Learning Tools for Kids

When you are exercising your child’s reading skills, you want to make sure that the skills he or she is going to learn can be applied to what they are doing in school. Even though it may be extremely useful to have a bunch of extracurricular knowledge, we do live in a practical world where we need to constantly progress, which is especially the case in school.

Long-story short, what I’m trying to say is that you need to make sure that the subjects you are covering will allow your child to be ahead of his or her peers. The good news is that you don’t need to be familiar with the official educational curriculum: there is a type of workbook called “3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Success”, and it can tremendously help your child to improve reading comprehension.

What is “3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Success”?

To start things off, it was published by the highly-respected education franchise, Sylvan Learning (they have published countless work and textbooks which are used in schools across the entire country), which means the authors of this guide are in a perfect position to know what the 3rd grade curriculum requires out of its students.

What exactly does this workbook contain? Well, as you can imagine, it contains what you would expect from it: various readings, teachings about various reading concepts, as well as numerous activities and exercises specially designed to help your children master the 3rd-grade reading curriculum.

It has been reviewed and approved by numerous highly authoritative teachers, meaning there is not a single reason to believe that the contents of this book aren’t at least up to par with what students are doing in school at the 3rd grade level.

What Makes this Book Worthwhile?

Naturally, having good content is far from being enough when it comes to creating a textbook which will capture the children’s attention… the delivery method is equally as important. As most people would imagine it, in this case various measures have been taken in order to ensure that the book is as child-friendly as possible.

For starters, the book covers are very colorful, exciting and vivid (remember how much a book’s cover meant to you as a child?), complete with short and interesting story descriptions, some of them even encouraging children to try and figure out what will happen in the story.

As far as the readings themselves go, there are plenty of illustrations to keep your children interested, and the subjects discussed in them are perfect for kids of all personalities, centering around superheroes, toys, rollercoasters, and pretty much anything kids are known to like.

When it comes to the exercises used in the book, they come in different varieties. For starters, there is Picture This!, a drawing exercise where kids need to visually recreate what they are reading in the story. Not only does this help them understand it better, but it also teaches them to visually interpret words and instantly associate representations with them, which tremendously helps with improving reading comprehension.

Another type of exercise used in this book is called What’s the Word?, helping kids expand their vocabulary with the combination of real and made-up words. This helps to improve reading comprehension in your child as he or she will be able to identify words on sight and associate meanings with them with greater ease.

Mind Map is a traditional type of exercise which most students seem to take well to. It requires them to fill in the blanks in various charts as they analyze the story they have read for the main ideas discussed within as well as various smaller details.

Kids like to think, but most of them simply don’t like to write, mostly because they feel it as being a slow and tedious process which doesn’t yield them anything new. However, when they need to fill in blanks they only have to write a few words, yet they still need to think hard, making this one of the best types of exercises for children, at least in my opinion.

Finally, there are also Check It! Strips, allowing kids to check and correct their own work, by themselves. This will help them in numerous ways.

• First of all, it will help them develop a sense of honesty towards themselves as they will be checking their own mistakes.
• Second, it will help to reinforce the concepts they have learned up until now, because after all, while it may not be the best learning tool, repetition still does have its merits.
• Finally, allowing kids to find and correct their own mistakes will reinforce their confidence as they will feel and see how much they improved.

All in all, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to teach their children 3rd grade reading comprehension skills. Regardless of whether you want your child to catch up, keep up, or get ahead of his classmates, this book will do the trick. Yes, it will require that you spend time with your kid working on the exercises, but at this point you should be expecting that. I heavily recommend you at least have a look at “3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Success” for yourself before making a decision one way or the other.

Reading comprehension is without a doubt one of the most important reading-related skills your child will ever learn. Without the ability to correctly interpret what he or she is reading, your child will end up being unable to understand complex stories, nor will they have the ability to read between the lines and understand the implicit meanings of phrases.

Even though the contrary may appear to be true, the childhood period doesn’t give you too much time to work with your child; before you know it, they will grow up and no longer be remotely interested in education, at least until they ironically finish their education and start to feel nostalgic about it.

