Oh man! That’s a scary way to think! If the kid doesn’t hear language, he’s never going to learn! Poor kid!
Wow! That’s amazing!
1 Like
Well, it wasn’t just memorization – the idea was traditionally, it was useful for scientists to learn to read German because a lot of journals (particularly in chemistry) were published in it. So courses were created where students learned the basics of German grammar and vocabulary and then showed that they could read scientific papers in the language. But this was already somewhat outdated when I took it in the early 1990s, as even most scientific journals published in Germany had given in and had started publishing in English.
I derive them from first principles every time. Takes a while with state capitals.
1 Like
Also, why is no one talking about how CUTE that baby is when he yells out the words!
3 Likes
We still do that in the humanities… whichever language for reading. For history, we’re supposed to have 2. You have a reader where you learn basic grammar as you go along, and by the end of the semester, you’re supposed to know how to translate in the language at a decently proficient level, so you can build on that. But that’s starting to go by the wayside unless one is doing a project that involves other langauges heavily (you can opt out if you’re an American historian by taking another, comparable “skill” - GIS or a grad class in another discipline).
Feh. I like to practice reading, out loud, English language newspapers backwards.
Comprehension is for saps!
1 Like
I had a babysitter for my daughter who was a very nice lady who homeschooled her children. She was very religious - the kind of person who celebrated “Jesus’s birthday” instead of Christmas. She was very proud that her daughter at age 4 was reading, which seemed a little odd to me. Not odd that she was reading but odd that she was working on that as a skill with with her daughter. So I talked to some people about what she was doing, including my sister who has a degree in early childhood education and used to teach first grade mostly, and what I heard was that, yep, you can get a kid to read early, but it doesn’t seem to have much long lasting benefit to them. A kid’s general interest in reading over their lifetime isn’t very predicted by early reading, and it doesn’t give them any leg up in the short run. It’s kind of a parlor trick. I was told to just let my kid learn to read at her own speed.
She actually read a little late but then she made up for it - by third grade she was reading at an adult level and we ran out of material for her to read that was at her reading level but also at her emotional level. That’s when she started reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories.
My 4-year-old son is in pre-K, and is thrilled by being able to recognize letters and numbers. Sometimes he gets entire words (he was able to figure out “MAX” on the boat in Where the Wild Things Are last night. The thrill almost kept him up longer).
2 Likes
It’s so much fun when they start reading!!
Starting the Sun at the footy pages and working backwards? 
1 Like
More like: “sdrawkcab gnikrow dna segap ytoof eht ta nuS eht gnitratS”
1 Like
He is 16 1/2 months old now (3-13-2010) and he learned all the words in the Your Baby Can Read program a few months ago.
Yet he’s still living in Mom and Dad’s basement without a job. So what’s the point?
4 Likes
1 Like
It’s some kind of rhyming parlour trick. Notice how he fails miserably with ‘orange’.
what they were really in it for is the derision of a disinterested party.
Ain’t no party like a disinterested party!
1 Like
a 250 word vocabulary and the morality of a toddler? Perfect opportunity to introduce baby to Ayn Rand.
3 Likes
I like to practice reading upside down from a newspaper when a friend opposite me is reading at the table. Not easy, I’m up to about half-speed of regular reading now.
Yeah, I’m too cheap to buy my own.
1 Like
I’m really good at reading upside down from lots of bollockings at school and various awful office jobs. It’s a useful skill.
Did they hang you by your ankles?
1 Like
Only at boarding school and call centres.
1 Like
