Mouprise.com

Babies who read and love

As a debate continues among educators about the best time to teach children to read, young babies are proving time and again that they not only know how to read, they love to do it.

Felicity Wong is a good example. A YouTube video shows her reading more than a dozen words just two days after her first birthday. As her father writes and erases the words on a magnetic notepad, the little girl gestures to indicate the meaning of each word in turn, even saying a couple of them out loud.

Felicity is now two and a half years old. Recent videos show her reading her Thomas the Tank Engine book by herself at two years and four months and her Cinderella book at two years and five months, both cover to cover. When Felicity’s father, KL, offers to read her a book, the response she receives is invariably passionate: “No! I want to read it myself.”

Mother Elaine notes, “Felicity has developed a great love of reading. In fact, she prefers books to her toys!” As for the lessons themselves, KL says: “The biggest myth about teaching babies to read is that you have to force them in some way. In fact, babies love to read and the lessons are a great source of bonding. between parents and children. “

KL and Elaine believe that their daughter’s affinity for books is a natural consequence of early and consistent exposure to the written word. Using flashcards, Felicity’s parents began introducing her to a variety of words from the age of 4 months. The flashcards allow babies to easily learn to recognize words, but of course they do not teach them the meaning of the words.

At first, Felicity was very focused on the cards. But as time passed, his attention began to turn to other things, especially as he became more and more mobile. Because KL and Elaine only gave Felicity lessons when she was receptive, and they always stopped before she wanted to, these lessons soon became shorter and less frequent.

Then when Felicity was 9 months old, KL and Elaine began showing their multi-sensory DVDs that taught the meaning of words alongside the words themselves. The dedicated parents also began to produce sets of words in the form of books and even computer programs, accompanied by photographs taken by themselves. In addition to enjoying DVDs, Felicity loved books and software so much that it was not unusual for her to ask to view five sets of words in a row.

At 11 months, Felicity began to demonstrate knowledge of the meaning of words and even to read some words aloud. Eager to share this news and encourage other parents to teach their babies to read, KL and Elaine filmed Felicity reading twice at the age of 12 months.

A common objection to babies who read is that they parrot meaningless words. However, in these two videos of Felicity, we see a baby clearly demonstrating knowledge of the meaning of many words. In the first video, Felicity speaks 2 words aloud and gestures to indicate the meanings of 12 others. In the second video, she reads 11 words aloud (including 2 in Chinese) and gestures with the meaning of 5 words.

As Felicity’s videos show at two years and four months, and at two years and five months, it was only a small step from here to be able to read her favorite books on her own. KL and Elaine feel they have given their daughter the gift of a lifelong love of reading. And while they continue to be amazed at Felicity’s progress, they also believe that all parents can achieve something similar with their own child, provided they start teaching early enough.