Your Baby Can Read Month: Sixth

Well, It's about that time... We are on month 6Th and for those of you who have been following this review, you know that it means it's time for the Your Baby Can Read Giveaway. This program has really been amazing and has greatly improved my children's development. Everyone who sees them reading is impressed. Mary has really taken off and can read almost every word in the program. She can read simple sentences and can tell you the first letter of most words when asked. Amelia can read about 15 words and has had a significant increase in language development since starting the program. It really is Awesome and I promise you won't be disappointed!!

Your Baby Can Read will be giving away a Deluxe Kit which includes:

Do you want to win one?

How to enter:

• Mandatory Entry: You must leave a relevant comment on each of the 5 previous YBCR posts (click on the Your Baby Can Read label at the end of this post and it will direct you to the previous posts. Please email me if you have qustions)

Extra Entries:

• Become a fan of Your Baby Can Read on Facebook (1 entry)
• Visit Your Baby Can Read Website and tell us one thing you learned or like about the program (1 entry)
• Be or become a follower of Pink Nothings (1 entry)
  
  
  This giveaway is open to the US only and will close July 23rd at midnight.
  Thank you to Your Baby Can Read for providing a sample product free of charge for this review. All opinions expressed are those of the contributors of pinknothingsblogspot.com and not influenced by any other outside source. We write about our experience with the product which may be different from your own.
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  

Your Baby Can Read: Month Five

First, I want to take a moment to clarify a little about this program. It was recently brought to my attention that some people don't fully understand this program. Your Baby Can Read is for your "BABY!" This program is an "early language development system" and is meant to teach young children how to first understand language, memorize word shapes, and then begin to understand letters and phonics. Dr. Titzer explains that "once your child is recognizing many words from the DVDs, then you should do other word activities to help your child learn to read phonetically." In the Parent's Guide he lists several activities and games to continue the learning to read process. The Your Baby Can Read program is just the beginning when it comes to your child's literacy. It is a wonderful foundation and helps young children understand the concept that letters make up words which have meaning.

Okay... Now that I've clarified... On to Month 5!

Month 5 is continuing Volume 2 (see Month Four Review.) There are a 50 new words plus dozens of other words in the poems and songs that are introduced, so there is still plenty to learn during 2 months.

Results:
I am going to leave you with a couple of stories that show how well my children are responding to the program.

Little Miss (2 years old with special needs) has an unbelievable vocabulary due to the program. She sings songs and is putting sentences together. She is continuing to read new words weekly and can read over 15 words now. The other day we were at the Ped's office. While waiting for the Nurse to come in, Amelia was reading her book. The Nurse walked in and stood in awe as she realized that my little girl was reading! She went to get the other nurses to tell them and show them. Everyone was amazed at how well she could read!

Chunky Monkey (5 years old with special needs) has really taken off with the program. I can now ask her to spell words verbally (from the program) and she can spell them out loud without any visual cues or help. She is beginning to try and sound out words. She can tell me the first 1 or 2 letters of any word I say. We were waiting in the therapist waiting room and she read several words out of books she had never seen. She was able to read enough words to get an idea of what the story was saying (i.e baby, playing, toy car.)

**Remember that next month is Month Six, which means we will be giving away a complete Deluxe kit!! Make sure you go back and comment on previous Your Baby Can Read posts to add to your entries! I promise you will not be disappointed in this program!!**

Your Baby Can Read: Month Four *Updated with Video*

Sorry, I am a few days late on my Review, our weekend was super busy and I was having some technical difficulties with Blogger.

On to Month Four: ...

What we used: Used all materials from Month Two and Month Three (Starter DVD, Starter Sliding Word Cards, Starter Book, Volume 1 DVD, Volume 1 Book, Volume 1 Sliding Word Cards, Double Sided Word Cards), blank cards, and Volume 2 DVD, Volume 2 Book, and Volume 2 Sliding Cards.

What we did: We Started Watching the Volume 2 DVD. The instructions say to watch it twice a day, but we had a hard time between school and therapy. We watched it as much as we could and continued to review the Starter DVD and Volume 1 DVD several times a week. We read the Starter Book, Volume 1 Book and Volume 2 Book daily. We played word games using words from all 3 of the DVDs that we have seen.

