On this website you'll find a host of information about early reading, and the scientific research that supports it. Children who learn to read as babies experience long-term gains in reading ability, overall academic achievement, as well as many other spheres of life. What's more, the ability to read is a gateway to all the knowledge there is in the world.
Misconceptions about early reading abound. Oftentimes, people just aren't familiar with the concept of babies reading. Parents and teachers may be uncomfortable with young children reading because it seems to threaten the natural order of things (which is actually the established order - a crucial difference). Other parents may feel that they did not do enough with their own child, and so resent the early progress you make with yours. Teachers may be reluctant to change their way of working, or to adapt to suit the needs of the minority - that is, children who can read by the time they start school.
If you are skeptical about early reading, then this is the page for you. This is also the page for you if you are teaching your baby or young child to read and have to deal with the skepticism or outright criticism of friends, relatives and teachers.
Myth 1: Babies can't read!
Not many people know that babies are capable of learning to read whole words by or around the age of one. That's why we have a Baby Reading Videos page on BrillBaby. You can also do a search on YouTube to see videos of babies under the age of two reading.
Of course, you may have seen the videos and be wondering how it has suddenly become possible to teach babies to read. You may be wondering what people had to subject these babies to in order to get them to read. In fact, it has always been possible to teach babies to read; it's just that the view of the establishment is that we should wait until age five or six to begin teaching reading.
To teach a baby to read, the only thing necessary is to regularly show him or her single words in a large font (preferably accompanied by illustrations of the words' meanings). For more on how to teach babies to read, go to the reading section of BrillBaby.
Myth 2: Recognizing a word without phonics is not really reading!
Seeing isn't always believing. Some people are so sure that babies can't read that their response to a baby reading is: "That's not reading!"
How so? Well, teaching your preverbal baby to read means that you will not be teaching phonics - the sounds of individual letters - but rather whole words. And this means that your baby will only learn to recognize whole words. In other words, your preverbal baby will only be able to read words that she has seen before.
At first, this may seem a compelling reason for dismissing a baby's reading ability. But have you ever wondered how we all learned to read? The truth is that almost everyone learns to read their first words by sight, or as whole words. The first words that a child reads are invariably words that he already knows - whether he is two, four or six years old. Of course, if you are teaching your child a character-based language such as Chinese, then recognizing whole words at sight is the only type of reading there is.
Learning to read is a gradual process. In the case of alphabet-based languages, the learner progresses from sight-reading to phonetic reading (being able to sound out the individual letters in a word), to the final stage - phonemic reading (being able to understand that letters can be pronounced differently depending on their context).
Children who learn to read whole words as babies often become phonetic readers before their third birthday - around two years earlier than average. As a result, they are invariably reading phonemically - at several grade levels above their age - before starting first grade.
There is controversy surrounding whether or not children should be taught to read whole words at all - to learn more, go to Whole Language Vs Phonics. While BrillBaby recommends teaching whole words to babies, it is also vital that children get to grips with phonics from an early age.
Phonics can be taught as soon as your child is able to vocalize letter sounds (roughly between age 18 months and two years). Some children who are taught whole words as babies are able to intuit the rules of phonics, and so do not require teaching. This is the similar to the way in which children learning their mother tongue intuit the rules of grammar without being taught.
Myth 3: Teaching a baby to read is putting too much pressure on her at such a young age!
Some people, when they hear that a baby is being taught to read, imagine the baby being subjected to the kind of reading lessons they were subjected to in school. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth - because besides the fact that it would be developmentally inappropriate to give a baby the kind of reading lessons given in school, it would also be impossible to teach a baby to read that way.
The way to teach a baby to read is to make it fun, to make a game, and to do it often. Done that way, learning to read is something the baby looks forward to in the same way that he looks forward to his other favorite games. Once the child is old enough, he will start asking for - or even demanding - his reading lessons. There have even been cases of children crying because their parents had to stop a lesson. (BrillBaby's former editor, Maddy, reports that her daughter's first two-syllable word - at age 11 months - was "reading"! From 10 months, Naimah was having her reading lessons once a day; by 15 months this had turned into two or three times per day - thanks to the regular reminders! At 16 months, Maddy managed to film Naimah reading.)
So rather than picturing a "baby classroom" with its poor student being schooled before her time, instead know that babies love learning to read. Babies learn everything through repetition: as long as you teach reading in a fun way, your child will want more. Of course, it's quite right for parents to be wary about whether their baby will enjoy learning to read - no parent wants to risk putting their child off reading. By following the golden rule of teaching babies, you can effectively ensure that this never happens. The golden rule is:
Only teach your baby when your baby wants to learn.
If your baby is not completely happy either before or during a reading lesson, then stop at once. If that means you don't do a lesson at all that day, then fine. The goal here is not to teach your child to read within a certain timeframe. Instead, your main aims should be:
- To provide your child with mental stimulation.
- To give your child the opportunity to learn to read at the time when it is easiest (i.e. in the first few years of life).
- To bond with your child and have fun learning to read.
In our society, reading is considered a difficult skill to master. Why else would we need to wait until we are five or six to even begin tackling it? Because reading is considered difficult, most people think that the only way a young child can learn to read is if she is somehow forced into it.
In fact, research has shown that it is easier for children to learn to read before starting school than it is to wait until first grade. One reason for this is that the younger a child is, the easier it is for him to learn languages. This naturally gifted state of very early childhood can be extended to the written language with just a little help from parents.
The first few years of life are the easiest time to learn to read on an emotional level, too. That's because children at school are bombarded with distractions. As a child builds her social networks, and develops friendships and hobbies, it may be natural for schoolwork to become one of her lowest priorities. Teaching your child to read before first grade effectively frees her from the burden of having to learn reading on top of all the other new challenges she will face at ages five and six.
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