Anyone do Doman?

[Mamma Jude]

I'd love to share experiences with other Doman parents...
-Jude

[cjbeach]

I did with a while for my son for the first 15 mos of his life. I did the Well child program but then he was vaccine injured and instead of doing the brain injured program I kinda forgot about it all. However, at 2.5 he started sight reading. At 4 he is a phenomenal reader. I also used the www.yourbabycanread.com videos. I also used some videos from the soul learning company on right brain education (www.oatmealangels.com) used to be their website.
I think if nothing else it DID instill a love of learning in my son!!

[meemee]

mamma jude,

please dont take my post the wrong way. it is a pet peeve of mine and i can get quite 'not nice' with my writing so please understand it is not a personal attack.

i run in the opposite direction from any kind of doman kind of learning. i run from leap pads, i run from learning reading and math type of things.

i personally feel the first five years are for my dd to find out what the world is around her, what is socially acceptable behaviour (u cant hit when angry), how to be emotionally positive in this world and how to be self sufficient. reading and math can come when she is 5. that is not important right now. how to have good morals, how to be a caring more empathetic human being is much more important for me.

right from day one i follow my dd's lead. while on her path i introduce stuff to make it more challenging for her but if she doesnt take the challenge i leave it alone.

but if she shows signs of wanting to be academic, of wanting to learn reading and math - i will go with the flow. but i am definitely not going to encourage it.

doman method (flashcards for infants is what i am talking about) is so inappropriate for those first years. yes later doing that drill if i see my dd not being up to speed in school is perfect. but there is so much else to learn. learn thru play. learn thru self discovery. learn thru mistakes. that is the skill she will take with her all her life. that will instill a love of learning of curiousity of finding creative answers to problems.

but if u r talking about a different doman method then forgive my ranting. just wanted to share a different opinion with u.

my dd is more of a science buff. how do things work. why does a ball roll and yet a block wont. what happens when u mix oil and water.

without doing doman or introducing her to any alphabets she picked them up at 18 months probably from dr seuss's abc book (a book she discovered at a friends at one and we had to buy our own copy because she so loved the rhyme - she's loved books from the v. begining and it is still her favourite 'toy'). she picked up shapes, colours from our conversation. not from a book or flash cards. she can say her numbers upto 50 but actually count upto 5 and can put things together to make 5 - and take things away to make 5 or less too. she understands fractions from making sandwiches. she picked all this up from doing chores, from regular life without proper literary instructions. once she learnt her alphabets she would point to things and want me to spell and read them back to her. now if she still didnt know any of this i woudl be fine with it. i am happier to see her share, to see her help a child up after a fall, to hug a child who is crying.

anyway just wanted to share my opinion.

[sarahziegler]

meemee,

I hear you. You don't believe in sitting down and forcing infants/toddlers to look at flash cards multiple times a day and quizzing them about the flashcards. I agree.

However, I have read the Doman book Teach Your Baby to Read with an open mind and I think there are two things we can learn from it that can aid us in teaching our children. First, infants and toddlers are able to, and thus are developmentally ready to sight-"read" big big printed words shown in a clear context. Second, quizzing and testing hinders learning.

You seem to see the value in reading to your child. In the same way she learned letters from dr seuss's abc book, she could learn to recognize a few sight words by reading to her from books with very very large text. My daughter liked the "A Book Your Baby Can Read!" books. I also made some similar lift-the-flap books with pictures under flaps with big big words on them. My daughter loved them and asked to read them often. At 2.5 she recognizes about 20 words. I know this not because I quizzed her, but because she will sometimes point out words that she recognizes. I wouldn't say that my daughter "reads" but I believe I've allowed her to make part of the connection between the printed word and the spoken word, when SHE was ready by giving her the opportunity.

I don't see any reason why we shouldn't read books to our children that make it clear that printed words stand for spoken words, if they request them once we make them available. Would we withhold the appropriate spoken language for our children to learn to speak? I don't see why then we should withhold the appropriate written language for our children to learn to read as naturally and easily as possible.

You seem to be concerned about the effects of "teaching" your daughter things. It seems to me what you are really concerned about is that you don't want to coerce or force any "learning" on your daughter. I agree with this completely.

I believe it isn't reading that is killing the imagination and spirits of our children, it is the coercion and conditional approval that occurs at school.

Hope that made some sense. If anyone is interested I could put together a list of books with big big words. Let me know.

-Sarah

[applejuice]

sarah zieglar!

[applejuice]

My children are 25, 22, 20 and 13, however I did use Doman with them with mixed results.

I saved the cards, and I still have a couple, which I put on the "refridgerator" and in the "kitchen" and I have walls with their pictures framed and I put up "brother", "sister", and "Mama", and "Poppy".

I still have "closet", and my youngest took it off of his closet and put it on mine...:LOL

He told me he did not need it any longer.

[momsgotmilk4two]

I read the book when my first ds was about 18 months old. We tried a little of it and ds was just not interested. I think they overstate how happy most kids will be to do this activity. Most kids would rather play blocks or chase, or cars or any number of things with you, in my experience. I'm not against learning or teaching. Not at all. I just think that little kids learn better through doing.

Also, I don't see the benefits of learning sight words through flash cards at age 2. Some 2 year olds do learn to read, if they are really ready, but most aren't. Doman is also against teaching kids the alphabet before sight words and I disagree with that entirely. Ds was very interested in the alphabet and we followed his lead on that. Sight words will only get you so far. Kids need to learn to decode words. My five year old almost instinctively tries to decode words based on what he knows.

