So with a 6-month-old, I've been noticing these commercials lately. A little Googling shows generally positive reviews, although my favorite was actually a negative comment on Yahoo Answers:
"They're not reading, they're just memorizing what words look like." :-)
So has anyone here tried this system?
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No. We did consider it. I think it costs about $300.
I had a feeling if we bought it, it would sit on a shelf somewhere.
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At 6 months old can your baby even talk? Mine can't at 14 months, unless you count dada, yeah, vroom, moo, and ahhh du.

:-)
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My wife bought it but it was at a point where he was buyond the suggested ages. My son started talking at 12 months and can read at this point (a few words) he is 27 months old. He prefers the NY Post on weekends.
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Sure, he hasn't got the brands down yet, but if I hold up a cigar he can tell me the vitola.

j/k :-)

Further Googling turns up a bunch of scam complaints, although they seem to be related to the website order processing and not the program itself.
I think we'll hold off for now.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under 2 years old not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours. I highly doubt that a DVD is going to make your child develop more quickly in any area so this is most likely another scam/fad like Baby Einstein. The research shows that TV at a young age just doesn't give learning benefits and if anything actually gives your kid ADHD. Read to your child every day and talk to him as much as possible and he will develop at his own pace. If they know their alphabet before kindergarten, you've done good!
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OK, I'm a parent and a former teacher.

Let kids be kids till they have to go to school. Kids learn all the time, you'd be surprised what they pick up - they're sponges - but it happens spontaneously in whatever you're doing with them. Let them just enjoy being children.

When it comes to reading, kids need to learn phonics. Children who have no phonetic skills, have real struggles. If they cannot sound out words, reading words they are unfamiliar with becomes a chore. I teach 7th & 8th graders in Catechesis and also at Wolf River Lutheran High (religion) and it is plainly evident which children have never learned phonetic skills - and it is sad.

If anything, get hooked on phonic as they get a little older (kindergarten, first grade).

Here's another one you'll hear, "Kids need to get into a daycare/preschool program so they can learn socialization skills." Really? Which little kids have been taught proper social etiquette so they can teach their peers? Kids learn socialization skills from watching adults - and if they have poor examples, they'll have poor skills. Going shopping with mom, sitting together at the supper table, etc... are the places they learn these things. At the daycare/preschool program they have pooled ignorance in terms of learning socialization. Do they make some friends? Yeah. And that's a good thing, but that isn't the place to learn socialization things.

I can tell you which kids were with a stay-at-home parent and which ones were at daycare early on - their behavior and social skills are world apart.

Just my $0.02.

Peace of the Lord be with you.
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You can do the same thing by making your own flashcards and pictures from the computer or books. Also a lot cheaper. The key is not to give items 'pet' names and will require you to have to make them learn the correct name later on.
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Read some of the reviews online. Every review that we have read calls this thing a huge bust...
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All kids will learn differently but as mentioned before phonics are important and when they begin to read sight words will be the first that they can use to learn how to read on and will most likely be taught in pre-school and/or kindergarten.

If you are willing to put some effort into helping your kids learn you can find resources for both on the internet for free. you can search on Dolch sight words or Dolch word list to find various list of sight words and various sights are out there for teaching phonics also. On of my daughter's favorites is starfall.com

Oh and yes they are sponges, so when they start talking ... watch what you say!
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I was reading by 1ish, but really it wasn't reading according to my parents. They said I just memorized what they read to me and could recite it word for word based on the page.

Explains a lot how my mind works today and I apply the same principals to studying for school. Memorize the look of the page or list of functions, then read aloud the contents of it to have a near perfect picture/word representation of what I'm looking at.

Crazy how stuff like that can follow you from a child through till you're an adult. :-)

But I think this is entirely because A) I'm a freak, and B) my parents read a book to me every night. No DVD's.. no nothing. I have a nephew who is 3 years old and can barely talk complete sentences. They used DVD's as substitutes to reading.
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We've been reading to Mikah, no TV. My wife wanted him to learn ASL also, so we've been using some basics when we talk to him: mother, father, baby, love, eat, milk, cat (we have 2). He obviously doesn't have the coordination yet to do any signs but you can tell by his reaction that he recognizes them.
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We looked at that and decided it smells fishy. I'd like to try and teach them some Spanish later and signs for basic stuff before they can talk. (twin boys due in April)
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ASL is also good with early development. :-)
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A fellow teacher who works with me constantly says that watching Sesame Street results in children having ADHD. The show has many, many short segments in each hour long episode. This results in a shorter attention span.

Not sure I buy into it as I watched Sesame Street when I was a kid and I turned out fine...(umm, wait, let me rethink that last statement:-)).
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