-ed even inside the toddler area. So when Cosmo comes out asking me what f*** means or innocently announcing 'Mummy, that word is c***' I am forced to explain to him that those are naughty words and we shouldn't say them. The reality is that they are naughty words and he shouldn't have to read them in a children's play area either.

On the bright side though, this week we discovered where our town library is. Cosmo is taking great pleasure in selecting books to bring home and is, for the first time, enjoying reading by himself. His new bedtime routine now includes the light being left on for 30 minutes so that he can read some of his new books before he goes to sleep. It's a great way for him to unwind and he never complains about going to bed anymore, because he is excited to read a new story. Equally, by the time we go back up to turn the lights out, he has wound down and is ready for a kiss and to go to sleep.

I'm so glad we have been able to bless him with the ability to read so early on. It really does have such a calming effect, and seeing him so excited about going to the library is just too precious. I really can't praise the YBCR system enough.

Your Baby Can Read

As-Seen-On-TV! Babies Reading Using
Our Proven Learning System
www.yourbabycan.co.uk

Breakfast, starfall and the numberjacks

YBCR comes with a book to teach you child about shapes, that when we first looked at I nearly cried laughing. It seemed completely ridiculous to expect my baby to recognize 'special quadrilaterals' and 'irregular polygons', let alone the difference between a rhombus and a trapezoid.

We decided that an easier way to teach shapes would be to cut his toast into simple shapes (square, triangle, rectangle) and explain it to him that way.

How wrong was I.

Within a week Cosmo was asking me if his toast could be a hexagon or an oval. In fact he even knew that my 'diamond' shape offering was a trapezoid. Turns out kids are much more capable than I have previously given them credit for.

This was proven to me again when we introduced the 'starfall' website to our playtime (www.starfall.com). Cosmo very quickly picked up not only the names of the letters and whether they were 'big' letters or 'small' letters, as well as the sound they make. Starfall is a fun interactive website that I can't recommend highly enough if you haven't tried it. My neices love it too.

The numberjacks is also a fun and educational program. We don't let Cosmo watch much TV, but he loves the numberjacks.
It can be watched free on the cbeebies website. It explains things in such a simple and fun way. After watching one episode Cosmo understood simple fractions (halves, thirds and quarters) and asks for his toast to be cut in this way. Amazing.

By the way, if you want to go down the toast cutting route, scissors are the way forward. There is no way you can accurately cut shapes with a knife, no matter how sharp it is. Believe me I've tried. Cosmo's look of disgust at the mangled toast was really enough to make me get the scissors out next time.

From the beginning...

I initially started teaching Cosmo to read using the 'Your Baby Can Read' program that Dr Titzer produces (YBCR). In actual fact we bought it because as a first time mom I had no idea how to interact with my own child. I had been convinced it would be so natural and so intuitive, but when dealing with a post natal illness, this was just not the case.

We used the program fairly loosely, certainly not as often as they recommended, but by about 10 months old he was recognizing words and able to do relevant actions. Once he could speak his vocabulary quickly broadened and it became apparent that he could read many of the flash cards we had been showing him, but was unsure of how to respond without being able to speak yet.

By age two we introduced the alphabet and numbers (which he loves) but we are still fairly relaxed about it all. To be honest I hadn't really expected him to be able to read before school age, I was just looking for ways to interact with him.

We are now in what Dr Titzer calls the 'fast mapping' stage, which means he only needs to see a word once or twice to remember it next time he sees it (as opposed to seeing it 40-50 times like he did when he was first learning). It's pretty exciting, and he loves doing it. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to teach our next child in the same way.

There is no need to buy fancy flash cards and DVDs either. Cosmo responds equally well to hand written cards, or just bold type on a computer screen. The DVDs are really useful if you want to sit them in front of something whilst you make dinner or get some chores done, but are totally non-essential. That said, if you can find someone who has the set, the instructional DVD and booklet for parents is interesting, informative and incredibly helpful.  It's definitely worth borrowing if you can.

I don't want to put the YBCR system down, it has been amazing, and if you can afford it you should buy it from them. They are really committed to educating your child in a healthy and fun way, I just don't want people to think that if they can't get hold of it their child is missing out. You can do all this stuff yourself with a little bit of effort.

Finally, we started memory verses recently. I was told that your child doesn't have to be able to repeat back for you to move on. At this age it's about getting them familiar with scripture, rather than memorizing it, and hopefully bits of it will come back to them when they need it. We are mostly working through proverbs at the moment. There's no signs that Cosmo remembers anything yet, but he is enjoying it and asks me to recite the weeks verse to him, so I think it's a positive start. I'll let you know how it goes.