Excerpt from "Reading
Babies"
By
Danielle Dobbs
The brain is a magical container
that defies the laws of physics - the more you pour into it,
the more it grows! The plasticity of the brain is directly
related to its chronological age and the amount of stimulation
it receives. The younger the child, the easier it is for the
brain to meet the demands placed upon it. It is said that most
of our learning is done within the first few years of life
- by age three the circuitry of the brain is almost finished.
Anything having to do with
languages seems to be an inborn ability, which includes learning
to communicate in one or more languages, whether audible, or
visible (sign language), and learning to read. It is during
the early years that these tasks are best accomplished, when
learning is pure fun!
As parents, we have big dreams
for our children. After good health, our main goal is to ensure
that they grow up to be happy and successful. We have a responsibility
to help our children reach their full potential and take advantage
of built in timing when everything is learned the easy way
without the slightest effort. In so doing, our children will
be given a brilliant start in life.
Teaching your baby to read
is an act of love, because, unless you make a conscious effort
to expose him to the printed word, he will not accomplish this
task by himself. The techniques and material used to teach
your baby to read are actually quite simple. However, it is
your devotion to reading him stories and the interest you show
that is of utmost importance in helping him develop a love
for reading. With reading comes knowledge and with knowledge
comes imagination.
Teaching him a second language
will give him an edge in our competitive world while helping
him develop respect and tolerance for other cultures. Your
baby will easily learn to read and learn a second language
because these activities are best acquired during the baby
stage.
I have devoted a great portion
of my book to giving tips for helping you meet the physical
and psychological needs of your baby. Of all the many things
you can give your baby, your time is the most precious. Talking
to and listening to your baby will create a bond of friendship
that will still endure during the teenage years and beyond.
Confidence, good self-concept, a sense of security, a sense
of fairness, a good sense of humor, and a love for the arts
are traits worth nurturing in your child because all these
will make him a well-rounded and well-adjusted person.
I have written Reading Babies
because of my belief that every infant is endowed with an unlimited
and magical learning potential. My intention is to share with
you my success story about teaching our daughter to read while
she was a baby and the ease with which she learned a second
language, so that you too can help your child achieve his own
learning potential.
Our daughter learned to read
many words before she was able to speak. At one year old, she
could read well over one hundred words printed on large flash
cards while she was able to say only about 20 of these words.
My husband and I read to her several books daily. Our motivation
was to tell her enchanting stories. We did not concentrate
on "teaching" her to read. Instead, we read her stories.
Exposing her to words using flash cards from the time she was
born gave her the idea that words were representations of real
things, and printed words created stories. In so doing, she
developed a true passion for reading. She had many toys but
reading stories was her favorite activity.
At one year old, I decided
to find out how much she could read by using a "guessing
game" that I devised. We were amazed when, her bottle
in hand, she walked through the 100 plus cards strewn on the
floor of the living room picking out correctly any word I asked
her. This is how we knew she could read. Besides using large
flash cards, I had also labeled things around the house with
3x5 cards because of my conviction that babies can learn to
read by association.
We never asked her to read,
and it is only by chance that we learned that, at three years
of age, she could fluently read entire books. One night, as
usual, she carried a pile of books to bed that we had borrowed
from the library a few hours before. Since I was sick with
fever I told her I would read only one book. After finishing
the book I reminded her that, as always, I would read her many
books the next day. After her plea did not change my mind,
she picked up the next (new) book from the top of the pile
and read, out loud, the entire book. Her attitude seemed to
say "See, I don't need you, I can do it by myself!" My
fever magically disappeared as I called my husband to witness
the event. Amazingly, as her little finger glided on the page,
her reading was fluent with the right voice inflection.
Soon after, she started taking
Suzuki violin lessons, but she did not like to practice. So
I devised a game, which I called "Treasure Hunt." I
hid either a cookie or a candy somewhere in the house. I wrote
a set of instructions on a piece of paper and handed it to
her after she finished practicing her violin. Her reward was
to go on a treasure hunt and find the "loot." This
rewarding game worked like magic - she practiced her violin
with anticipation of her reward.
One night, I found out how
much this game meant to her. While she was practicing, I was
preparing our luggage to leave the next day for France to visit
my father. Since I had so much to do, I handed her a cookie
after she had finished practicing her violin and praised her
for how well she did. She burst out crying in disappointment, "Oh
no, Maman, the treasure hunt!" You can imagine how bad
I felt. I, of course, had to oblige and devise another set
of instructions and hide the cookie.
At 4 years old, while on a
trip to France to visit my father, she amazed us once again.
She was bilingual, English-French, but she only had a few French
books at home, and she read mostly books in English. I told
her that night that I would be reading the French books we
had borrowed a few days before from the library. I had been
so busy with my father that I had failed to read these books
to her. She answered that she had read them. I said (in French) "You
mean you looked at the pictures?" She replied (as a matter
of fact, as if it was no big deal) "No, I've read them." We
gave her the books and asked her to show us. She read them
fluently! Her love of reading had motivated her to decipher
the French text all by herself, and there is no telling how
long she had been able to read in French.
Her case is not unusual. Many
babies achieve the same results given the same opportunity
we gave our daughter. The idea of teaching babies to read does
not seem so far-fetched when one considers that ALL babies
learn to talk within the first few years of life and this is
far more difficult than having to recognize some words that
spring out of books in enchanting stories.
TIMING IS CRUCIAL IN CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