In any case, if you want to help your child develop reading skills, it’s important to go about it the right way, and what follows are a few tips to help your child improve reading comprehension.

Reading Aloud

As most of you probably know it already, reading aloud is very good for correcting yourself and for understanding pieces of text which are complicatedly-worded.

As it happens, making your child read aloud actually makes him or her go slower, giving the brain the time it needs in order to digest the information it is being fed. In addition, hearing the words instead of simply seeing them will also improve your child’s auditory capabilities.

Breeding Familiarity

A key to proper reading comprehension is being able to quickly and easily identify words on sight… the brain shouldn’t have to process every single piece of information which gets pushed through it, but rather focus on interpretation.

This can be achieved by making your child re-read texts, but not straight away. Every week you should have a couple of readings which you follow through on every single day. This will tremendously help your child when it comes to detecting which words are which, improving their fluency, and thus, their ability to comprehend the text.

Start Off Slow

When you are dealing with children you should keep in mind that in most cases, that child is far from having a mind developed nearly as close to that of an adult. In other words, you can’t start with complicated texts, explain them to your kid and expect them to learn anything… just think of it in terms of a ladder: when you start climbing up, you can only begin at the bottom.

Make sure that the texts are very simple and that your child is capable of reading them on his or her own time. Naturally, ensure that they remain challenging, yet not overly so.

Discuss! Always Discuss!

As you may have suspected, the primary factor which helps to improve reading comprehension in your child is how much you are willing to discuss what you have read with them. Whenever you are done with the reading, do ask your child a bunch of questions, but not academic ones. Rather, ask them what they believe happened during certain moments, what they liked about the book, what they didn’t like, what they think of the characters, etc… etc…

You can also discuss your reading while it is happening, making it funner and more interactive for your child. For instance, you can ask them what they believe is going to happen next or how things are going to pan out. These little discussions will tremendously encourage your child to think about what he or she is reading, about what is truly being said in the text, which is pretty much what reading comprehension is.

As you may have expected, these are but a few tips which I can give to help improve reading comprehension in your child. There are many, many more out there for you to find, but fortunately, most of them can actually be found online for free.

In addition, there are countless guides and systems designed to improve all of your child’s reading abilities. All the resources you need are there… it is up to you to make use of them.
  

While it may seem obvious to adults, reading comprehension is not something which just naturally comes along, at least not for most people.

It needs to be properly developed over time with regular reading comprehension practice exercises, and as it happens, this is the kind of thing which your child won’t be able to learn on his or her own, which means you, the parent, come into play. It is your job, perhaps even your duty to regularly go through some exercises to help develop their reading comprehension.

Before looking into what you can do in order to help improve your child’s reading comprehension, it is important to understand why going through this phase is necessary. As your child is going to grow up, he or she will be living and navigating in a world which heavily relies on written language, ranging from STOP signs all the way to important and official documents.

If they haven’t developed a proper reading comprehension as kids, then they are going to have some trouble in this world, as it will take them longer to read papers, with there being a higher chance of them misunderstanding what they read. In addition, it has to be said they are going to be somewhat lacking in the culture department, seeing as how a poor reading comprehension inevitably leads to a lack of desire to read books.

How exactly are you supposed to help them develop their comprehension? Well, the first step to doing that lies in spending time with your children, reading stories to them. While you are reading, you must take the time to discuss everything each sentence you read implies.

In other words, you need to help them imagine what is happening, giving them the information they need to build a coherent film reel in their heads. The more you do this, the less you will have to explain to them, and with time your will children will be capable of even differentiating slight nuances and implicit meanings they find in sentences. Of course, you cannot expect them to analyze Crime and Punishment, but they are at least going to be ahead of public school programs.

There are other resources available which allow your children to practice reading comprehension, and the good news is that many of them can be found online for free. In most cases, you are going to run into websites which provide you with various tests and exercises, such as GRE Reading Comprehension Practice for example, where there are ten questions which ask you to read a text and then provide an answer as to its meaning in the form of multiple choice questions.

I encourage you to get out there and find as many of those resources as you can; after all, you can’t have too much help when it comes to developing an ability your kids will need for the rest of their lives.

