My 22 month ancient son is content with looking and pointing out objects in his books

There is nothing incorrect with trying to give your child everything you can, but some things are more vital than others. There is no point to a baby reading at 15 months. And since most children develop at different rates early on, these kids will probably average out when they reach school.

There is more to reading that placing word to picture/action. I’ve seen these products, and they seem to be nothing more than memorization disguised as reading. Young children’s brains are geared to memorize, but a right genius is someone that can take the information they receive, and give you more.

Here is an except from an article on child genius’s:

“Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck, who studies child development, says memorization is not a sign of genius.”Children come wired to make these associations to learn,” Dweck said…

Dweck cautioned though that “it’s not what you would call a prodigy. A prodigy is someone who has a deep precocious understanding of something — of numbers, words, music. They reckon in new ways, invent things.”

Therefore a 15 month ancient that can “read” is not a genius, or any smarter than one that cannot(simply b/c of the reading). The same goes for a 4 year ancient that can read Lord of the Flies. A genius is the 4 year ancient that can read as well as tell you what Golding was saying with his use of symbolism.

Babies reading is just a gimmick. Parents want geniuses, and will pay anything for it. Its the same for people that want to lose weight, they’ll try the most absurd gimmicks.

Guess what? You can do the same thing at home. You want your kids to delight in reading? Do what my mom did, I Like reading and intend to do the same for my children. She read to me, she talked to me and sung to me when I was small, she would walk around the house when I was fussy pointing to objects and saying their name. She would pick up blocks and say the colors. She would count objects in a row. I was reading at 4. No it’s not 2, no it’s not 8 months. It’s 4 though and I am still reading to this day.

I reckon it is vital that children are well rounded. The focusing on playing piano etc. is silly. But reading is different. It is a language. Just like math and verbal communication is. I see nothing incorrect with emphasizing those so long as all the other bases are covered as well.

The earliest I heard about was an 18 month ancient who could read. She could read books on a 4rth grade level. Both of her parents had PhD’s in linguistics though. She could read and comprehend the books at just 18 months ancient. She was tested on this ability using that day’s newspaper by the anchor woman on national TV… so yeah, some babies can do it!