Hooked on Phonics vs. Your Baby Can Read

My head is spinning! I am doing some Christmas shopping for my granddaughter and I am trying to decide which program to buy for her. I have been looking at reviews on the internet and there are people that love and hate each program.

I learned to read before I was four using memorization. I tried using Hooked on Phonics with my kids but they quickly lost interest.

Has anyone used either of these programs? My granddaughter just turned a year old in September.

Rather than buy into an expensive program, consider buying her books and read, read, read, read. That is the best way to foster a love for and ability to read. That's my advice as a reading teacher.

I agree with farmergirl. There's this infomercial running, where they're teaching kids under 1 to read and I think this is so ridiculous and jumping the gun IMO. I mean in todays society most kids will learn to read anyway. Parents reading everyday is best and when they're old enough they can start with basic work books and there's very good beginner picture books too.

How about a book of the month club? Nice books are expensive, and that would be a gift that would keep on giving. My mother splurged (it was a huge splurge for us back then) and enrolled me in a book of the month club when I was little. She saved those books and gave them to my sons. My sons just passed them on to their new baby cousin.

http://www.cbomc.com/

That's the link to the book of the month club. I had to get off of the site fast because I could get into SOOOO much trouble there. So many wonderful books.

I am sure that is how I learned to read as well. My mother read to me all of the time. I LOVED being in the book of the month club as well, my 5th birthday present from my favorite Aunt. I did order her tons of books that my mother read to me, and that I read to my kids. I did not think of picture books. I will have to order some of those.

I will purchase one or the other, not sure which though. Her mother, my foster daughter, feels a bit insecure (she was not a good student and had no academic encouragement until she came to us in HS). She truly has turned out to be an amazing mother and if this helps put her mind at ease then its a small thing to do.

As a reading teacher farmgirl, where do you weigh in? Whole word or phonics?

I loved phonics (carried my 1st grade phonics book with mr like a security blamket) but I never made the connection between the phonics and reading. I taught myself then I read every book I had then sat down with a dictionary!

It has to be a combination of whole word and phonics. All of only one thing is never a good thing. It's always hard to tell which method will work for which kids. My son was initially taught whole word and it failed him dismally. Finally had a teacher introduce phonics and he caught up. Does that mean phonics is better? No. It just was for him. The schools in this area teach using a variety of methods now. Pure phonics is saved for dyslexia programs for the most part.

Thanks so much for the advice. My instinct is to go with the YBCR, perhaps because my own children did not enjoy the HOP (which I purchased orginally purchased for my LD son). I realize that this is just a starter program.

In order to qualify for Kindergarden these days the kids have to be able to do so much. In my day the only requirement was that you turned five by a certain date. Now, if they cannot write their own name, count to 20, and many other things they are stuck in a Prep-K class. I remember being shocked when I was a student teacher's aid when my younger cousin was in Kindergarden, they were already doing multiplication! We painted with pudding and had naps.

YBCR is a scam. The producers make unsubstantiated claims, and quality research shows that these infant-directed medias are associated with lower verbal abilities (look at Zimmerman's Oct. 2007 study in the The Journal of Pediatrics). You can't just plot your baby in front of a television; it's just not how learning occurs. IMO, these sorts of product claims should be moderated.

You cannot depend upon your TV to be a babysitter and the main teaching source, but kids can learn from watching TV. My twins knew their colors before they were 2 because they LOVED the power rangers. Playing games like Yugioh enhanced their basic math skills.

I am not looking for something to take the place of her mother educating her, just the best aid to assist in the process. Her mother is not a great reader. I have no doubt that my love of books and early reading came from the fact that my mother was not only a gifted reader, but she was able to create different voices for each character. Her tone and pitch while reading was extremely entertaining. This is a gift not everyone has. I remember watching Hansel and Gretel for the first time and being very offended because "the witch did not sound like that!"

I've been googling and see quite a few complaints with YBCR customer service. I do not feel comfortable doing business with a company that has literally pages and pages with very similiar complaints.

So it'll be HOP unless someone else has another suggestion.

I homeschool my kids and have taught all of them to read. My youngest learned to read on his own using Reader Rabbit computer games when he was about 4.

Here is something you might want to read.

http://www.preksmarties.com/reading/reading9.htm

I prefer phonics. The other, baby can read, appears to be the old "look-say" method of memorizing the words themselves.

When a person learns the sounds of letters and letter combinations, they can read anything. Phonics is the way this is taught. Case in point: When my older son was 3 years old, he had already learned phonics in his nursery school ( I'm still looking for the song they sang which taught all the sounds the alphabet itself makes). Being a busy mom, during one year I had him sit and read my college texts to me while I cooked supper. No, he didn't know most of the words, but he said them correctly and I knew what they were! (I'm sure it added to his vocabulary as he grew.)

My other son missed the phonics and went into public schools who taught look-say. It was 2nd grade before I "cornered" the teacher as to why my son couldn't yet read. Turns out she was a 5th grade math teacher and thought the look-say she was teaching by was phonics.