It is important to remember that even though your child will learn most of what he or she needs to know in academic terms from their school years, the fact remains that in their eyes, you, the parent, is the most trustworthy and important teacher they will ever have.

It is basically your job to help them develop certain skills which require constant work, and one of those skills is reading comprehension. Needless to say, how to be a teacher parent isn’t exactly obvious for most people, and so to help you get the ball rolling here are a few reading comprehension strategies you’ll be able to put to good use at home.

Less Television and More Mind-Vision

When a child is sitting down and watching television, he or she will only hearing words, meaning it will only slightly contribute to developing their hearing vocabulary. However, when your child is reading a book and spending effort on bringing the story to life, he or she will be developing their written and auditory vocabulary, without forgetting their imagination as well.

Long story short, you should make sure that your kids spend less time in front of the television and more time reading books; it would help to set some time limit on how much TV can be watched per day, and a minimum time that needs to be spent reading books.

Spice Things Up

We tend to forget that children are young creatures who crave movement and excitement… like little bubbles of energy just waiting to burst. If the content you are using in order to improve their reading skills is plain and boring to them, you’ll have a hard time catching their attention, especially for more than half an hour at a time.

The only advice I can give in this regard is to involve material which has to do with things your child is interested in; for instance, if you have a boy who is a Star Wars fan, then perhaps you should try using science-fiction stories as your source material.

Role Reversal

Practically every kid wanted to be a teacher at some point or another. While it is true we realize how wrong we were as we grow up, rest assured that even today children will gladly jump at the chance of being the teacher themselves, even if it is only for a brief moment. This little role reversal may include them questioning you instead of it being the other way around, or even having them prepare exercises for you.

Speaking your Mind

People who have mastered the art of reading tend to create something resembling to film reels in their heads, which is a natural part of the reading comprehension process… however, it needs to be developed. For instance, what you should do is describe out-loud to your child everything the text implies and help him or her form a mental image of what is being read.

In other words, don’t just read the story, but be somewhat of a tour guide and explain all the nuances and implicit meanings. Also, encourage your child to ask questions and read aloud as well; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that actually hearing the words coming out of your mouth makes you more likely to notice your mistakes.

And so, here are the few reading comprehension strategies I wanted to discuss with you, but bear in mind that there are many more of them out there, without forgetting that nothing prevents you from coming up with your own ideas. In the end, make sure to develop your methods around the needs and capabilities of your child; unfortunately, in a complex concept such as early education, there is no one method that caters to all.

When it comes to early education it is important not to leave anything out, and let me tell you, a surprising number of parents forego mathematics until it’s a bit too late, leaving their children to struggle with basic concepts. If your child is to find academic success, then you need to take the time to teach him or her about mathematics.

Of course, like most people, chances are you aren’t very good at it (I know I forgot everything the second I stepped out of school), and so you would need some type of book or guide to help you out; and so, allow me to introduce Math Minutes to you.

What is Math Minutes?

So what is this Math Minutes precisely? And what makes it good for you to teach mathematics to your children? Well, to start at the beginning, Math Minutes is a series of math exercise books, with there being one for each grade from the first one all the way to middle grade. Each book consists of somewhere around 110 pages, and each page has ten mathematical problems on them.

As you progress through the different books the problems become harder and harder to solve, always keeping your children in a state where they feel challenged without being overwhelmed. The problems themselves are, of course, far from being dry, run-of-the-mill examples; the people who wrote this book did as much as they could to add various bells and whistles to catch the children’s attention, at least visually.

What Makes Math Minutes Special

There are a few things that set Math Minutes apart from other math books out there, with the first one being a great variety in exercises. Your children will find everything in those books, ranging from simple math equations all the way to pattern-solving and logic problems; no stone is left unturned, at least as far as basic math goes.

Another important element distinguishing Math Minutes is the fact that it forces your child to think fast and on his or her feet; they can and should be challenged to complete each page within a minute. Naturally, you may have to push them to try out the time limit challenge, but in the end it pays great dividend as the children will actually be concentrating on what they are learning rather than going through with it half-asleep.

