Customer Reviews

Your Baby Can Read 1 [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My toddler loves this video (as well as Vol 2.). I had my doubts when I bought this video, but my son absolutely loves both volumes. He started recognizing words very quickly, and performing the actions to match before he was able to actually say the words (clap, jump, arms up, etc..). We call this his Hooray! video, and he has a lot of fun as well as a lot of fun learning every time he watches it! Other videos that help to broaden beginning reading skills are: So Smart: All about Letters (great for teaching letter sounds - names of the letters can come later, after the sounds are learned), So Smart: All about Shapes. Also very good after your child knows letter sounds and is recognizing words is Dr. Suess's ABC (great for teaching/reinforcing preschool phonics and lots of fun in the bargain!). I definitely recommend "Your Baby Can Read!", but keep in mind it will be most effective when part of a broader program including phonics, and that it should always be kept fun! (Yes, I'm an elementary teacher!) I'm always with my child when he watches this, and we jump and run and do a lot of the word actions together! Fun! ***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!**

Unlike a lot of parents, I have never been comfortable with the concept of sitting a baby/toddler in front of a tv to watch even "educational" shows. I really don't need my baby to be an "Einstein" or a "genius". But I was absolutely stunned one day when he was 16 months old and I doodled his name on the Magna-Doodle (as I had done a hundred times when I was bored) and he pointed to it and said his name! My husband said to write a bunch of words on the Magna-Doodle and see if he could accurately point to his. He did this 7 times in a row (on videotape!). A month later I saw a segment on Good Morning America about this series. I was intrigued and thought it could enhance a skill he was already working toward. Because I had my doubts though I checked it out of the library instead of buying it.
The video features Dr. Titzer's daughters and a couple of other children. It shows words followed by some video footage of the word in action. It also features the songs "If You're Happy" and "Head and Shoulders". My son loves watching other children and animals, so in that respect it was very good. However great the concept is is kind of overshadowed by the poor execution. The words seem thrown on the screen in a somewhat haphazard fashion. For example the word "climbing" could be followed by the followed by the word "antelope" or "yes". I would have preferred there to be some kind of categories that the video could have consistantly stuck to, like animals or actions or objects. Another problem I had with the video is that some of the words seem beyond the reach of a 5th grader, much less an infant, such as "orangatan" and "hippopotamus". Also some words are not adequately conveyed by the video footage. For example, the word "smiling" shows a 4 month old with an ambiguous smile.
After watching it a few times I realized that the problems I had with the tape were getting on my nerves. So what I decided to do was make a home video personalized to my son. I printed out often used words like "milk" and "daddy", focused my camcorder on them for a few seconds and then showed a few seconds of the the word in action. I did record the two songs of my tv as well.
It's about a 15 minute video and my son adores it. He has memorized the sequence of the video and always shouts out the words, I don't know if it's necessarily because he's reading them however. What I've realized is that this kind of reading is just a recognition skill just like being able to name animals or objects. It's not really reading with phonics where they would be able to discover new words using the skills they already have. I consider this more along the lines of a "party trick" like being able to make animal sounds than an indication of academic intellect. I've found that I like active learning where he gains an understanding of a concept through repetitive real world experiences rather than the passive learning that comes from sitting in front of a screen for entertainment. At 21 months our son knows fourteen animal noises, ten colors, can recognize the numbers 0 - 9, and is potty trained. But even more importantly, he is a loving, affectionate child who is (mostly) well behaved.
I believe that a child is genetically preprogrammed to be as smart as they can possibly be. There's not a lot you can do to make them a genius if they just do not have the ability to be one. But you can skew the parameters of their innate intellect by providing an environment of loving positive reinforcement. A video can never be a substitute for your attention.

My daughter started watching this video at 5 months. At 13 months she started saying the words on the screen before the narrator did. At 15 months she could read all the words in the book that I got to go with Volume one. She is in first grade now and reads at a fifth grade level. I attribute her early reading to this video! I would put it on once a day, but never forced her to watch. Some days she would just play and listen while it was on. I think the video helped her make the connection of letters and reading earlier than normal. My younger daughter watches the videos now and loves them, too! Worth every nickel and then some!

My daughter has been watching the "Your Baby Can Read" video series since she was 6 months old. It was love at first sight for her, as the videos were filled with songs, action, and fun with older kids as participants. I was equally delighted that she watched with intense interest for the entire 30 minute duration of the video, which allowed me time to tend to household duties. The possibility that she could actually be learning to read from these videos that so delighted her seemed too good to be true. I was as skeptical as anyone that a baby could actually read, but I realized the enormous advantage to be gained if this were possible, as I believe that reading is the foundation for academic success.

I was impressed when at 10 months of age she started interacting/participating in the fun of the Volume 1 video she had been watching since she was 6 months old (for example, she would clap her hands in sync with the children to the song "If your happy and you know it, clap your hands"). However, my skepticism about the actual reading part of it grew as I periodically tried showing her large printed words to see if they meant anything to her, and this met with no reaction. Despite my doubts, I continued letting her watch the videos because she loved them so much, and I figured it was better than having her watch Barney or Telletubies. Maybe the reading part would simply take longer. There certainly was no harm in it, and I felt the videos could, at the very least, help her develop basic verbal skills if nothing else.

