A Major Pause

I have clearly neglected this blog for a long time for no good reason.

I attended the first course and very much enjoyed it. I felt SO enthused about it...SO ready to do it all...but in fact I didn't do much about it except tell everyone about it. :( Maybe overwhelmed with where to start? I did buy some materials-was excited about starting the physical program and the BITS of Intelligence-seemed like easy baby steps. But I did not...

In short, my daughter wasn't that interested after I finally got in gear to do the word strips again. I blame it on myself. It had been too long since I had done it-several months. I praised her quite a bit when she was doing well and she knew when she was doing well and felt good about it. Twice she guessed, (I never asked her to tell me the words-she just always like to say them). I just said the correct word--and she was not interested. The Doman's number 1 rule is to only do it if the child was interested. I didn't want to force it. I put it away and tried a few days later. She turned her head away. Sigh. I was sad because I DO believe in it. She KNEW she had forgotten material and was embarrassed about it, therefore not interested.

I'd highly recommend the course. For my next child I very much plan on implementing most if not all of it.

I'll Be Going to the Institutes!

We have introduced lots of new words-colors, opposites and actions are what I'm most excited about. This of course because clauses will be the next step. We'll likely introduce clauses very soon.

This week I decided that I will be going to the course "How to Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence". I am thrilled beyond description!!! You can bet I will have LOTS of posts with lots of information during the last week of March!

Singing Nonsense

You've probably heard it as often as I had: Children can learn languages easier when they're younger. I didn't understand why until I read How to Teach Your Baby to Read. I will expand on all of those interesting points in another post. For now, I just had to record this recent experiment.

I've always wanted to learn a second language (I don't have much to show for three years of High School German-though it may not be my fault or my teacher's!) When Jake learned Portugese I thought it would be neat to learn it too. I learned some simple vocabulary but have forgotten all but a few words. The book suggests that a young child can be learning up to five different languages.

We don't know the technicalities of the language program yet, but we decided to start teaching Ellie a song in Portugese. Imagine my thrill when a few days later she burst into song on her own--phrases that I didn't know, and if anything, had more exposure to the song than she did (from previous years). Last week it happened again. We sang the song a few times during the week and on the way to church. I was having a hard time absorbing it and kept asking Jake to slow down. Sunday evening Ellie started singing again-a phrase I didn't remember.

Jake pointed out that she is likely just listening to sounds, not worried about perfection. And I think he's right. What she was saying sounded like nonsense, but I suppose all foreign language does at first. It wasn't articulate but they were indeed Portugese words. I thought about what the book said--its kind of fun to have a real person to experiment with. I'm excited next to learn about how to start additional languages.

I'm Learning Too

Oops! I made some errors. The article I found definitely didn't suffice-I wish I had the book sooner than I did. Oh well. My two biggest errors.

1. I should have been showing Ellie many more flashcards than I was.
2. I wasn't supposed to test-in the form that I was.

It now seems clear about showing more cards. Especially after seeing a new set of cards (family members) and having them all down by the SECOND time of seeing them. As far as the testing, the book goes into detail about why testing shouldn't be done. While I can understand the reasoning of making a child feel set up for failure, when we had quizzed her, she seemed to love showing us what she knew?

Book read, better weeks ahead.

Today I introduced a color and she wanted "green" and "orange" as well. So we also threw those in.

Approaching the Top of Hill

One of my earliest memories as a child is a strange one since it was a memory of observation. I was probably four or five years old. I was in the parking lot of my church with my Mom. One of my Mom's friends had her two or three year old son in her arms. He was reading a simple book without any promtings. The mom was calmly excited as she flipped the pages. I can still remember being surprised at this child. I am sure he was reading better than I was...(was I even reading? Probably not.) This memory has randomly popped up in recent years, especially since I've become a mom. I have wondered if this child was incredibly gifted-how does a toddler know how to read? I had even asked my mom if she remembered that incident.

Fast forward twenty years.

In November 2008 I was visiting my sister out of state and her friend came by. What a marvelous chance in time that I happened to be in town when she came over for dinner. I don't remember how the conversation came up, but she mentioned the Glenn Doman reading method. She told me how it was a simple flashcard method and that by age three, her son was reading. I was intrigued and wondered if it could really be as easy as flashing cards. I did a Google search that night. I found Janet Doman in some interviews on TV. I found the Gentle Revolution website. I did a search for "Glenn Doman blogs" and looked on youtube. I wanted to see anything from parents. I didn't find many results of parents sharing information, and I was disappointed. Surely if this was as amazing as it sounded from the information from the founders, a parent would be sounding off to share their experiences to inform other parents!

It took me several weeks to sit down and make the flashcards. I wanted to do it the right way, but I hadn't bought the book yet and I needed to know the mechanics of this approach. I found an article that summarize the technique. I sat down and made about 100 cards-in red-in large print. I was overloaded with excitement as I waited to show Ellie. (I didn't dare let her stand in my presence with that permanent marker.) After Ellie woke up (she'd surely catch me if she was awake), I was thrilled to show her the cards three Wednesdays ago. It was so simple, but I knew she was absorbing. I didn't know HOW fast though. The first week wasn't perfect in my delivery. I still hadn't gotten my book and I was nervous about doing it wrong. I learned what I needed to learn and six times of quickly flashing the cards, she knew them all. I didn't ask her to tell me-she told me before I could tell HER what they were. I was stunned each time she looked at the cards and told me the right words without hesitation. Then we whipped out the camera. I wasn't dressed for the day but couldn't wait. This is what we saw that morning.



Since then, I have ordered three books, (you can buy them here), signed up for the free e-newsletter, spent lots of time at the official site of the Institutes for Human Potential, founded by Glenn Doman. I hope to go to this workshop at one of their institutes in March. I think this is absolutely awesome since we are just a state away and people come from various parts of the world to attend!

I feel the urgency to share information with other moms who might do a search for "reading techniques" or something similiar. I keep a personal blog and as excited as I am to share this with friends and family, I am a bit hesitant to share every milestone or landmark there. Yes, I can write what I please, but really, I want to have other content besides this newfound interest on that blog. Knowing myself rather well, I don't think I'll be able to hold back the gush faucet on a regular basis in this particular regard.

I am thrilled that I was able to learn about this when I did with Ellie being in the important time frame when learning to read is easy, not work. And though its only been three weeks, I feel like I'm approaching the top of the roller coaster on the verge of approaching the best thrill yet. I'm so grateful someone gave me directions to this adventure land.