Another interesting aspect of these books is that children who actually like math can go through with it by themselves without a problem. What would push them to do such a thing? Well, for starters, seeing as how each page takes less than a minute to complete, most kinds don’t find the problems to be a chore at all as they can stop any time they want without feeling bad about quitting. Also, most kids actually like brain-related challenges; you’ll probably see them picking the book up from time to time on their own, especially if you have children who are math-minded.

How Do I Know Math Minutes is Really Worth it?

The truth is that the only surefire way of making sure something works is trying it for yourself. However, I understand that most people don’t have this type of luxury, especially when it comes to early education. However, if you take the time to look at the reviews for these books and see what people have to say about the company itself (you can find the reviews for yourself by following the link below the post), you’ll see that there is nothing but positivity. Everyone who tried these books finds them to be simple, amusing, and most importantly, child-friendly.

In addition to that, you can also have a look for yourself at a few sample pages for each of the books by clicking the links below and pressing “view sample pages” right below the image of the product. There are only about four or five of them, but they include the table of contents as well as a few pages with ten exercises on each one of them. It really doesn’t get better than this as far as book sampling goes.

All in all, I, like many other people, definitely recommend Math Minutes for parents who want to boost their children’s math skills.

If you’d like to check out customer reviews, take a look at some sample pages from the book, and/or place your order, simply click on of the links below to get to its corresponding page on the main Math Minutes website.
 

Many people are trying their best to fight against it, and you may even be one of them, but the fact remains that technological advancements are here to remain, and in order to succeed in this world our children will need to use them.

In other words, regardless of whether or not you want to teach your kids the same things you have learned, you shouldn’t shut them out from learning new things which never existed in your time… as a matter of fact, you should even encourage them to do so.

I’m guessing that I’m not the only one to have this point of view, and that’s what I’m here to talk about today: a learn to read program for children which can be accessed online via any computer. It’s simply called Clickn’ Read Phonics.

What Clickn’ Read Phonics Teaches Children

For starters, the program itself contains material appropriate for children between kindergarten and third grade levels. The program itself consists of about a hundred lessons which teach the entire language arts core curriculum taught in U.S. public schools for the grade levels mentioned above.

Each one of the lessons is directed by ClickN KID, a dog guide which explains what the lesson is about, provides instructions on how to perform the post-lesson activity, not to mention he even throws praises when the child has entered the proper answer.

For example, one of the activities consists of identifying the sounds D, N, T and L. A screen is displayed inside of which are each of those letters, both in capital and small format. The dog guide then explains to the child that they need to simply click on the letter which corresponds to the end sound of the word about to be pronounced. Once the word is said (it’s usually something simple like “bin” or “hat”), your kid simply needs to click on the corresponding letter, at which point he’ll go on to the next word.

Naturally, this program isn’t punishing towards children and allows them to try again and again until they finally get the right answers. The exercises get more and more complex, and by the end of it your child will have gone through 4 years’ worth of reading education.

The Benefits Clickn’ Read Phonics Brings to the Table

First of all, I have to talk about the obvious benefits of this program, with the first one being that it can be accessed through any computer which has an internet connection; no downloads or anything of the sort is necessary. Second of all, although the program may be very basic, it allows your child to get familiar with using a computer, a mouse and typing on a keyboard, and whether we like it or not, computers are already being used in one way or another in virtually every single enterprise. Finally, because this program can take your child from kindergarten through third grade you won’t need to keep on buying new programs every year.

In addition to that, the program itself is quite solid and has earned good reputation; the exercises which are found in this program help to develop multiple language-related capabilities in the child. For instance, one of the exercises is The Letter Sound Chamber, and it basically demonstrates combinations of letters and the sounds which they make, teaching children both visual recognition and pronunciation at the same time.

Another exercise, the Listening Cube, demonstrates how newly-learned sounds can be used when making words, and how the sound of the letter is going to be different depending on whether it’s placed at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.

The third type of exercise, the Reading Room, is dedicated to spelling and sounding out words which contain newly-taught sounds. It teaches your child everything they need to know about sight words, even asking the kids to spell them out. As if that wasn’t already enough, this exercise also teaches children about word families, not to mention that it also has them reading words and sentences.

