Opinions on Teaching Babies with Flash Cards

J.- We did flashcards with my son from about 5 months to 2 years. He loved them! He spoke early and he speaks very clearly now for a 4 year old(from what I've been told). We did a lot of animal flashcards, and he has grown quite an interest in animals and can name specific types of dogs, cats, etc; I wouldn't swear by them, but they are a lot of fun, and seem to peek the interest in learning at an early age. Good luck!

Our philosophy with trying new things is that it doesn't hurt to give it a try. With our first child, we would present things to her and if she picked it up, we'd keep going. If not, we'd do something else. Numbers, letters, colors, shapes, animals, Spanish, etc... We were never very formal about it though. I just presented things in the course of our day using more tactile methods (counting M&Ms was a fun lesson!). However, I have to say that I haven't done nearly as much structured (or even unstructured!) teaching with my second child and somehow he has still picked all those things up at about the same time frame as his sister did. As far as early literacy, we read books about 3 times a day, point out signs on the road, words on cereal boxes in the grocery store, let them push buttons on the keyboard (open a blank Word document and use 72pt font), and click around at www.starfall.com

All that to say give it a try and see what happens!

I read that book when my kids were about 12 months old (they're 3 now). I found it was very time consuming making all the cards. But then again I was a new Mom (we had just adopted them 2 months before at 10 months old) to 2 babies so everything was overwhelming for me at that point. I did make about 40 cards though. Although after a while my kids either wouldn't pay attention to the cards anymore or they would look for other things to do. I was having really having to keep them focused to look at the cards. So it didn't really seem to be something they were interested in. Since kids learn so much, so fast at that age I think they were getting bored with it very quickly. And it was disappointing after all I had put into making the cards. My Mom even cut almost 300 cardboards out for me. And I didn't even end up using them.
I agree that if this truly worked it would be standard by now.
A.

I would second your sister's advice. I make everything around the house a game and my Daughter who is almost 29 months is able to identify most of the alphabet, and recognize 1-10 and can count to 14 in 2 different languages, knows colors and shapes and can talk in full sentences. She can also tell you her address, name, both my name and husbands name and can spell about 4 words. I do use flash cards with her - the baby einstein collection - and she knew almost all of the 3 sets by the time she was 2. I talk to her all the time and ask her lots of questions which forces her to think. Repetition is the key and this is what children learn best with. I sit with her and play with her toys with her and we talk about colors, shapes. I make it where she thinks she is in charge of the game and folow her lead. If she decides to go to another game, I follow her and never make her play with something she does not like. When you are in the car, talk about things you see outside, flags, trees, trucks - make them aware of the surroundings. Play kids songs in the house and in the car and sing along with them. If you have fun - your child will have fun. You can never start too early or too late.

R.

Save your money.

I was listening to the local NPR program (Talk) the other day. They had the author of the book -- the Power of Play. In France, they begin to teach reading in preschool. In most Scandinavian countries they don't start teaching until the children are about 6. France has a reading problem with about 30% of their kids. Scandinavia has no literacy problems. The lesson? Children will read when they're ready. The author contends that teaching children these things before they are developmentally ready is a big mistake and can actually hinder them down the road. There's another book called, Einstein didn't use Flash Cards (or something like that) that might be interesting too.

I've seen the videos they have on their website showing a child who can "read". I don't know, I think that again, this is fear tactic marketing at work. If you don't get your toddler to read, how will she compete in pre-K?? I have a friend who's 7 yr old is autistic. He reads, but what does that mean? He doesn't really understand one word of any of it. I would think that this type of reading is the similar to what they're promoting.

If you want your child to have a good start and best chance academically, turn off your tv. Read to your child. Take him for walks outside and talk about what you see. Let him play with his toys and discover things on his own imho. There's a lot of debate over it all I realize; however, you have to ask yourself -- did Bill Gate's parents use flash cards? Did Thomas Jefferson's parents use Baby Einstein? My point being, no they didn't and there isn't a shred of evidence that any of these things work.

A while back, a Canadian news show did an interview with one of the Baby Einstein execs that shows, in my mind, that they're just trying to take your $$. It's probably still on the web too. We parents are a good target for these companies. We want the best for our kids so we'll seek this stuff out.

I read the same book, and began making and showing my daughter flash cards when she was 5 months old. She enjoyed touching the cards and hearing me say the words, but at 5 months old, it was hard to tell if she was reading. When she was 7 months old, she started pointing out words in recognition whenever she would she them in a book or elsewhere - just like PICTURES. I started her on her ABCs and her 123s around 5 months old, and she is now 1. She recognizes her 123s and most of her alphabets, as well. She's also speaking phrases randomly. I think the key is repetition and spending time with your baby. They'll pick up whatever they think you make a big deal of - so if you make a big deal of learning the ABCs, they will think it is something worth learning, too. By-the-way, not all babies respond the same to the same teaching style so that may explain the discrepancies.

I just finished reading Glenn Doman's book and am in the process of making the cards, so I don't know yet how well it's going to work, but my daughter just loves to read books with me and is always bringing them to me and loves her sign language, so I figured that anything else that she could learn would be good. The cards seem HUGE after you get them made, but since this is what was advised, I am making them 3" red letters. I cheated and bought sticker paper and printed out the words and stuck them to poster board so that I didn't have to write out all the cards (faster... plus they are very uniform that way).

I think that anything the kids enjoy doing is great. I think that if my daughter doesn't seem interested, then we might not do it for long, but it's worth a shot. I know that these little minds are capable of soaking up a lot.

Just for reference, my daughter will be 16mo at the end of the month and we've been doing sign language with her (got her a class in it at 10mo) and she uses over 40 signs now and has recently been making "sign sentences" where she is combining signs to express what she wants instead of just using a single sign to mean "I want that", so I think she's ready for something more now.

Btw, I'm in Carrollton, too! I don't know anyone else who is using the reading plan, so I'd be interested to know if you try it, too. Feel free to check back and see how we're doing at it...

I started flashcards with my daughter right after her first birthday. I only did the flashcards when she wanted to....as she got better with them, she would bring them to me because she wanted to do them. I can't think there is anything wrong with doing this as long as it is fun mommy/baby time.