We've always read to all of our kids. I love reading and so do they. I think flash cards can take away from that love of books and reading that I'm trying to instill in my kids. They love books because they find the stories entertaining and the pictures interesting. Flashcards have none of that.

[applejuice]

I did the Glenn Doman program from 1980-1987.

My older three were not really interested. I took the flash card he sent with his book and put them all ovr my home. I still have "door", "mom", "dad", closet, refridgerator, bathroom, sister, brother. It helped alittle.

I agree with poster #7. Reading exciting stories to your children and sharing the joy of it all is better.

[Mamma Jude]

We've been doing it since our son was 12 months old. He absolutely adores it and asks for reading words and bits every single day. He's been reading books since he was a little past two (he's two and a half now). It sounds weird until you think of it in the way that children are absorbing the written word in the same way that they are absorbing the spoken word. They learn patterns, letter sounds, and eventually how to read. We read with him constantly and sometimes he likes to read to us and other times he likes us to read to him.

One funny story is that I keep my retired words (word cards he's already learned) and bits (pictures of information, such as street signs or types of flowers, etc.) in closed bins in my living room. He "sneaks" into these bins and digs for his favorite words & bits like he's sneaking into a candy jar. It cracks me up! -Jude

[lisarussell]

My experience with people who are "against" the Doman method is that they haven't even read the book. They don't know the method.

it isn't a drill at all, you flash the cards and say the names and the entire thing takes less than 2 minutes a day, broken up into 30 second-ish intervals.

Nothing can replace sitting down with your child and lovingly sharing stories.

The doman method simply "gives child words" IN the same way that every 2 yr old can recognize the logos and names of Target, Wal Mart and McDonalds, they COULD be recognizing real, intelligent words by stimulating their written-language-brain synapses by showing them words that are printed in a size their eyes can focus on.

That's all Doman is. The flashcards aren't a tool for testing or drilling, they are simply a quick and easy way of SHOWING the kids words that are big enough for them to focus their eyes on (like the McDonalds sign)

I don't think it's right for someone to be critical of a program if they haven't read the book. It's not a high-pressure thing at all, and the 3o seconds at a time spent flashing the cards can be done on your lap.

I've known Moms who hang a pocket of cards behind the high chair, and flash them shenever baby eats. I knew a mom who put them in baby's carseat and flashed them every time she buckled up. IN my house (and it looks like a lot ofpeople here) we just hung them up around the house, and I gave my older girls the task of flashing them throughout the day.

MAKING the cards (we use cardstock and a wide sharpy marker or I print them out) is more time-consuming than actually using them.

Yahoo groups has ChildBrain groups wher eusers have uploaded powerpoiunt presentations of words, some with pictures and some without. I've used these before, with the sound off because sometimes the voices have thick accents and I'd rather baby hear my voice.

[kmeyrick]

I'll look it up on ERIC, but Doman makes me nervous that they encourage "sight words" before the sounds the letters of the alphabet make. Whole Language flopped largely because it relied so much on sight words that kids never solidly understood the purpose and connections of letters. That said....I think the interaction between parent and child, familiarity with reading, etc, is a good thing.

[lisarussell]

that's why even Glenn Doman himself stresses that kids learn phonics, and that their brains are ready for phonemic decoding around 4-6 years old.

The program doesn't claim to replace phonemic reading, at all. Babies brains automatically turn everything they see into spoken words (ball, dog, cat...) and the Doman program just works on those same brain synapses (that are already happening anyways) to give them words (instead of just commercial logos like Wal Mart)

It's a good thing. Like I said before- the title is misleading and I would recommend everyone read the book before speaking out against it, just based on the title or what others have said.

I was very disappointed to see that in the book "Magic Trees of the Mind" the author spoke against Doman and clearly didn't even read the book, she just visited ONE Doman family and it was a bit ridiculous. The same thing happened with "Better Late than early" I think it was that book or another by the same author- that openly criticized Doman for being "developmentally inappropriate" and that isn't the case at all. Developmentally inappropriate would be teaching a baby how to decode phonics, that is just too far fetched for a baby to get. But showing them words, and saying the name of the word isn't developmentally inappropriate at all, it's perfect. I agree it wouldn't be fair to subject someone to a course of study that they're not ready for- but babies are born observers, and simply looking at words won't stress them out.

Some families- against the Doman design- will quiz their babies. Especially because the cover of the book has a baby pointing to her nose while Mom flashes the nose card. Some babies I think would protest, and there's really no need for it. It's not about feedback, it's just about giving them words. You wouldn't give someone a gift and demand they tell you how they're going to use it, would you? The first daughter I used Doman with would act out the action words, simply because jumping, spinning, and hugging are fun. Feedback, though, isn't the nature of the program. And several of the people who are "against" it say it's "too much stress" and "takes away the fun of discovery" for the kids. That isn't true. Just read the book, it's available at most libraries, and on Amazon for less than $5 for a used copy.

[Kimono]

I have the Teach Your Baby to Read book and also Encyclopedic Knowledge. It does make sense--in the same way that babies and toddlers learn a second language more easily than older children. The thing that has held me back from really doing it is the dread of actually making a bunch of cards. I also wonder if the "bits of intelligence" are all that more effective than say, reading a book about different kinds of flowers or animals or flags of the world or whatever. ANd as for the reading, I was an early reader and I'm still a voracious reader and I guess I just figure my kids will follow in my footsteps. If anything, I should probably do math and science stuff with them, because that's where I was just average.