“Your Baby Can Read” Costs Too Much
A mom friend told me about the “Your Baby Can Read” program and I was just wondering what you thought about it? It seems kind of sketchy to me…but at the same, I think, “Well, if I could teach my baby to read…wouldn’t that be something that would be good for her?” My daughter is 1 year old. Your candid thoughts and opinions would be appreciated. -Tina
Learning programs for infants and toddlers like “Your Baby Can Read” are aggressively marketed to new parents and appeal to our most sincere instincts – to do what is best for our children and give them every advantage in life. The children in the promotional videos look so happy to be reading words (words that some cannot even speak yet!), and their parents are so proud. We naturally wonder, “Those people are teaching their toddlers to read? Am I failing my child? Will she fall behind before she even starts kindergarten?”
Parents can relax. Early learning gimmicks have been recycled for years, yet not one has ever been scientifically proven to enhance a child’s learning abilities (or increase intelligence, for that matter.) The reality is that we harm our children when we control and push forward their development, rather than facilitating and letting it happen. Infants and toddlers need time to follow their natural curiosity and interests, which can only happen when they are engaged in uninterrupted, self-directed play. So, when we give a baby reading lessons — or any kind of instruction — that child pays a steep price. She is deprived of the vastly more important, age-appropriate activities that prepare a foundation for true reading comprehension and for the higher levels of brain function in the future.
We all are born with an innate desire to explore, experiment and discover. Babies will find cognitive learning opportunities in the simplest environments as they work to make sense of the world. They are eager to spend time imagining, reasoning, developing formulas and testing them. Why does the ball roll more quickly on the wooden floor than it does on the rug? What makes the clouds move? Does the plastic ring fit around this bottle top? These kinds of early experiences ignite the neural pathways that lead to a strong and active mind.
So, why are we so ready to interrupt and squander this time — this precious window of accelerated development in our child’s life — by showing him a flash card that directs him to clap like a performing seal? We are certainly not helping him to develop his intellectual potential, and the ‘head start’ we imagine will quickly disappear by second or third grade.
We need dreamers, big-picture thinkers and creative problem-solvers to inherit our world, not machines programmed to memorize and mimic.
Furthermore, while a program like “Your Baby Can Read“ may train a baby to recognize words, it cannot teach him to comprehend more than the most basic ones. A child is not ready to learn letters, numbers or words when he has not had the opportunity to build a sensory foundation for what these symbols represent. “Reading comprehension is built on mental networks formed throughout childhood from real experiences with the world,” writes educator and brain researcher Jane Healey, PH.D., in her book, Your Child’s Growing Mind.
The mechanics of reading are not difficult for the average child to learn when he is ready to do so. Reading comes easily, but only when the timing is right, and children who are naturally interested in reading at an early age will teach themselves. One of my three children became a self-taught reader when she was four years old. Her desire to read was a wildfire that could not be contained. She still loves books, creative writing and the literature camp she has chosen to attend the last three summers. Reading is one of her personal passions, not something she does because it pleases her parents.
And our babies are driven to please their caregivers. Their basic survival depends upon our acceptance of them. We should use this power wisely and not abuse it. When we teach a baby something he is not choosing to learn on his own, we put him on course to ignore intrinsic motivation in favor of performing for others — namely us. The child distances himself further and further from his unique goals and passions. We must give our child unconditional acceptance and respond with the same amount of approval for all her accomplishments, big and small, to encourage her continued authenticity.
“When we instruct children in academic subjects at too early an age, we miseducate them; we put them at risk for short-term stress and long-term personality damage for no useful purpose. There is no evidence that such early instruction has lasting benefits, and considerable evidence that it can do lasting harm,” warns Dr. David Elkind in Miseducation.
As I sadly watched the testimonials from parents on the “Your Baby Can Read” site, I couldn’t help but wonder about the videos I wasn’t seeing: the ones where the children suddenly wake up years later and realize that their entire lives have been motivated by the need to please loved ones.
Then there are the children who do not succeed with the “Your Baby Can Read” program. They have disappointed their parents and find no joy in learning. Instead of learning naturally and joyously through play, they equate education with tension and failure…and they are only 3 years old.
Lastly, and most tragically, a baby who reads because it makes his parents happy is receiving the message — in his most important, intimate relationships — that his value is based on performance and accomplishments. The children I observed in the “Your Baby Can Read” videos were ecstatically soaking up the positive attention they were getting for being precocious readers. They seemed thrilled by the pride their parents exhibited. Do these parents respond enthusiastically when the child paints with water on the driveway? Do they show pride when the child buries his feet in the sand? Do they enjoy him when he picks up a ladybug or splashes in a mud puddle? The child can only wonder if he would be as appreciated and loved if he did not perform for his parents. His mud pies and skinned knees might not be enough.
