Brainy Babies

Teaching Your Infant to Read

By Anne Marie Kirby

Little Trinity Veith is just learning her first words. But when she started to read at 18 months, that surprised everyone. Trinity's mother, Georgia, demonstrates by holding up a flash card with the words "arms up," and Trinity reaches toward the sky. But her wealth of vocabulary doesn't stop there. Her mother says Trinity is reading words out loud, such as "ears," "clock" and "Hi."

Georgia Veith says at 6 months old Trinity began watching the Your Baby Can Read video series. Trinity couldn't take her eyes off the screen, which repeatedly shows the words, then the action, by children. A Southeastern Louisiana University professor, Dr. Robert Titzer, developed the tapes for his daughters.

"I wanted to play stimulating games for them," Dr. Titzer says. "I made up many new activities for us to do, one of which was reading." The tapes caught on, and there are now five in the series, with more on the way.

Georgia says she was skeptical at first, but she would play the tapes for about an hour a day in their Elmhurst, Ill., home. She says by 10 months Trinity was interacting with the videos, and before long she began reciting the flash cards. "My skepticism turned into amazement, and I literally started running and jumping around the room," says Georgia, describing how she felt after Trinity read her first word.

Some childhood literacy experts say Trinity's experience is just mere memorization, and most children don't begin to understand the concept of reading until about 4 or 5 years old. Allison Drake is the coordinator of the early childhood program at the College of DuPage in Glenn Ellyn, Ill. She says babies will often take cues from their parents. "Every child wants to do things to please parents," says Drake. "They'll do things to respond appropriately, but they may not really be reading, which is decoding the alphabet sounds into alphabet letters."

According to government statistics, by the time children are 8 years old, only 40 percent can read independently. Dr. Titzer says the videotapes were developed to help stimulate language development in children from 3 months to 4 years old. He says there's no evidence to prove the videos don't help them. "Waiting to teach children to read until they're 4 or 5 simply isn't working," says Dr. Titzer. He says the earlier children are exposed to written language, the more easily they'll learn to read.

According to Dr. Titzer, his daughter, Aleka, was reading at nearly the 12th-grade level by the age of 4. Dr. Titzer began working with her when she was just 3 months old. He agrees it's memorization at first, but says children quickly begin to recognize and figure out the pattern of words by 12 months of age.

Babies' brains are like plastic sponges, he says. "Their brains adapt to the environment and become more efficient at reading," says Dr. Titzer. "You can't tell if they're reading or talking it's so natural." Reading becomes as fundamental as listening and talking, he says.

Want to see more?

• The Rules of Reading: How to Engage Baby and Toddler
• The Mind of the Baby: Unleashing Your Child's Potential
• Books, Babies and Brains: A Few More Good Reasons to Read to Your Baby
• Talk about it!