Infants are born with the ability to learn. In fact, they begin learning in the womb. As research continues in the area of child development, more information is being discovered about the infants brain structure and its development. Recently, claims have been made that infants can learn to read as early as 9 months of age. How the infants' brain develops, factors that can aid in infants learning to read, and why critics feel that this early learning can be harmful will be examined.
First, let's look at the infant's brain. The human brain is in an incomplete condition at birth. Networks of neurons (100 billion) have not connected into networks. The connections among neurons form as the child grows and experiences the world around him or her including bonding with parents, family members, and caregivers. "Scientists have learned that neurons for vision begin sending messages back and forth rapidly at 2 to 4 months of age, peaking in intensity at 8 months." (University of Maine, 2008) This is why babies are able to take notice of what is happening around them.
For centuries, infants were looked at as being adorable. That same view remains today. Although, we believe babies are adorable, we also believed that they were empty headed. There was really nothing going on in that brain. How wrong we were! It was felt that babies had not yet developed what constitutes the human brain. "Modern science has largely agreed, spending decades outlining all the things that babies could not do because their brains had yet to develop. They were unable to focus, delay gratification, or even express their desires." (Lehner.J, 2009)
Scientists, using new techniques and tools, have revealed that the baby brain is busy with activity. They learn an amazing amount of information in a short period of time and within a couple years they mastered crawling, walking, language, and the necessary motor skills.
An infant's environment has tremendous significance on how brain cells are wired to each other. It is intuitively understood that everyday interactions help a child to learn. "Infancy scholar Zeanah states that from the very first days of life infants demonstrate awareness of their environment and evidence of learning, confirming that different family experiences likely effect infant far earlier than once thought possible". (Vaughn)
Reading at an early age would have been unusual some years ago. Today children are reading before entering kindergarten. According to Jerrie Hewlett combine the fact that the brain synapses are forming at a remarkable rate. The emerging knowledge of language development means babies have the necessary tools in phonics for them to produce early reading. (Hewlett)
Infants under one year old can learn words in a decontextualized fashion.
"Given the importance of shared attention in early language learning, perhaps training facilitated mother's ability to point out and name objects for their children. Joint attention, perhaps as a secondary cue to word meaning, can potentiate word learning. One possibility is that repetitive training regime increased the amount of successful demonstration above a critical level." (Schafer, 2005)
Dr. Bob Titzer, founder and developer of Your Baby Can Read Learning Program, states that the current practice of starting to teach reading skills once a child starts school is too late. He states that the earlier a child learns to read, the better he or she will perform in school and later life.
Babies that have learned to read are shown a word and told what it says. Repeated exposure to seeing words gives babies the ability to learn to read. Babies have the capacity to memorize at birth. Show babies pictures of a cat and repeatedly being told this is cat, the child will know what it is. It is through this process of repetition and instruction that a baby will be able to identify a cat. Recent research reveals that the future academic success of babies depends on the amount of words they hear spoken to them before the age of two.
"The Hayes-Ahren study determined that there are 5,000 words that commonly used in everyday language. There are also 5,000 more everyday words that are used less often. These combine to form the 10,000 basic, most commonly used words. The way babies and children learn common words is through exposure to the written word. By reading to children they learn in context what these words mean and how to use them. (Guerrero)
However, interaction and repetition are still the most effective and successful way of teaching infants and toddlers to read. Critics of Dr. Titzer's Reading Program argue that constantly watching DVDs is not healthy for children. An article in The Daily Telegraph points out that Dr. Titzer states that virtually all babies can learn to read. (Staff Writer, 2009)
Lillian Katz, a professor of education at Illinois University states that teaching children to read and write at 5 years of age can dent their interest in books later." (Curtis, 2007)
"Children should not start formal learning until they are seven, according to a world expert in nursery education who will suggest today that reading and writing earlier can put them off for life. Curtis, 2(007)"
This argument I am not sure of because there isn't any longitudinal studies about babies reading early and the follow up later.
"A research team, lead by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis from the University of Washington, found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned 6 to 8 fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months of age, the age at which language skills are starting to form. The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew. These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos" (Park, 2009)
Therefore, it appears that more research is needed in this area. It is obvious that reading to children and providing visual stimuli encourages children to read. Infants at birth are hyperaware of the things going on around them and their brains are in the process of being wired. It does not hurt to read to infants and provide the stimulant they need to help them progress academically.
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