WHY TEACH YOUR BABY TO READ?
by Glenn Doman
, Founder of The Institutes
From time to time I
have been asked why I thought it was a good thing for a mother to teach her
baby to read. As the author of How To Teach Your Baby To
Read, I suppose that is a fair question, so I should give it a fair answer.
I think that it is
a wonderful thing for a mother (or father) to teach her baby to read for a
number of reasons:
1. It is easier to
teach a two-year-old to read at home than it is to teach a six-year-old at school.
Much easier.
2. Since babies
would rather learn than do anything else in the world, and would rather be with
their parents than with anyone else in the world, there are few activities as
joyous for mothers and babies as learning-to-read sessions.
3. Reading is the
very basis of all learning and the acquisition of knowledge, and if mother
teaches her baby to read at one, two, or three years of age he will not fail to
learn to read in school at six, seven, or eight years of age. Literacy and
success go hand-in-hand, and illiteracy and failure go hand-in-hand. This is
true in nations, in states, in cities, and in neighborhoods, and is especially
true in individuals.
4. It is a wondrous
thing for a baby, or child, or an adult to be able to read.
5. By no means the
last of the reasons why we think it is splendid for a baby to read, but the
last I shall list, may seem the least important. I think it's the most
important.
We parents go
through all the early years of baby's life, taking care of the running noses,
the dirty diapers, the sheer horror of losing sight of the tiny child on the
crowded beach for thirty seconds which seem like an hour, the frantic silent
prayers on the way to the hospital at 2 a.m. with the five-year-old's temperature rising to a new world record, and all the
other prices we pay so willingly for the joy and privilege of squeezing that
beloved tiny body and beholding that beautiful little face.
Then when, as
custom has had it, at six years of age, it becomes time to introduce him to all
the golden and glorious things that have been written in his own language and
in others, and thus to open the truly magic door to all knowledge and all that
is beautiful in this world, we turn him over to a stranger called a teacher,
and pray that the teacher will know what a truly brilliant and eager-to-know
mind this most exceptional of all children has.
Having put up with
all the loving problems, we are entitled to all the loving fun to be had in
teaching our babies to read, and in so doing, to lift our babies on to our
shoulders and say, "Behold, my child, the world in all
its splendor. It is our gift to you."
The truth is that
we expose children to reading too late. By six years of age the ability to take
in raw facts, whether auditory (spoken) or visual (written), without the
slightest effort is just about gone. If children did not hear words until they
were six years old, we would have another staggering educational problem to
match the present staggering reading problem and a flood of books with titles
like Why Johnny Can't Talk.
It is easier to
teach a five-year-old to read than it is to teach a six-year-old. It is easier
at four than at five, easier at three than four, easier at two than at three,
easier at one than at two and easiest of all (for the baby) below one.
The superb truth is
that babies take in raw facts such as written and spoken words at a rate that
no adult could come close to matching.
Babies are
linguistic geniuses and no adult who values his ego should get himself into a
foreign language learning contest with any baby. To your eleven-day-old baby,
English is a foreign language. By three he'll have completely functional use of
English, which he'll speak with a perfect American accent. Don't you try to
match that three years from now with a foreign
language you heard for the first time eleven days ago.
In order for a baby
to learn spoken words, there are three requirements from a neurophysiological
standpoint. The words must be spoken loudly, clearly, and repeatedly in order
for his immature auditory pathway to understand and remember. All mothers
understand this instinctually and speak to their babies in loud, clear,
repeated words. The result is that all well babies have a functional use of
their mother tongue by three. Indeed, it is this very process of speaking to a
baby in a loud, clear, repeated voice that physically grows his brain's
auditory pathway.
Learning to
understand spoken language through the ear is not a school subject, it is a
brain function. So also is learning language through the eye a brain function
rather than a school subject.
Why, then, do not
all babies learn to read spontaneously as they learn to speak spontaneously?
The problem is that
we have made the print too small.
In order for a baby
to read words, there are three requirements. The print must be large, clear,
and repeated. The baby's immature visual pathways are not able to deal with
small print. Indeed, it is the very process of showing the baby large words
which physically grow and mature his brain's visual
pathway.
All that the mother
of a two-year-old has to do to prove this to herself is to get a piece of white
poster board, with a red marker print the word Mommy clearly in letters six
inches high, and show it to her baby a half dozen times an hour apart, saying
in a happy excited voice, "This says Mommy."
Don't test him;
just tell him. Soon he'll tell you. Hundreds of thousands of mothers have
taught their babies to read this way, which is a wonderful thing indeed.
by Glenn Doman,
Founder
The Institutes for
the Achievement of Human Potential