Results: My Chunky Monkey (5 years old) is reading more and more words everyday. It is getting hard to keep count. Some of the words she knows are only on the DVDs or from songs on the DVDs and not in the books, so it is hard to keep track of all of them. She is reading simple sentences such as "The baby is smiling." and "The cat is eating." She is excited about reading and likes to repeat the words after I read them in the books that she is not able to read yet. She loves the "Baby" products!! Her sentences and descriptive words are continuing to increase.

"Baby" is still Little Miss's favorite thing to do. I haven't sat down to count how many words she is reading now, but it is steadily increasing. She sings all of the songs from the videos and can name most of her body parts. Here is some video of her reading. Keep in mind that she has Down Syndrome and is only 2 1/2, so her speech is not very clear. I hope you can still hear the words that she is reading. Make sure your sound is up.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My Thoughts: The Third DVD introduces over 50 new key words plus dozens of other words in poems and songs. The Parents' Guide instructs you to spend two months on the Volume 2 materials, however some children will learn them in one month and should go on to the next DVDs. My girls are not ready to move forward, yet. They are definitely learning new words each time they view the DVDs and the other materials. Like I've said before, the program recommends that you cut out all other TV, but unfortunately that is not an option with my girls. My oldest has some major OCD behaviors and there are certain shows that are part of her "routine" and we can't really cut them out without major consequences. I am sure that they would be reading even better if we were able to follow this step. As it is, they are still having great success with the program. You probably noticed how torn up our books have gotten. I don't consider my girls to be rough with books, but when they are read over and over they do get pretty beaten up. I hope they last through the end of the program. I am not sure how this could be improved upon without making them board books, which wouldn't be able to work the same (my kids love that they lift to see the picture.) For now, I am keeping them seperate and trying to really monitor their use. I do wish the kit came with a total list of words from the DVDs. Not all of the words are in the books and I would love to be able to list all of the words that the girls are reading. Other than that, I am still very impressed and I hope you guys are, too.

** Remember at the end of my 6 month review you will have the opportunity to win the Deluxe Version and previous comments (starting with the Month One post) will add to your entries.

Your Baby Can Read: Month Three

Moving Along to Month Three: ...


What we used: Used all materials from Month Two (Starter DVD, Starter Sliding Word Cards, Starter Book, Volume 1 DVD, Volume 1 Book, Volume 1 Sliding Word Cards, Double Sided Word Cards), blank cards, and Volume 2 DVD.

What we did: We continued to review the Starter Volume DVD and Volume 1 DVD. We played with the word cards daily and Read the Starter Volume Book and the Volume 2 Book daily. We watched the word games on the Volume 1 DVD. We played word games with the cards by finding matching words and finding a specific word among several other words. I wrote familiar words on the blank cards that are not part of the Starter Volume or Volume 1 (i.e. family members names, site words like is and the) and we read over them several times. We read a lot of books making sure to point out each word. Even though the program says not to go to Volume 2 until next month, my girls found the "red baby" (volume 2) and begged to watch it, so I went ahead and let them watch it a few times.

Results: My Chunky Monkey can now read 40+ words and is beginning to read complete sentences. She can read simple sentences such as "The baby is smiling." and "The cat is eating." Although she has always loved books, she now wants to read the words and wants to repeat every word I read in the book. She is very excited about reading and LOVES her "baby" DVD's, books and word cards. Her speech is delayed and this program has definitely benefited her. Her sentences and descriptive words have greatly increase.

Little Miss LOVES the program, too!! She wakes up asking to watch "baby." She can read 8-10 words. She has learned a lot of vocabulary and can sing all of the songs from the videos. It is definitely improving her speech, as well.

My Thoughts: I am still extremely impressed with the program! My children absolutely LOVE it and LOVE reading! The program recommends that you cut out all other TV, but unfortunately that is not an option with my girls. My oldest has some major OCD behaviors and would not be able to function without watching Dora during the day. The hasn't seemed to affect the success of the program for us. As I said before, the girls both choose to watch Your Baby Can Read over most everything else. Each month I have seen improvement in their reading. I am so excited to see how they progress over the next month.

** Remember at the end of my 6 month review you will have the opportunity to win the Deluxe Version and previous comments (starting with the Month One post) will add to your entries.

Your Baby Can Read: Month Two

Okay... Month Two...


What we used: Starter DVD, Starter Sliding Word Cards, Starter Book, Volume 1 DVD, Volume 1 Book, Volume 1 Sliding Word Cards, Double Sided Word Cards (Starter and Volume 1.)