Finally, the Speed Chamber is designed as a sort of test, requiring for children to practice the new letters and sounds they have learned at a higher pace than before; they have a limited amount of time to pass the last level.

All in all, it’s pretty safe to say that Clickn’ Read Phonics teaches children some pretty important qualities when it comes to reading, and it will surely prepare them for anything they may have to face in school, unless of course it’s a school for gifted geniuses.

How Clickn’ Read Phonics Sits with the Children

Regardless of what the program has to teach, it is practically useless if children don’t like it. The news are nothing but good in this case; the game was specifically designed to keep children attentive, giving them small rewards along the way as they work for their answers. While it may sound like a simple trick, these little rewards actually keep them going… as a matter of fact, this is the same model many video games are based on, and some of them have kept grown-ups addicted for years.

The lessons are generally captivating, especially seeing as how they are narrated by the guide dog who actually does a good job at being fun to watch. Naturally, you shouldn’t really expect your children to be glued to the computer for hours on end, but it will be fun enough for them to go through with it at least an hour or two per day, and that’s really all the program requires.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the Clickn’ Read Phonics program is one of the most interesting ones I’ve seen; not only does it do a good job of teaching children how to read and speak over four levels, but it also brings to the table all the advantages of being an online computer software. Considering it comes with a 60-day 100% money-back guarantee, I strongly recommend at least giving the program a shot.
 

One of the things which puts us, humans, above other animals, is our ability to use written language to convey pretty much anything we would be able to say. Over the years, it has become customary to teach our children how to read so that they are able to survive in this world.

One of the most important factors which determine whether or not the children will reap the full benefits of being able to read is their reading comprehension. If they simply learn to pronounce the letters and words without understanding their meaning, then they are never going to like reading, in the end limiting them in what they can learn and how they can express themselves. What I’m getting at is that you need to focus on making your child understand what he or she is reading, or in the end the lack of development in this area will end up hurting them.

The 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins

Considering what I mentioned in the opening paragraph, you can probably guess what this book is all about. 7 Keys to Comprehension is basically a guide for parents to use to help their kids develop their reading comprehension skills, to understand what the words they are pronouncing actually mean. Here is a very brief overview of the seven strategies they use in the book:

• Connecting reading to background knowledge – It helps tremendously if the reader is capable of personally relating to what he or she is reading; it is easier for children to interpret what they are reading while using familiar objects, people and concepts.
• Creating sensory images – As most biologists will confirm, humans are extremely visual creatures, and learning to imagine a scenario in one’s head based on words is a skill that needs to be acquired. By creating sensory images it becomes easier for children to visualize in their minds the meaning of what they read.
• Asking questions – Naturally, if children don’t inquire about what they don’t understand, they can hardly learn. However, many children are more or less timid about asking questions, which is why they need to learn how to do it.
• Drawing inferences – The art of inference is very important in reading comprehension, as it allows the reader to draw conclusions about what they are reading based on various clues and premises that are given to them. Of course, it is best for children to learn this as young as possible.
• To determine what’s really important – For people with an underdeveloped reading comprehension, one of the main obstacles is determining what bits of information are important enough to be part of the big picture.
• Creating ideas – For a child (or an adult, for that matter) to truly understand what they have just read it is important to be capable of putting together ideas which can explain the events in the text, and building those ideas in a sensible and logical manner is an acquired skill, one taught in the book.
• Solving problems – Every once in a while a text is going to present various problems or mysteries to the reader, and contrary to what certain people believe, there are actually techniques and whatnot which can help readers solve those problems. If you don’t teach them to your child, they will have a very difficult time with more advanced and complex readings, especially in school.

Does 7 Keys to Comprehension Actually Work as Intended?

Well, to start things off, I have to warn you: this isn’t a book intended to babysit your children for you. It is meant for parents, teaching them what they need to know to develop their kids’ reading comprehension. In other words, in order to make the methods in this book work, extensive parental involvement is required, just like for most other activities… you didn’t think having a kid would be easy, did you?

