I like your runnig through the house and pointing to objects method ! I’m allready doing this with my son, to teach him words he doesn’t know (concertrating on one room).

I’m very upset about the online book store where I’ve ordered Doman’s book ! They should have arrived since a week but they told me that it would take them 2 to 6 more weeks !!! :-<

I wanted so much to start and I don’t really know how without instructions.

Have a nice day !

Don’t worry: the book will explain everything in detail. I’ll just answer your questions briefly here.

First of all, there is no way you could make any “teaching errors” – if you and your baby are enjoying it, he’ll be learning, and you simply cannot do it “wrong”. Be sensitive to what your baby needs and weather it follows Doman system (or any other), or not – it still will be right for your child. Everyone is different, so different things work for different kids.

Now, the color: red attracts the most attention so large red letters are the easiest for kid to pick up and learn. The smaller the child, the bigger the letters.

Words that you select: initially you start with words that your son is already familiar with: apple, banana, mommy, etc. The book has suggestions for initial sets of words listed by category: people around the baby, his possessions, foods, etc. You can find find these words in PowerPoint presentations that I did for my son: How to teach your child to Read in English – Single words

I’ve used pictures in my presentations. English wasn’t a native language for my son, so many words were not familiar. I was using pictures, so that my son learns both the language and reading.

Originally I haven’t used pictures for teaching my son to read in Russian. But since many of the words were still new to him, I was sticking them up to objects (refrigerator, window, wall, etc.), or I was just running around with my son in my arms, pointing at those things. It was a lot more fun, though far from orthodox method that the book teaches. Eventually I started adding pictures for the words in Russian as well – my son started walking and was more interested in independent world (or room) explorations instead of the cards. Pictures helped me to win his interest back. But it is a lot more time consuming preparing materials with pictures, so if your baby enjoys the words cards without pictures, it is better to forgo them.

Good luck!

I’m looking forward to reading Doman’s book… I have a lot of questions still, but I know I’ll start very soon even if I make some “technical” teaching errors.

I have some more questions…

Taking words like “ball, banana, bed, lamp, stairs, …” is allright because I’m sure that my son knows what I’m talking about, but how do you teach “fire place, pine tree, crocodile, …” ? Do you “only” teach him how to read the word ? For me it seams very important to explain to him what this or that is by showing a picture per ex. but I won’t be able to do it at the same time showing the flash cards as it has to go so quickely… Help !

Ohhhh well…

Thanks also for the idea with the cards in the different colors for the different languages ! Why red actually ? Is there any color I can’t pick or doesn’t it matter ?

Do you also think I should use the same words in different languages “apple, pomme, Apfel” of different ones ? It will be amazing to see (without testing) how Theo will pick up the different pronunciation (ohhh my english, is that right ??? I can’t help it…) of the words in french, german and english… We’ll see !

Don’t think I’m stressed allready… I just find your website fun and very helpfull !

Thanks again !

Children pick languages up very quickly and easily. And the younger they are, the easier it is. So earlier, and the more languages you can introduce to your son – the easier it is going to be for him to learn all of them!

Check out our “Foreign Language” category – it has a collection of articles and suggestions by different people who are teaching their kids foreign languages.

With my own son I speak Russian all the time. If I could have someone else speak to him in another language – it would’ve been terrific. My friend has a grandmother who is speaking just Italian to her kids, and all of them are fluent in Italian. Some other people I know hire Spanish or Chinese nannies for their children to learn Spanish or Mandarin.

I don’t have that luxury, so I just picked different days of the week for different languages: on Monday we speak English, read books in English, listen to English CDs. He is also taking gymnastics class with American kids, so he is speaking English to them as well. On Friday we have a Spanish day. And whenever my son is watching TV, we rotate the languages: one day he can pick something in Russian, another – in English, next time – in Spanish. I wish I knew more languages!

So you can start speaking to your son in another language whenever you please. As for reading, I wouldn’t introduce all of them at once. It is a good idea to start with one program/language, and when you are comfortable with it – add another. Once you’ll be ready to introduce another language, it is a good idea to use a different color for the cards: red for English, blue for German…

The fact that your child doesn’t talk yet wouldn’t prevent him from learning to read. Moreover, it is a good idea not to test the child, and wait until he is ready to show you what he learned! You can get more details in “To Read” section of our site.

Please share your progress!