African American

with this, I'd be more enthusiastic.

The most important thing isn't how early a child learns to read, but how enthusiastic they become about reading. My son who didn't read as early as the others is also the only one who really fell in love with reading.

There is a difference between teaching a baby to make certain sounds (words) when they see certain combinations of printed shapes (letters) versus teaching them to really understand what those sounds mean. I think most babies are better off if they spend a lot of time on a parent's lap, helping to turn the pages while picture books are read to them. Once they have heard the book a number of times, the parent can pause and let the child complete a sentence. Learning words in context, and in sentences, is more meaningful than learning to repeat the words on flash cards.

https://www.popsci.com/blog-network/kinderlab/no-you-can%E2%80%99t-teach-your-baby-read

Susan Neuman, a professor of early childhood and literacy education at New York University, says she was contacted a few years ago to be expert witness for an industry group proposing benefits of baby media. She told them that the question of babies reading hadn’t actually been answered by scientific data – and then she set out to study it herself. Her research up to then had focused on high-poverty kids. “If it were true [that infants could be taught to read] then given these kinds of these materials to poor kids would give them a leg up before they go to school,” says Neuman.

Neuman and her colleagues took 117 babies aged 10 to 18 months. Half the group use flashcards, DVDs and books from the Your Baby Can Read system, while half did not. In 13 of 14 assessments, which included the ability to recognize letter names, letter sounds and vocabulary, the researchers found no difference between the groups. The lack of difference between the groups surprised even Neuman. “We did not think that their claims that babies can read was going to be justified -- but we did expect some precursors to literacy (like phoneme awareness) to be affected,” she says.

SNIP

Later in life, some exposure to flash cards and media can actually help kids. The trick is that it has to come when kids learn to link symbolic representation with sounds or concepts. Neuman urges caution to parents who are eager to get their kids learning and reading. “Much of what is out is put together for children’s excitement and motivation, and lacks a lot of intentional good use, so be wary.”

Instead of plopping down with baby in front of a screen, the study authors suggest other activities – adult-child language interaction, reading books, play, and joint activity – which have been shown to have an impact on cognitive development, early reading skills, and in the long run, reading performance.