In any case, this book has been purchased and reviewed by countless parents, teachers, and child development professionals, and they all agree that is insightful for both children and adults. Basically, Zimmerman and Hutchins have managed to successfully identify the conscious and subconscious processes through which natural readers go when going from simply learning phonics to understanding their meaning.

The authors manage to cover practically every approach to the subject, teaching concepts, making demonstrations, and even taking pedagogic angles on it from time to time. It even provides strategies which parents can use with their children, and tactics that the children can use to learn better while in class.

Also, you’ll probably be glad to know that the book, contrary to many other professional ones, was written in layman language and doesn’t use much, if any complex, scientific jargon; you don’t even need to have any kind of background in education in order to perfectly understand it.

All things considered, if you are trying to be an involved parent, at least in your child’s learning process, then you should definitely take the time to work his or her reading comprehension skills; certain studies and professionals have asserted that for children to understand what they say and read is an important developmental milestone which should definitely not be skipped. 7 Keys to Comprehension is a complete, reliable and effective guide that can tremendously help you work on those reading comprehension skills I keep talking about.

You’ve all probably heard it a million times at this point, but it is important to get your kids to start reading from an early age. As a matter of fact, there are certain pediatricians which heavily recommend that you start teaching your child to read as soon as he or she reaches three months of age.

The truth however, is that while many people know what I just said, they ignore why they should do it… they don’t know what consequences lie ahead should they take the wrong approach to early reading.

While a child can certainly benefit tremendously from learning how to read from a very early age, taking the wrong approach will bear a disaster; in the worst case scenario, you will knock the will to learn straight out of your child, and needless to say, he or she is going to have a lot of trouble in school later on. And so, I present to you an in-depth look at the approach parents ought to take when teaching their children aged from 0 to 2 years how to read; you will learn which types of books to use, and how to teach them to your child when they are 0 to 9 months old, 9 to 18 months and 18 months to 2 years of age.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting a reading routine when your child is as young as 3 months old.

• Most Babies Will: Enjoy tactile books with flaps, mirrors, textures, and sounds.
• Some Babies Will: Enjoy simple board books with action language, and recall pictures, sounds, and phrases from their favorite books.
• Some Babies Might Even: Enjoy longer picture books with a simple plot — especially if the plot has a pattern of repetition.

It’s 20 minutes before bedtime, and you’ve decided to start a bedtime reading routine with your 6-month-old baby. As you turn the pages of a sturdy board book, your baby seems so interested! She is grunting and grabbing at the book. You let her hold the book herself, and she babbles excitedly.

“Wow,” you think. “My baby loves reading!”

Then, she brings the book up to her face. . . and sticks it in her mouth for an after-dinner snack.

• Birth to 9 Months

  Reading to a baby can be hilarious — and it’s also bound to be frustrating for any linear-thinking adult. Many parents don’t see the value in reading to children this young. In a 2008 survey commissioned by Scholastic, only 48% of parents reported reading to their child when the child was less than 1 year old. An additional 17% read to their children before they turned 2, and another 15% began reading before their children turned three.

  This is also the age to introduce books with fun textures and flaps — children love to explore with their fingers and mouths as well as their eyes.

  When you read to a young baby, don’t worry about finishing the book or even turning pages in the right direction. Just enjoy playing with the book as if it’s a toy, and read as much as your baby will let you.

• 9 to 18 months

  At this age, you are beginning to hear your child’s first words. He is probably also pointing at objects and saying “Dat?” His receptive vocabulary (the words he can understand) is much richer than his spoken language.

  This is where early reading begins to pay off. According to a study published in PEDIATRICS , babies who were read to regularly starting at six months had a 40% increase in receptive vocabulary by the time they were 18 months old. Babies in the study who were not read to had only a 16% increase in receptive vocabulary.

  As your child begins to speak these new words she knows, now is the time to check out the plentiful “see and say” books. You’ll enjoy pointing out pictures and describing them to your child, and your child will enjoy pointing to pictures and hearing you identify the images.