What we did: We Introduced the Volume 1 DVD and tried to watch it twice a day. On busy days where we weren't at home much (like therapy days) we would watch it only once or skip that day. We watched the Starter DVD a couple of times a week (usually 2-3 times.) We played with the word cards daily (sometimes adult assisted, others times the girls played together.) Read the Starter and Volume 1 book daily (usually more than once... the girls LOVE the books!) We played games (matching, finding a word in a group of different words) with the Volume 1 words cards (2-4 times a week.)

Results:

In addition to the words on the video, my Chunky Monkey (5 years old in Feb. with Down Syndrome) can read: yes, no, hi, keys, happy, and orange. She can recognize the letters in each word separately and is not just memorizing the shape of the word as a whole. This is especially evident when she guesses the wrong word and then I make her read the letters. After looking at each letter she reads the word correctly. She can hear any word and pick out the beginning sounds and letters.

My Little Miss (2 1/2 years old with Down Syndrome) can read: tiger, cat, wave, eyes, ears, nose (80% of the time), mouth (80% of the time). Her vocabulary is increasing dramatically and she continues to LOVE the program.

My Thoughts: I am really pleased with the program so far! My girls absolutely love it! I love that at the end of the Volume 1 DVD there are games that teach word families, ing-words, and beginning phonics.

I am so excited about how great this program is!! Don't just take my word for it... here is a comment left from one of our readers from my last post.

"Okay, Okay, I WAS THE DECEMBER WINNER!! I want to tell you that my 4 year old identical twin boys both with PDD Autism and Down Syndrome AND they are both non-verbal are really getting it. They sign each word as it comes up on the screen. We have the starter DVD and they already knew all the words to sign except for tiger, gorilla and elephant but they know them now :) I am going to give it about another week or two and then I will video tape them and blog about it. I am sold!!! I think I am going to buy the rest of the program for them very soon!! Thank you SOOOOOO MUCH!!!! ~Stacy"

** Remember at the end of my 6 month review you will have the opportunity to win the Deluxe Version and previous comments (starting with the Month One post) will add to your entries.

Your Baby Can Read: Month One

Back in December we introduced you to the Your Baby Can Read Program and gave away a starter kit for one lucky winner. I have good news for those of you who are still interested in the program. Over the next 6 months I will be taking you along with me on my journey to teach my child to read. I will be using the Deluxe full version of Your Baby Can Read to do this. I think all of you skeptics out there will be amazed with how well this program works. Keep following our progress and remember to leave comments. At the end of my 6 month review you will have the opportunity to win the Deluxe Version and previous comments (starting with this post) will add to your entries.

Okay... Month One...

What we used: Starter DVD, Starter Sliding Word Cards, Starter Book, Double Sided Word Cards

What we did: We began the Starter DVD in November and posted a review and giveaway in the beginning of December. Because we had such a crazy holiday season, I decided to start with the starter DVD again as a review. We watched the DVD a couple of times a day for a few weeks. We read the book a couple of times a day and played with the cards frequently. I introduced the Volume 1 DVD one week ago and continued to review the Starter DVD several times during the week.

Results: My Chunky Monkey can read: eyes, nose, clap, elephant, mouth, gorilla, tiger, arm, dogs, cat, toes, arms up, wave, hi and baby. She is also beginning to recognize the letters in each word seperately and not just memorizing the shape of the word as a whole. She can now say a word and pick out the beginning sounds and letters.

My Little Miss LOVES these products, too. She begs to watch "Baby" every chance she gets. She is beginning to recognize the words and is learning a lot of new vocabulary.

My Thoughts: The program includes: 5 DVDs, 5 flap books, My First Word Book, 5 sets of Sliding Word and Picture Cards, 82 Double Sided Word Cards, 50 Word Game Cards, Early Learning Workshop DVD, and Parents Guide. It may sound a little overwhelming, but it is very easy to follow. The Program comes with an introduction to parents on DVD and a Parent Guide that gives you step by step instruction for each month. It tells you exactly what to do, whether your child is advancing quickly through the program or taking a little longer. My girls both really love this program so far. My only suggestion is to make sure that if you have younger children you don't let them play with the flap book or sliding word cards without being supervised. The book flaps can rip easily and the sliding cards can get bent by little ones. We have just started Volume 1 and so far the girls love it just as much and are very excited to continue the program!