I am tired of the hating and you have not even tried it. you can read to me in japanese and i still will not know what you are talking about. the dvd is a guide to learning the words. a teaching aid to assist the teacher the DVD is not a teacher. it links the audible word with the word site word, image(moving image) of the word. it is funny most people learn, " A is for apple" it is the same thing. "your baby can read" is not the only thing to teach your child. if your baby can read not garbage the pbs is garbage.
Do like i did buy the video from ebay and print your own flash cards on card stock and find the dolch word list ... one last think "get your story straight"

I too agree that the best way to prepare your child for reading is to interact with them read and share your time and yes enunciate the sounds of the words. As a reading techer for over ten years. The most satisfying way to teach chldren to read is play games and have fun. Reaading should not be drudgery but and enjoyable expereince. I have had tremendous success with using multi sesnory strategies that really motivates children as young as 3 to learn to read. Why not play a game of hopscotch and put letters in the the squares . When your child hops on t aletter let mhim or her say the letter and the sound . Children love it and willeasily lern it because it is fun, I would like to invite you to visit Funn with Phonics Tutoring Company view the many creative and fun ideas you can do with your child with no cost.

When I was a wee one back in the late 70's and early 80's, I didn't have videos or even a VCR. What I had were the read-a-long books with a record or a cassette tape that read the story to you while you followed along in the book. I LOVED these. I loved them because the recording was word-for-word so you eventually learned what the words were by listening. I was also big on sounding out words. When I didn't know a word and I asked what it was, I was usually told to sound it out with a little help from mom or grandma or whoever was reading with me.
As for tv shows or programs to help kids read, I had PBS. Early 80's PBS was a vast landscape of learning programs... not so much today. If I wasn't at school or outside playing, I got to watch all the PBS I wanted. Hehe. There I saw Reading Rainbow, The Electric Company and Sesame Street, to name a few.
These three shows taught me phonics and reading like no other! Sadly, none of these shows are the same as they were when I was a kid but I looked forward to them every day because they made letters fun.
I also was lucky enough to have my own library card when I was a kid and mom took my sister and I on regular trips to get our favorite Reading Rainbow books. Mom read to us all the time and would have us find things to sound out or read around the house. When we would put away groceries we would sound out the labels or when we played records we would find words we knew on the sleeves. Thanks to all of this, I could read and write before I started kindergarten and read at a level higher than my grade all through school. I even knew a little Spanish when I started kindergarten thanks to Sesame Street.

While I agree that reading programs can help kids learn to read by repetition and memorization, the biggest part of learning involves the parents, grandparents, or any adult willing to spend the time. I learned to read without videos, the internet, CDs and DVDs. I did it the hard way and I'm better for it. I love reading!

Thank you JSwenson ☺
For anyone who thinks I am trying to sell myself as Mr. Perfect Parent, I have bad days too. I just try to make amends ASAP (I can tell by the look on her face when I was being a jerk) or she will suffer needlessly. It takes effort and passion... Not easy some days. But I do it for her sake, and her future kids' sake, because she will likely marry a man who has the same character affects (the good ones I hope lol) as I do and carry that into the world.

Talking Monkey ... totally agree ... how you read to your kids is just as important as what you read ... she's lucky to have a dad who read to her! (and keep encouraging her writing!)

When my daughter was around 2 or so years old, her Momma and I would read to her at night just before she went to sleep. While Momma read the stories to her and tried to make it interesting by making it sound fun and exciting, I went a different way when it was my turn and enunciated the words, saying them normally but giving brief pauses in between each word as I pointed to them, so that she would see that the words I was saying were coming from the book. I remember seeing her out of the corner of my eye looking at me and looking back at the book in wonder, making the connection. I believe I helped peak her interest in written communication by this method, and she has been loving it ever since. I did this as a matter of course, every time I read to her, up until her momma and I split up when she was around four or so. Nowadays, she still loves to read and in fact is writing a book of her own and is an excellent speller and has excellent grammar skills, putting ME to shame sometimes. She's now only 12! I don't expect that the book will ever get done (too much pressure), but I do ask her how she is coming on it whenever I think of it (a little pressure is OK). I really feel that positive attention at an early age is condusive to education.
She benefitted by having us BOTH read to her and it is important to note that she loves her daddy because I was never mean or distrusting and always fair and balanced towards her. I truly believe positive parental involvement (children ARE environmental sponges) is extremely important to a developing child in those years BEFORE school and in my eyes, this is proof.

I think phonics, ultimately, is the way to teach reading - and Jolly Phonics is a wonderful program for older kids -- but not for your baby. I'm talking 0-20 months - not older kids who are ready to learn reading skills - for those kids - sight flashcards do work. But those are not babies. I've read study after study that show that, not only do DVDs aimed at babies NOT WORK, they might even be harming more than helping ... decreased vocabulary & attention span. Babies really don't need DVDs ... they just need interaction and somebody to focus on them and talk to them etc... but I will say that any program that gets parents and children to spend time together can't be ALL BAD.

Janesville schools does use phonics to teach reading. The program is called Jolly Phonics and I know they have used it for at least 6 years. There was a "whole language" trend for awhile where they stopped using phonics, but the results were not good and most schools went back to phonics.

I just want to put in another plug for the Hedberg Public Library... "You can borrow Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" from the library. As a couple of you have pointed out, a solid phonics base is so important to reading success and HPL has lots of books and music you can check out to help increase your child's phonemic awareness. Come to the Children's Room and ask at the desk for help in finding these materials.

Why have our schools have stopped teaching reading/writing with phonics? One reason why we have a society of non-spellers.

While I'd agree that teaching babies to read through a video isn't a great idea, I disagree with the idea that all a child needs is to be read to. When a child has had a particular book read to him over and over, he learns to recite it, and perhaps to recognize the particular words in it by sight, but he doesn't learn the phonics skills that will allow him to decode unfamiliar words and truly read (and spell). As a teacher, I'm always glad when parents have taught a child to enjoy books, but sad when I discover that the child has missed out on needed phonetic skills. I'd suggest waiting to actually teach reading until the child is 3, 4, or 5, and then using something tried, tested, and much less inexpensive such as the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (the SRA/DISTAR program), which can be bought at any major online bookstore. If you really want to spend a lot of money, you could use Sing, Spell, Read, and Write, by PearsonSchool.com, which does the same teaching, but with more bells, whistles, and prizes. Whatever you do, read with your small child, then teach him to read using phonics, not the "see and say" method used in baby reading programs.

I completely agree. I am not impressed with the DVD's that I have seen. Reading is much more benefical. However, I work with children with autism and they love these DVD's. For children with speech delays and autism, they are somewhat benefical. It gives them more cues-picture, with spoken word, written word, and repetition, when trying to teach more vocabulary, but as a program for babies and toddlers, a waste of money.

The ability to read is nothing if you cannot understand what you've read.