Reading

Introduction

The multisensory method of teaching babies to read involves using books, DVDs, PowerPoint slideshows and/or computer software to illustrate the meanings of words through multiple sensory channels – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (including doing, touching, smelling and tasting).

Delivering information through several sensory channels is a powerful teaching method because it is easier to remember something we have experienced in a number of ways. Like the flash card method, this type of teaching engages the right hemisphere of the brain (albeit in a different way). Unlike the left brain, which learns through logic and reasoning, the right brain learns through feeling, doing, and visualizing (pictures rather than words). This is why young children – who are right-brain dominant until the age of three and a half – instinctively try to touch and taste every object they come across.

Philosophy

Parents naturally make use of multiple sensory stimuli to communicate with their children – something as simple as saying, “That’s your nose!” and touching your baby’s nose is multi-sensory teaching. Having heard the word "nose" and simultaneously felt her nose touched, your child will be more likely to remember the word’s meaning. Or, you might sing Head, Shoulders, Knees And Toes to your child, while helping her touch each part of her body in turn. Children learn body parts much more rapidly when taught in this way than when they simply hear the words used in context.

No one understands the value of this type of learning better than Robert Titzer, an infant researcher and pioneer in the field of teaching babies to read. Titzer has taken the methods of teaching vocabulary many parents naturally employ and extended them to the written form of language. Having spent years studying how babies learn, Titzer developed his method of reading instruction when his first child, Aleka, was an infant. Having taught Aleka to read some 30 whole words by the age of 9 months, Titzer went on to develop the Your Baby Can Read (YBCR) series of books and DVDs. YBCR uses pictures and videos to illustrate the meanings of words, and encourages parents and babies to use their kinesthetic sense. This means, for example, helping your child to touch his toes while he looks at the word “toes,” or helping him to raise his arms in the air while he looks at the words “arms up.” Babies taught in this way soon learn to perform the actions by themselves.

Titzer believes it is considerably easier to learn to read as a baby or preschooler than it is to start learning in first grade. “There’s a natural window of opportunity for learning language, and that window begins at birth and goes through [to] around age four years,” he says. “That’s when it’s easier for a baby to learn second languages, sign language, spoken language, or the written form of language.” For more on Robert Titzer and his system for teaching babies to read, go to Robert Titzer.

Method

YBCR products can be purchased online. However, you can still give your baby a multi-sensory program of learning without them – and what’s more, you can personalize the lessons. For example, you can homemake books using photographs of family members and familiar objects. The YBCR books use a pull-out flap, which encourages the child to read the word before pulling out the associated picture. You can create a similar effect yourself by making flip-open flash cards. To make a card, fold a piece of A4 paper in half, write the word on the outside, and stick a photo on the inside, like so:

If you don’t want to make the cards yourself, you can download pre-made flash cards from a host of pages online, including our own Flash Card Printouts page at BrillKids.com.

Alternatively, you might want to use the computer to teach your baby. You can download PowerPoint slideshows from a number of sources, including our Flash Card Slideshows page. Or you might consider our Little Reader software for teaching babies to read, which makes it more convenient to upload videos and sound recordings. With Little Reader, you can also switch modes of display (choosing to flash words only, pictures only, or both) without having to create a new file. For more on the program's functionality, go to The Advantages of Using Little Reader.

The YBCR DVDs and Little Reader also come with an arrow running under words to indicate the direction of reading. This enables children to more easily progress from whole word reading to phonetic reading (sounding out new words). Babies have even been known to figure out the rules of phonics by themselves. Says Titzer, “Around 18 months I actually thought I would teach [Aleka] phonics, because she knew hundreds and hundreds of words. So I wrote down a ‘b’ – and I had not taught her the alphabet yet – so when she saw the ‘b’ she said ‘buh.’ Then I put down a ‘t’ and she said ‘t,’ and then when I put down ‘tion’ and she said ‘shun,’ then I knew that she’d actually figured out phonics.”

The more senses you get involved in lessons, the more interesting and fun it will be for you and your child. If you have objects to hand that involve smelling and/or tasting, use them! For example, you can encourage your child to sniff a flower when you teach her the word “flower,” or bring out an orange for her to smell and taste when you teach her the word “orange” (please note that citrus fruits are not recommended for babies under a year old).

Don’t forget that you can incorporate multisensory learning into your everyday reading of books too. Whenever possible while reading, point out real objects and body parts, make animal noises, and act out words (or help your child to). You should also run your finger under the words as you read, as this will help your child learn to associate individual letters of the alphabet with the sounds they make.