Claire doesn’t watch a lot of television, but when she does she watches Qubo. Mostly because it doesn’t push toys, sugar-y cereals and snacks laden with high fructose corn syrup every commercial break. That’s not a judge-y mom statement, that’s an “I’m lazy and don’t feel like hearing any whining while in the grocery store” statement. The commercials they do have though are clearly aimed at the parents, and it seems like the one aired most often is “Your Baby Can Read”.
Let’s get one thing clear: I hate “Your Baby Can Read”. It does not teach your child to read, it teaches your child to memorize. Whole language reading means memorizing words and phrases as a whole, unlike phonics, which assigns sounds to letters and letter groupings to create words. I’m sure there are people out there who believe in whole language and will probably get all butt hurt about what I have to say about it. Tough.
The word “phonic” is based on Phoenician (which is why I hate that silly joke, “Why isn’t phonic spelled phonically?”), as in the Phoenician alphabet. Phoenicians were traders in the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC and their abjad (characters assigned to consonants but not vowels) alphabet was the basis for the Greek alphabet and that lead to the Latin alphabet. See where we’re going here? Spoken English is based on the English alphabet, and the alphabetic principle tells us letters and combinations of letters are assigned sounds. Those sounds form words. Phonics is the teaching of those letters and combinations and their sounds so that they can be read aloud.
I compare whole language to teaching a child what a building looks like, and phonics is teaching a child how the blocks work and allowing them build any building they want. Whole language proponents argue that people recognize familiar words as a whole and thus should be taught words as a whole from the beginning. That’s all well and good when we’re talking about familiar words, but what about unfamiliar words? If you teach your child the phonics of the English language they can easily “sound out” unfamiliar words. Again whole language proponents say that learning phonics is boring and the memorization is tedious, but learning whole words at a time requires rote memorization as well. It may seem easier just because it’s usually done by reading books and stories repeatedly. Which is one thing I do agree with, reading to your kids as much and as often as possible.
I may disagree with teaching a child to learn an entire language by memorization, but I don’t hate everything about whole language and I agree that some aspects of it can definitely be useful and the whole program may be helpful for older, more experienced readers. I just really, really disagree with beginning literacy with memorization. They need a solid foundation of knowledge that allows them to expand on their own, and phonics offers that.
Beyond the whole whole word memorization issue with “Your Baby Can Read” is the simple fact that maybe your baby shouldn’t be reading. I know we all want what’s best for our child and something that promises to give them an edge in a very competitive world is extremely tempting, but there is no reseach proving early learning helps your child down the road. Many in the education field feel it can actually hinder them.
Let your babies play and have fun and run around and be babies. I am seriously addicted to the Play at Home blog. I also follow them on Facebook and every time I log on and see a post I just have to log off and go play with Claire and Logan. Babies don’t need formal education, all of that brain activity the “Your Baby Can Read” program talks about taking advantage of is there whether you have them sitting in front of a television with a DVD flashing words repeatedly or they’re playing and learning on their own in their own way.
Ramblings
We’ve been back from the beach for a week and I’m already ready to go back. The ocean was freezing cold but that was excellent considering the heat index was around 115°. I swore up and down I’d make sure at least one picture of me was taken this vacation, and I thought it was. A great shot of Claire and me in front of the ocean on Saturday just before we left . I should have been suspicious when Andrew seemed to be taking his time, actually bothering to look through the viewfinder and fiddle around with the zoom. When we got back home I went through my camera to find that Andrew had taken a picture of my boobs. Rage face >:O
Here are some of the others that aren’t terribly inappropriate.
