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[personal profile] electricland
Teaching infants to read

See, you may have thought that playing and reading together and simple toys and normal human interaction could provide all the stimulation your baby needs to grow and develop and learn language. But you were so, so wrong! So last millennium, and the millennium before that, and the millennium before that! However, there is hope. Thanks to the miracle of Science, and for only $59.95, you can now buy an interactive multi-sensory 5-DVD set that you can sit your baby in front of and teach it language during the optimum window for language development!

No, talking to your baby isn't going to work nearly as well. You are just the parents, and in fact you don't speak English nearly as well as you thought you could. Leave it to experts in child development who want your money!

Remember, act now, or your baby could grow up... stupid.

Date: 2006-05-12 02:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com
Meanwhile, all those interactive multisensory doodads actually have the effect of causing ADD in many small children, because it encourages them to shift their attention from one thing to the next to the next with a series of split-second stimuli at a time when their brains are still developing. But never mind. They'll be able to read six months before other kids! Possibly!

Date: 2006-05-12 04:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] electricland.livejournal.com
Hadn't heard that, but it makes some sense...

What kills me is that the children most at risk for not learning to read? So very not the kids whose parents will be buying this crap.

Date: 2006-05-12 09:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] simplystars.livejournal.com
What kills me is that the children most at risk for not learning to read? So very not the kids whose parents will be buying this crap.

Yup yup. And the sad fact is that most parents don't even know when they're depriving their children of reading-readiness experiences... I was sitting in the doctor's waiting room on Wednesday, and a little maybe three-year-old girl was bopping around, and noticed the footprints on the floor (to show where people should wait to ensure patient privacy at the registration window). And she asked her mom, what's that for?... and got nothing in response. At all.

Now granted, maybe mom was sick and just didn't feel like dealing, but in my experience the most significant factor cited by reading studies is parental interaction - TALKING to and with the child, reading with them. How much, and of what quality (ie, answering briefly versus answering with explanation, and asking questions, and pointing things out, etc) - so many parents just don't do that, because it wasn't like that when they were small. And so if their children go to preschool they're already socially behind, and more likely they will just be enrolled in kindergarten with the expectation that the school make up the deficit.

But in California, now, the standard is that students will be writing and reading complete sentences and doing basic addition. Students without a preschool or rich reading-readiness experience at home have so much farther to go that we're seeing huge surges in frustration and burnout, with related behavior issues. And these kids are five.

Date: 2006-05-12 02:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] monkeycommando.livejournal.com

"Remember, act now, or your baby could grow up... stupid."

You know, in my experience, most babies are already pretty stupid to begin with.

Date: 2006-05-12 02:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] electricland.livejournal.com
Ah, but only to your normal adult perceptions!

Speaking of which, I haven't seen your baby (or you or S) in ages! Any chance of seeing you this weekend?

Ummm...

Date: 2006-05-12 05:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bryghtboy.livejournal.com
I would never say that parents should skimp on spending time with their kids and let a DVD teach their kids much of anything. However, the thought of 40% of eight year olds being unable to read on their own I find a little bit frightening, so maybe a slightly different approach might be worth while?

That approach could something like, I dunno universal daycare and the parents are encouraged to do reading "homework" assignments with their kids? Although, I know that testing methods on kids that young tend to be very skewed towards certain kinds of learning... so maybe it isn't all that high and the testing is homing in on the kids inablity to take tests?

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