Your Baby Can Read!

So anyone that knows me pretty much knows that I'm a marketer's DREAM! Combine that fact with postpartum hormones, a dash of boredom then throw in a perfectly timed infomercial and you have a lethal combination!

Anyway, one day a couple of months ago I was channel surfing and saw Your Baby Can Read! Of course, I had to check it out since I had a new baby! It was so cool. I think the thing that made the biggest impression on me was a video of an 8 month old baby who couldn't talk, but as they would hold up word cards - she would touch her 'nose', start 'kicking', etc! She couldn't even talk, but she was reading the cards and doing something physical associated with the word!

The day care I chose does baby signing as part of their curriculum, so I was already all about this sort of thing before I got sucked into the infomercial!

Anyway, I had to tivo the infomercial so Kelly could see it later and he was all about it too! And it just so happens that his parents had asked a day or so before what they could get for Riley! So you see...it was meant to be! (I'm also good at rationalizing things! )

So about a week later, a box of dvds, books and flash cards arrive! The way I see it - it won't hurt anything to give it a whirl, and it gives Kelly and I 20 minutes morning and night which we usually use to eat breakfast and dinner. The only problem so far is that Kelly and I walk around ALL DAY singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in our heads!!! Seriously, it almost freaks me out like subliminal mind control because you CANNOT get it out of your head!!

But Riley LOVES it! As soon as the intro music starts to play, he gets this HUGE grin on his face like he used to get for his letters and immediately looks at the tv! Then he jabbers back and forth with the tv for the entire time! Along with getting excited and almost bouncing out of his bouncy seat during the songs. He LOVES the tigers too! And when I sing the same songs to him as on the video, he gets excited and smiles like it's something familiar he recognizes.

The theory behind the system is to use an interactive and multi-sensory approach to learning. When using the Your Baby Can Read system, children are allowed to see the words at the same time that they hear the words. Then they do something physical associated with the word. Since children learn language faster and easier during infancy than any other time, it takes advantage of this natural window of opportunity to teach the written language as well as spoken language. Sounds simple enough, and it makes sense. It's sort of the same concept as learning another language during this same time.

Rather than copying everything here - you can check it out yourself at http://www.yourbabycanread.com/

I'll keep you posted on how things progress. I could read by around the age of 3, and I still LOVE to read so I figure that's a gift that keeps on giving for the rest of Riley's life!