Your Baby Can Read: Day 15

Well, there's not too much to say about this yet. We've been watching the DVD every day, minus 1. For the first week, she was watching it twice a day since there was no daycare. Last week, it was just once during the week and maybe twice on the weekends. We haven't been using the flashcards as much as we should, for sure. We need to step that up.

Sure, it's driving me nuts to have to hear it over and over and over again, but not as much as I thought it would. How's that for a positive spin?

It all feels a little Clockwork Orange-y to me. Well, at at least a more timid version from a scene in Lost.

"The Eensy Weeny Spider" though? Hm. Could they not get the rights to the words "itsy" and "bitsy"?

All that to say, no reading yet. She is doing something she didn't do before though. Two of the introductory phrases are "arms up" and "arms down." She does that now, so yay! Maybe she was ready, maybe it was the DVD. All I know is that I never taught her that.

To those that requested an update, thank you. I kept meaning to type something up about this topic and then when I came to post I couldn't remember what it was!

Your Baby Can Read: Day 1

When we arrived home from Mexico, there was a box. It was a gift from my father and his wife for Playette. I had mentioned being interested in the YBCR program and they went ahead and purchased it, for which I am very grateful. (I no longer can find our particular set on the web site, but I'll take a photo for reference later.)

On Sunday, I sat down with Playette to check it out. The first scene on the DVD is Dr. Titzer explaining a little about how to complete the program. According to him, Playette should watch the starter video twice a day for the first month. We watched it just once on Sunday. Then, on Monday, she saw it twice. Let's count Monday as Day 1.

Now it's Tuesday morning and SHE CAN READ!

Just kidding.

BD is off from school and Playette's daycare is closed (grumble grumble) since the two places follow pretty much the same schedule. He'll have her watch it during the day (running time: 20-ish minutes) and I'll do the same this evening.

Apparently, we should be showing her the flashcards too, so I'll start that this evening if I don't get the chance to ask BD to do so earlier than that.

The starter DVD has music, including a verse of "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" I've never heard before, along with children talking and various animals just animaling. When a new word is used, the screen displays the word in one color on a contrasting colored background and a triangle scrolls along the bottom of the word from left to right.

I'm not one that wants Playette to watch a lot of TV, but I'm still willing to give this a try. I want to get her started on this now with the hopes that school won't be as difficult for her later on down the road. I want her to have the desire to read books upon books upon books like I did when I was a child and not to be discouraged from doing so out of frustration. I don't know if it's a pipe dream or what. I know she'll face challenges. That's a given. But I just want her to have tools that will allow her to face them head-on and overcome. Perhaps this is one of those tools. I'm willing to take a chance. It will take dedication and lawd knows I'm lazy, but I need to get over that, and fast.

I'll keep you posted from time to time on our progress. Feel free to ask questions and generally hold me accountable during this part of our journey.