"my baby can read"

Just as Sillychick said it's not that the baby learns to read in the acctual mening - since it's all about pictures. Here in Sweden we call it "Ordbilder" word - pictures. They learn to recognice the word it self - not the letters it's made of and even if they would know the word HALL, they couldn't see what the word ALL is like tey would if they wre reading. I wouldn't buy a product like that - even if I use wrod pictures to my youngest when it comes to names - I've done that will all of my children. It doesn't help the real reading (I don't think so at least) my oldest did read early (before she was 4), the middle one started to read at 5,5 and she was more exposed to word pictures since she was in daycare.

I have not tried this, and I wouldn't use it. Nor would I recommend it to anyone. I am very skeptical about whether it works. And even if it does, let me ask you this-- why does a baby need to learn to read? They are very busy focusing on things like sitting up, crawling, walking, learning first words, dealing with separation anxiety and learning how to know who is a person they can trust and who is a stranger. They learn with their senses- by feeling, touching and tasting things. They have no need to be learning to read. I understand that literacy is important, and I do believe that reading to babies and toddlers is a good thing. I think that exposing them to the written word is good, sing the ABC song, teach them, as part of their their regular play. But to use flash cards to make them memorize what a word looks like and what it represents is completely inappropriate. This does not teach babies or children the meaning of the written word, they simply memorize what certain things look like. The reason this is inappropriate, and I can say with confidence that this program does nothing more than help children memorize, is because babies and toddlers can not think in terms of intangible concepts. They are concrete thinkers. That means if they can't see it, touch it, taste it and smell it, it doesn't exist, and they don't understand it. That's why it's so hard to teach things like time, so instead we use references, like 'after nap' to help them understand. Like I said, I do believe literacy is very important, but I don't believe teaching earlier is the answer. Did you know that in countries with the highest literacy rates they don't even begin to learn to read until the age of 6 or 7? The reason is, in part, that children's minds are not capable of thinking in such symbolic terms as is required by reading. Another reason is that pushing so hard so young turns children off and makes them think of it as work and they don't want to do it. Instead of trying to make children learn to read at a young age, we should try to plant the seed to make them love to read, and to appreciate it's value. One way to do that is to read books to them constantly on subjects they love. If your child loves animals, get lots of books about animals, go to the library and look at more books, show them some information online about animals. If they ask questions you don't know the answer to, tell them 'lets go look it up in a book' or online. Let them see you enjoying reading. Show them how things relate to them. For example, label things in your home, your child's bedroom door with his or her name, put his name on pictures he draws. Write a shopping list and ask him what you need, and let him see you write it down. Send a birthday card to grandma or someone special, and ask him what you should write on it, then let him see you write his words, then show it to him and read it back to him. These are just a few ideas of more age appropriate ways to expose your child to reading. For more, here is an article with more ideas. http://www.helium.com/items/308832-teaching-a-toddler-to-read