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14 Responses to ““Your Baby Can Read” Costs Too Much”
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Wow – what an amazing and beautiful post…thank you for such an articulate and thoughtful response. I totally agree with you.
What I saw working on individual base in families homes is that usually parents that “help” or use the “Your baby can read” approach, want to apply it to every aspect of the childs life, depriving the child of learning in their own way and on their own time. On the other hand the urgency to please their parent sometimes makes it very difficult for the child to know their own tastes and preferences.
It leaves the child with the mindset of, “can I make this as good as is expected,” creating a big insecurity in general.
Each child learns at their own rhythm, everybody has the right to explore, make mistakes and try.
It was by watching the skies that man got curious about the stars…
I was mightily amused see that the Google ad that popped up for this post was for “Your Baby Can Read!”
Great post and great blog! I plan to add a link to it from my new blog, “Moon Child,” which addresses similar topics from a similar perspective. (I am a Waldorf trained early childhood teacher.)
http://www.blog.bellalunatoys.com
Keep up the great work!
Hi Sarah,
HA! Yes, I think the at least half the people who link here from Google are only hoping to find out how much “Your Baby Can Read costs!”
Thanks for your compliments and for linking to me! Let’s get the word out that these ridiculous learning gimmicks are a waste of our children’s precious time. Children deserve so much better. Please keep me posted about your blog…I’d like to check it out.
-Janet
Janet, this is beautifully written again. I’m so enjoying your posts. And it’s fun to see some of my RIE and Waldorf friends here as well. Something I learned in one of my first child development courses was that the countries with the highest literacy rates were also the countries that delayed reading instruction the longest (age 7). Imagine in this country if ALL reading instruction were to cease until age 7. Plenty of companies would go out of business, and our children would share a collective sigh of relief.
Janet, I think that your post isn’t completely fair. I did teach my little one to read but it so happens that it only took a minute portion of his day. About 30 minutes to be exact. In fact, I only started the whole process because I hoped that it would be an avenue to help him with speech as he got older. I was informed that he had a bifid uvula and that it could affect his speech. So naturally I rattled my mind as to how to best prepare for and be ready to either be able to assess it early or address it myself. I refused to think about my son having surgery at 2 or 3 or 4 yrs old if there was anyway for me to help it. Somehow, between my concern for that and the fact that I knew many people(some quite affluent) whose children were struggling with reading in kinder and first grade, I decided to try the YBCR figuring it really couldn’t hurt. And it hasn’t. My son spends from 7am-9pm awake with a 1 hr nap in between. From the age of 16 months to 20 months he watched about 20 minutes of YBCR on my lap while I enunciated and played/sang along. Once done, we would lay in bed together (co-sleep still) and flash cards/ pictures for about 7 min, sing and say our prayers and sleep. We would also read books such as Dr Seuss Abc, other rhyme stuff and really early on he demonstrated a love of books. He was not into tearing pages etc. He was quickly moving on to recognizing letters and playing with words and sounds. He would go and play with the magnetic alphabet and bring me books. He can play on his own for countless hours if I let him (which is really helpful since I work from home) Also, he is extremely social- not stuck at my hip at all. We only did the YBCR for about 4 months- months less than was directed by the company since after the first 2 videos his rate of learning increased. Now we allow him to see about 30-45 min total of TV per day. I let him watch 1 super why episode and either team oomizoomi or sid the science kid, since each episode is only about 20 min long. He saw these at his cousin’s house and asked to see them and I didn’t feel that it would be terrible. I am not fond of most shows out there anyway. I rather read books to him. My little one has quite an imagination and spends most of his day talking out and play out his stories. Whenever we are in a group setting or at the playground he is the most verbal. (has some articulation issues but I believe its still common for his age 2.6months). His vocabulary and understanding and ability to express himself is ahead of those his age and is closer to that of a 4 year old than a 3 yr old. His reading ability is beyond what you call the few memorized words. In fact he has phonics ability, some I’m sure intuited from commonly seen words, but other practiced. He would often times see a new word in his reading and sound out and the more complicated stuff he would ask me and If you want to say he “memorized” sounds of letters or blends…well isn’t that the base of our entire language? I don’t feel that I have been pushy, in fact I feel that I spend very little time “instructing”. Most of what we do together is more like play and since my main concern from the beginning has been his speech, I find myself praising him often for improved clarity of his speech more so than reading or doing something right. Yes, I have alphabet bingo games, blend mat games, phonics building games (which we play together most times) etc but again because he has shown interest. Of course he also has many puzzles, train tables, trains , cars, instruments, workbench,kitchen,paint, easel, trampoline, four dogs and a fish