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'Your Baby Can Read' ... Really?
Filed under: In The News, Day Care & Education, Development: Toddlers & Preschoolers
Many parents want to have all-star children who mark their territory at the head of the class. But if they're spending lots of money to get them there, they might as well just throw their cash away, "Today" reports.
Ads for Your Baby Can Read, a program that consists of flash cards, DVDs and pop-up books that supposedly help your child learn to read before she enters kindergarten, feature babies as young as 3 months reading words and phrases such as "Touch your ears" from flash cards. However, the seemingly brilliant tots might not really be reading at all.
Ginger Torres, mother of Chloe, 3, bought the Your Baby Can Read kit.
"The reason I wanted to buy it is to give her a head start before school," she tells Today. "(But) what you're getting is not really what they say."
According to experts, Torres is right. Dr. Nonie Lesaux, a child development expert at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, tells NBC the babies shown on TV aren't really reading.
"They memorize what's on those cue cards ... It's not reading," she says.
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, director of Cognitive Neuroscience at Tufts University, agrees.
"It's an extraordinary manipulation of facts," she tells Today.
Today spoke with 10 experts nationwide who all had the same opinions regarding the program: Children that young can be made to memorize and recognize words, but the minds of younger children are not developed enough to read and learn at the level that the television advertisements claim they can.
Dr. Robert Titzer, the creator of Your Baby Can Read, says the program starts with memorization but leads to reading.
"We have a book full of studies that support the use of our program," he tells NBC.
Titzer agreed provide the research to Today, but instead sent his own customer satisfaction surveys and general studies about child learning.
Experts say the best way to teach your children reading skills is the traditional (and free) method: Read, talk and play with them. If they're having fun, they're learning, Today reports.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
11-02-2010 @ 3:12PM
Christina said...I bought this.. and it was the BIGGEST waste of money... I did get the Spanish sing-a-long which is nice, but the program to help your child "read" is crap. I started using this on my daughter when she was about 1 1/2. She lost interest quick and the only thing she ended up learning was when I said to put her arms up, she put her arms up. I wanted to get her started early in learning to read and recognizing letters, but I later realized its better to just let your kid go at their own pace. She's 2 1/2 now and is SOOOO independent I rarely have to do anything for her really. I really wouldn't recommend this program. Reading and singing with your child is much better and more fun than having them stare at the TV for so long then having to pull out flashcards to "quiz" them on what they learned.
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11-02-2010 @ 5:18PM
Alicia said...That's what may parents did; just read to me and pointed to the words as they said them. Yeah, I memorized my favorite books first, but my parents persisted until I began recognizing the same words in other books. I was reading by the time I was four and love to still.
12-09-2010 @ 3:28PM
Your said...Your baby can read is perfect, and you can get it from : http://www.gloriousmall.com/?product-955.html.
11-02-2010 @ 6:07PM
Rochelle said...The site Http://bit.ly/BABYlanding is pretty good. And their Free Stuff page has a bunch of baby items that were completely free!
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11-03-2010 @ 12:02AM
Lauren said...I've always been suspicious of programs like this. If it really was possible for kids to learn to read at this age, they'd be in school a whole lot sooner.
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11-03-2010 @ 3:37AM
helena said...Okay so I did buy this a few years back and honestly...............I wanted to use it to help with my son's speech. It did improve his speech a bit but if I got it thinking my son would be able to read it would not have been worth it. I did get sucked into thinking that my son could actually excell and read but I was disappointed. As mother I thought that maybe I was not letting my son watch it enough until I realized that maybe the ad was claiming it could do more than it did. Save your money and just read to your children.
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11-03-2010 @ 5:31AM
RN said...When I watched the commercial for this program a year ago, besides thinking it was a big waste of money, I also wondered what it said about our society that we thought it was necessary for our babies to read. Really, what do people think they will achieve by having babies reading so early? We learn to read usually around 6 or 7 years old, sometimes earlier. Is there really an advantage to learning earlier? Honestly, I feel these products only feed on parents' beliefs that children are only educational experiments; that the parents' jobs are to fill their children's heads with as much information as possible. Children will be more successful in school and in life if we love our children and encourage our children to explore and learn, than if we simply "teach" our children.
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11-03-2010 @ 8:49PM
LMS said...Reading at 6 or 7? If only. Public school now have to have kids reading by 5! If a kid leaves kindergarten not being able to read they are below grade level and will require intervention. Kindergartners also need to know how to add and subtract by the time they get to first grade, or they are also behind in math. If only we could allow kids to progress at their own rate....but we can't, or the school will be labeled "failing".
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12-09-2010 @ 10:22PM
Brittany said...I wanted to buy this for my kids (ages 2 and 3) and recently I've been reading to them a lot, at least 10 books a day and as often as they want me to read to them. And I started to notice my son (age 3) point to words before I say it and say what it is. So my husband wrote the words down and my son would say them, so I agree that the your baby can read thing just teaches kids to memorize the letters in a certain order, which my son is doing all by himself without the program. He's doing it by following my finger as I read and just getting it. I think it's great, I'm not doing it on purpose just reading to them and they love it and apparently he's learning the same way without me having to spend $200 on a program. I say just read to your children it's the same as sitting them in front of a tv and computer following the your baby can read program!
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2-28-2011 @ 6:12PM
DIane Freedman, MS CCC-SLP said...Babies are not suppose to know how to read.
Diane Freedman, MS CCC SLP
Certified Speech Language Pathologist
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2-28-2011 @ 7:22PM
Diane Freedman MS CCC SLP said...earlychildhoodlanguagedevelopment.blogspot.com
Please see the attached links for information on childhood language development.
Reply
3-22-2011 @ 10:33AM
Brandy said...I could not afford "your baby can read" so I made index cards with words wrote with a black marker, I went through these cards over and over with my son whenever I had a chance, bath time, bedtime, at the park, in the car while waiting on his sister from school etc... My son has been reading since age 3 years old. He is know 5 years old and is an avid reader and reads on a 3rd grade level. "your baby can read" is just a concept an idea make your own, and it is up to YOU the parent to put the time into teaching your child to read NOT the program!!!!! If you put in the time, the child will learn to read. The earlier the better
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