Your Baby Can… Memorize the Shape of Printed Words?

Infomercials for a questionable video series called Your Baby Can Read have been running on cable television for years, but they had not entered into debates about early literacy in any serious way until recently, when the Federal Trade Commission received a complaint arguing that they amount to deceptive marketing. Simultaneously, but unrelated to the FTC complaint, the BAM Radio Network has stirred debate on this issue by featuring a guest who suggests that parents can teach infants and toddlers to read via flashcard-like training.

I wrote a piece for The Huffington Post yesterday to add words of warning to this new chapter in brainy baby debates, which I’ve followed closely since conducting research for my book Into the Minds of Babes. Here’s an excerpt:

Should reading be taught in first grade or in kindergarten? Maybe preschool?

How about even younger?

Most literacy researchers agree that there’s a limit to how young you can go and that in infancy and toddlerhood it makes no sense to try to start formal reading instruction. Don’t tell that to Janet Doman, director of a small organization called the Institutes for Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia. Doman is trying to spread the idea that the process of learning to read can start in babyhood. [Read more…]