etc. all of which he plays with at his leisure and with a lot of imagination and words. He is definitely well rounded and I find it a little disappointing that your comments sound like you are judging parents based on an all or nothing assessment. I am not so much proud as I am happy that my son has a passion for books, whether it’s me reading to him or him trying to take over on a particular page that he might favor. He is never forced to pick a book and bring it to me to read. He just so happens to love it and I’m sad to say, many parents of 1st graders nowadays ( that I know anyway) struggle with the lack of interest their children show in books, in fact it pains them to have to force reading homework onto their 6 or 7 year olds. Parents all have their own reasons for what they do and as long as the long term goal of providing a well rounded experience for their child is the main objective and it’s done soundly without “pressure” to perform, I really don’t see where there could be any long lasting harm. That would suggest emotional and psychological abuse which seems again a bit extreme and one sided. Oh and by the way, I love it and we always show enthusiasm when my son stomps in the puddles, gets mud pies all over, makes pretend he is writing his name in the sand with a stick , moonslides across the sandbox and creates a sand storm, lays on the floor and spends 10 minutes letting a ladybug crawl on him and looking at it with a magnifying glass while chit chatting to himself laughing, tells funny jokes, repeats funny comedic sounds or phrases, brings the banana and says that he wants to eat the crescent, retells stories that we’ve read and adds his own twist, paints unrecognizable splashes of corresponding colors and names them after his favorite engines, runs, slides and jumps at the bouncy place, puts the ball into funnels or goes “fishing” at the children’s museum, drowns us with stories about sea lions he just saw at the aquarium, etc….Just to point out..there is the other side of the argument. I didn’t mean to go on and on but I was trying to hurry through my side and good thing I have to hurry along now. I do like a lot of what I read and see in other posts here and like everything, I like to read different views and opinions and I like to take from them what I feel will work for me and I strongly believe that there is more than just one way to parent. We hopefully all want our children to be well rounded, happy, independent and loving individuals and we can all stive to do so whatever our means, while keeping in mind that we need to follow our child’s needs and not our own. Again. I respect your point of view but I just did not feel it was a fair assessment, therefore my run ons…Thanks again though for providing a site that has a lot of good information, some of which I agree with a lot and some maybe just a little…
Hi Sofia,
Thank you for telling your story! It sounds like you are a wise and sensitive mother and that you have nurtured your son’s obvious intelligence and also his imagination. I can only hope that other users of products like “Your Baby Can Read” would know to use such care and restaint. It is understandable that your son’s bifid uvula would make it even more difficult for you to trust his natural cognitive development.
The lesson from Magda Gerber that I am most grateful for is that we can trust all infants to be self-learners. This idea gave me so much relief! We don’t have to fill ‘blank spots’ in a baby’s brain. We don’t have to worry that we are not doing ‘enough’. Even in the most basic environment children seek out what they are ready to learn. If you haven’t read this POST about infant play, please do!
Lack of trust is the reason parents believe that a baby who is examining every inch of his hands needs adult interaction and entertainment. It is the reason we feel the need to “teach” a baby anything. We do not value what a baby does on his own, because until we really learn to observe, it doesn’t look like much. The danger is that, not only are we interrupting learning that is of value to the child, because he chooses it, we are also giving the child the message that we do not trust his choices. What he values is not what we value for him. It is not ‘enough.’
Infants and toddlers are extremely sensitive beings. They know when they are not entirely trusted to be the self-learners they can be.
I am reminded of a parent in one of my classes whose 1-year-old son’s weight is so low that the mother worries constantly about his eating. He is being tested for possible medical conditions, but in the meantime, he does not eat well with his mother, but he does eat a snack with me in class. The mother told me that he sits with his older sister to eat sometimes. I encouraged her to allow him to do this, and get some distance from him in the next room. When the mother removed her nervous presence while he ate, and let go of the situation a little, the boy started eating.
Our fears for our children, especially around learning, can create unnecessary expectation and stress in the relationship. Children have many years in school to be taught, and to “catch-up” if they lag in any skills. The first years are too sensitive and too important to interrupt with our well-meaning lessons. Infancy and toddlerhood are when self-confidence is developed. A child’s emotional development is far more important than walking, talking, reading or toilet training. Every normal person we know eventually does those things. And yet, we know many who lack emotional security and self-confidence. A parent’s trust is the key to that self-confidence.
Sofia, I appreciate and respect your opinion, and thank you for sharing here.
“An infant always learns. The less we interfere with the natural process of learning, the more we can observe how much infants learn all the time.”
