Your Baby Can Read....Research?

[wing0050 at umn.edu]

Hi, Liz:

I am guessing that you are the wonderful type of parent who will provide a 
stimulating environment for your child in a myriad of ways, and so my sense 
is that whether you include early reading in this stimulating environment 
or not, your child will do well. I have been asked this and similar 
questions (re electronic programs, Baby Einstein, signing, early reading, 
etc.) by a significant number of parents, and my response is generally that 
given the gestalt of supportive and stimulating parenting that will occur 
under your tutelage, you child will do well with or without early reading. 
However, having said that, my own bias is that there is not much to be 
gained by this pursuit. Generally, research on preschool readers indicates 
that they tend to join a well-educated cohort at the same reading level by 
grade 3. My own bias, having reviewed the sensorimotor literature and 
worked with a good number of sensorimotor therapists over the course of my 
career as an SLP, is to prioritize for young children hands-on and 
multi-sensory experiences, accompanied by the appropriate oral language, as 
the best foundation for future learning. (I also read that one of the 
causative factors in our immune deficiency-prone society is our lack of 
exposure to good old dirt and other nasty substances at an early age.) 
While I emphasize pre-literacy and literacy skills to my low SES (and 
wonderful) cohort of prschool children and parents, my advice to 
well-educated and middle income and beyond cohorts is to sit back, talk to 
your child, and get dirty.
Chris Wing, 
Doctoral Candidate
Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences
University of Minnesota
United States of America


On Feb 28 2010, Aliyah MORGENSTERN wrote:

>Dear Liz,
>I don't know the program, so I can't judge but I'm a bit amazed. We  
>want babies to baby-sign at 9 months (which isn't acquiring sign  
>language in a signing environment) and now to read at 16 months...  
>Maybe it is important that children be kept in a non literate world  
>for a few years and use their ears (when they can) before entering  
>language through reading skills. Reading is extremely important, but  
>literacy does change our perspective on language and I'm personally  
>glad we all spend a few years developing our oral language, our  
>gestures, ou prosody, and all that comes with the vocal modality. I do  
>think that literacy changes our whole perspective onclangauge. We gain  
>a new world, we lose what cultures without a writing system did  
>maintain. But I'm not a specialist in that field. It seems to me that  
>reading too soon could get them focussed on different skills and they  
>might not use their natural capacities and the specific cognitive and  
>mostly interactional or social skills as much. But I might be wrong,  
>we all code-switch between two languages, some of us from birth, maybe  
>that is just the same. It might just bring more to them and be an  
>enrichment. I was glad my kids learned to play music at four where  
>some of my friends found that it was totally crazy...
>If you decide to go ahead, let me know what you think of it.
>
>Best,
>Aliyah MORGENSTERN
>
>Professeur de linguistique
>Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3
>Institut du Monde Anglophone
>5 rue de l'Ecole de Médecine
>75006 Paris
>
>
>
>
>Le 28 févr. 10 à 22:53, Liz P. a écrit :
>
>> Hello Everybody,
>> I have a 16 month old baby girl, and i just recently acquired the Your
>> Baby Can Read Program, but when i started watching it, it seems too
>> good to be true, and i was asking my Language Acquisition professor
>> and she suggested that i inquire within to see if anyone knows the
>> research behind this program and if there are any down falls or
>> reasons why i shouldnt continue with the program with my daughter. I
>> can see the Pros (shell learn to read and expand her vocabulary) but
>> what would the Cons be. Thank you so much for your time. Any comments
>> will be appreciated
>>
>> Liz Pattison
>>
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>

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