You can imagine the shock I was in a few weeks ago when, at 18 months of age, I started showing her mere words (no pictures or anything--as one of my periodic attempts to see if anything was "sticking"), and I realized that she could actually read them! My skepticism turned into amazement, and I literally started running/jumping around the room. This had a spiraling, contagious effect. As she witnessed my excitement, she literally started jumping off her toy horse and wanted to demonstrate her knowledge even more, which made me grow more amazed and excited-as did she in response to my enthusiasm, and so on.

A few days after I witnessed this amazing event, the Infant Learning Company, who makes the tapes ..., happened to call me to inquire about how my daughter was doing with the tapes. I told them what a coincidence it was that they would call because I just had noticed the astounding impact of their videos. After speaking for awhile they later asked if I would be willing to talk to Good Morning America, who was interested in doing a story on this. The producer from the show called me, and in a few short days we were off on a plane to New York to appear with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America on March 6, 2002 --along with Dr. Robert Titzer, who developed the tapes, another family who experienced the amazing results, and the show's parenting contributor.

The show segment went very well, but due to tight programming that day, we were only given 5 minutes of air time, which barely touched on the topic. All of us who appeared on the show felt that the public had been shortchanged in learning about something that could have such a profound impact on society. The public needs to be informed about these type of early learning experiences to demonstrate that young children (mere babies) are capable of far more than we would ever give them credit for.

Typically we are teaching reading at ages 5 and 6 in this country, and by the time children are 8 years old, only 40% can read independently (according to government statistics). An awareness of early learning topics such as this could help combat illiteracy in our society. Much research has been done on this topic in the last several years which indicates the incredible window of opportunity that exists for learning in the first three years of life, after which it starts to decline. It is a "use it or loose it" proposition, and the earlier we nurture a child's rapidly developing brain, the better. It is much easier (not to mention less costly) to prevent societal problems such as illiteracy than try to correct them after the fact.

There are some highly intelligent, successful adults in our society today that were fortunate enough to have an early introduction to reading. ... I believe Dr. Titzer's interactive videos have been an excellent start to this process (which obviously needs to be expanded upon by parents-this is just a beginning), and I am most grateful to him for developing the "Your Baby Can Read" series.

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I was skeptical of the video when I first heard about it. I bought it for my daughter at 5 months and at 13 months she read her first word - "catch" and could read many more right away. The video IS geared towards children. Yes, some harder words are used, but children are smarter than we give them credit for. My daughter can read those harder words as easily as "hi". The video is fun for children and I highly reccomend both volumes and the book.

Of all of the now, numerous early-childhood development tapes out there, this is one of the least engaging to my now 14 month-old daughter. I didn't notice anything particularly innovative in the format. There are live-action clips that illustrate the word, the word is pronounced, given in the context of a sentence or two, and the word is displayed with an arrow showing how it is read. Intermittently there is a song sung by kids with the lyrics displayed on the bottom with the arrow (instead of a bouncing ball) indicating the words as they are sung. We have an extensive library of these developmental tapes, and this is one of our least favorites. As I recall, some of the tapes by Bee Smart Baby and Small-fry Productions videos make the connection between the spoken, demonstrated and written word - and these are more interesting, as well. There is nothing magical about this tape and its claim to teach babies to read - recognize a few words, maybe - IF they watch it. But the 'if' is the biggest obstacle, since the video is just plain boring.

This video, like the 2 others that follow it, is rather amateurish and poorly produced, and one of the child presenters has an annoying lisp. That said, my little girl (now 14 mths) has loved the series since she first saw them at 4 months. This is the only series of videos that she will watch from start to finish, and it seems to have complimented our other reading efforts (Doman style flash cards, daily reading of stories etc). She can recognise and say the words on the video in other contexts and without pictures, so there appears to be comprehension and not just memory. She now has a vocab of around 25 words, and I think that this series has definitely helped.

This video is excellent. As an educator specializing in language acquisition, I know that this series of videos is in keeping with current language acquisition research. My daughter began watching them at 8 weeks and has absolutely loved them! She is now nine months old and reading her first words. (Obviously she can't speak yet, so when I hold up a card with the words `clap' or `arms up', `wave', `kiss', etc. she simple acts out what's on the card.) My daughter gets so excited every time I walk to the tv, in anticipation of her video. For those who do not feel that there is a "human touch" in these videos, I would suggest you watch the parents segment in which Dr. Titzer stresses that in order for a child to read well and enjoy reading, parents must interact with their children. This video is to supplement parental efforts in teaching children of the joy of reading. It is not meant to replace the children's bedtime stories or `cuddle time.' I would definitely recommend this video series to anyone with babies (or older children struggling with reading). More info can be found at www.yourbabycanread.com

I think that the people who mentioned that the production is poor are forgetting that it is for a baby. The style is simple, but its perfect for a young child.

The first time my ten month old saw it, he laughed at many of the scenes and was able to follow some of the requested actions.

The words are highlighted in bright colors that seemed to really keep my son focused and interested in the words. The video uses a great mix of easy words such as "Hi" and longer words such as "Gorilla" that allow a baby to begin to understand the pattern of language associated with the length of the word. Showing a baby only short easy words, is the same as only speaking baby talk to the baby, and this video does an excellent job of treating your baby as an intelligent person.

I bought this video series a few weeks ago after seeing Dr. Titzer at Borders book store. I purchased the series and at first my daughter was not very interested but with time and reinforcement with the books she quickly started to learn. It does take patience and parent involvement but she realy enjoys it.