–Magda Gerber
A very interesting post, Janet, thank you. This was exactly what I would say a year or two ago. I did not believe in early education and did not want to put too much educational pressure on my daughter. I wanted to follow her lead and to let her discover and explore through simple play and exposure. This never happened, however, as not all of us are born with innate desire to explore and experiment, as you write. Now at the age of 3.5, my daughter is severely speech and communication delayed and is possibly on the autistic spectrum. She has started a therapy, which as of today is the only research-proven method to help such kids (ABA). It is HEAVILY instructional and with quite a bit of tension at least initially. I never thought she would need this instruction, but, unfortunately, at this stage and under the circumstances this is the only chance of a “normal” life. And the earlier such intervention starts the better the outcome is.
She has made quite a bit of progress in a short time. I keep thinking that, perhaps, if instead of expecting her to learn naturally through play, I had put more pressure on my daughter earlier on with more instruction, she would be further down the road now?
I do agree entirely with your post and I think that most typically developing children will not need any additional instruction, this however, would not apply to all.
Hi Yuliya,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I truly appreciate your perspective. And I am sorry for the difficulties you are having to deal with, and how stressful this must be for your family. I am not an autism expert, but at the age of 3.5 I believe your daughter can still make substantial progress. I also believe that those 3 years of trust you had in her will pay off in the long run, for the healthy relationship they have fostered between the two of you. Continuing to allow your daughter lots of free play time will be therapeutic, and help her process the tension. She sounds like she is in very good hands to me.:)
Take good care, and please check in here again sometime. I would love to know how everything is going.
Thank you very much for your very kind words, Janet. I have taken a lot of useful information from your blog. Thank you for all the good work. I will definitely keep checking!
Hi Janet,
This post was very well written and informative! I must admit that I was sucked into the commercials while I was pregnant. I was already preparing to order it and ran it through my hubby but him being my other half immediately rejected it! I was of course upset at first because at the time I didn’t see “any harm” it would cause if my son did or did not do the program.
He, being the logical one in the family (as most men are), asked me why I need him to read at such a young age? Was it for my pride and something to brag about with other parents? Honestly, I think it was. Of course it’s every parents dream to have a “baby Einstein” or to excel in everything. Who wouldn’t want a baby who can read before their first birthday?
As I look back on it now, it’s true about everything he said. It’s not natural for babies to be learning how to “read” at such a young age. The YBCR program is basically teaching them how to walk before they can crawl. They do not have the basics of reading. They do not understand phonics which is the foundation to reading so how can they possibly read? I think it’s just like Pavlov’s dog and bell experiment…it’s conditioned learning. Your baby has to sit in front of the tv 1 hour everyday watching the same thing over and over again – of course he will recognize the words that are being shown on the tv. But can you hand him/her a book and read it from front to back?
Anyways, enough with my rant! This was a great post and I’ll be sure to show it to my hubby…guaranteed he’ll say “I told you so =]”.
Hi Sheryll,
You are a quick study, very wise and very honest, great qualities for a mom to have! It bodes well. Your hubby may have told you so, but he’s lucky to have you!
I used to feel that the kids in the YBCR commercial were the sort of pushed, grilled, drilled, overschooled child who was completely miserable in life. I knew one of them personally, and her mom most certainly did seem to be that type.
Then I met my son, Tristan. Rather, I watched his development. Damn, was my kid fussy. But he really liked this video, which we received from the aforementioned mom as a gift. He began to recognize it and get the biggest smile on his face when it was coming on. It’s kind of simple in concept, but it has music! And kids! So, for half an hour each day I would feed him one of the videos so that he’d allow me to put him down.
Fast forward a whole bunch to age 1.5 through now, age 2.75. Several things come to mind: autism diagnosis, language delay, first real labels being letters, first real words being ones he also knew by sight, now talking up a storm although still delayed in proper usage of language, learning words at an alarming rate because he trusts letters where he does not trust how he hears, pleased with HIMSELF when he reads and when he feels knowledgeable and confident.
This kid isn’t pushed, other than being in ABA therapy. His leisure time is filled with playgrounds and television, toys and snuggling.
Teaching a child to read at such a young age is, practically speaking, a waste of time for both the teacher (the parent) and the child. I am an advocate for early reading, but for a reason: So that the child can open new directions of self-learning and exploration in the form of books. For this to be viable, the child must be able to comprehend.
Memorizing words is not remotely close to comprehension, and time spent there is time taken away from other foundational learning that could be going on. It is inefficient to teach multiplication before addition, just as it is inefficient to teach reading before there is enough experience and context in the child’s brain to make use of it.
Four years old is plenty old enough to learn how to read and benefit from it, but I have trouble imagining that a 1 or 2 year old would be ahead by “knowing” how to read. At that young age they should be 100% occupied with learning coordination and other physical skills, drawing, acting, building, social skills, creativity, etc. They don’t need the world of books yet.