• 18 months to 2 years

  At 18 months, your child will begin to have the patience for “real” story-time, cuddled up on your lap with a pile of books. Mother Goose and other rhyming books will delight her ears and train her to listen carefully to the sound of language.

  At this age, your child may want to “read” the books with you. He may ask questions, turn the pages back and forth, and ask you to read specific parts that interest him. Encourage this! He will also begin to request his favorite books, which he will like you to read over… and over… and over again. This will become an enormously satisfying ritual for him — and it builds a strong foundation for future success with books and reading.

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Pamela C. High, MD and her associates at the Child Development Center at Rhode Island Hospital conducted this study. (See PEDIATRICS, Vol.105 No.4, April 2000.)

Zoë Kashner is a freelance writer. Previously, she was an editor for Scholastic’s READ 180 program, the reading intervention program for elementary, middle, and high school students. She was also the editor of The World Almanac for Kids.

Source: Books and Your Baby: Ages 0-2

To start this review off, I’d like to mention that I’ve already give in-depth reviews of the first two DVDS (Baby Babble – Speech-Enhancing DVD for Babies and Toddlers (DVD Disk 1) and Baby Babble 2), and I’ve touched on a number of important subjects, such as who is behind the Baby Babble series, why the DVDs are effective for autistic kids and how the speech-geared method is better than what’s traditionally used.

For the sake of avoiding redundancy, I’m going to skip directly to the DVD’s review, and if you’d like to learn more about the concept and theory behind Baby Babble, well you’ll have just have to take a look at the first two reviews. In any case, on with the show.

What Baby Babble 3 Brings to the Table

So what exactly is the third DVD of this collection going to teach your kids? Well, it basically uses the same approach as previously in order to teach children about words containing the T, D and N sounds.

In order to do that, they make use of pretty much the same techniques as before (understandable considering their success with them): words are being taught using visual aids, sign language, gestures, music and images of toys in action.

As usual, the speech therapists who put the video together take the time to articulate the words, teach kids the sounds to make before forming actual words, in addition to which they use very simple and calming sounds.

How Baby Babble 3 Compares to the First Two DVDs

How is the third DVD in comparison to the first two? Well, it seems that the people behind it have learned from the flaws people criticized previously. On this DVD, they are much less stiff and stoic, they sound more engaging, and the general flow of it all seems to cater better to children. They also added some new toys, images and sounds to keep things fresh for your children.

This time around though, the speech pathologists who made the video have started to touch on some slightly more complicated concepts, with the most notable one being phrases. While in the first DVDs they simply each sounds and how those sounds make up words, this time around they also teach kids how they should be using those words together in order to form small phrases consisting of two, three, maybe four words. It may not sound like much, but that’s actually a very big step up the ladder for your kids.

Just like the other DVDs, this one advances the child’s speech progression, with many parents reporting great success, in some cases with kids which had speech development problems. All in all, the third DVD is at least as good, if not better than the two previous ones.

The Baby Babbly Collection

Naturally, unless you have some kind of incredibly intricate plan in front of you, you’ll want to get the three Baby Babble DVDs for your kid, or at least the second and third ones. They were made to compliment and build upon each other, and if your kid is to really benefit from the DVDs, it would be much better for him or her to watch them in the right order; otherwise, you may mix your kid up and deprive him from learning certain important words and concepts.

I realize that this sounds like a cheap ploy to get you to buy more than one DVD, but think about it for yourself: can you really start climbing a ladder anywhere else than at the bottom?
 

Last time I looked over Baby Babble’s first DVD, and how their entire approach is different from everyone else’s. However, for those who don’t remember or feel like reading back, here’s a little resume of what sets Baby Babble apart from the rest.

Instead of just teaching letters and words, they concentrate on teaching sounds first, after which the sounds are put together to form very simple words. Baby Babble was put together by speech therapists, who in some cases appear in the videos to articulate and sound the words out, during which a close-up shot of their mouth is displayed, showing kids how words are pronounced. Frankly though, I’ve already explained this in great detail in my first post, and I recommend you refer to it if you’d like to read an in-depth explanation of why their method works.

In any case, at the end of my last post I said that I would review the next two Baby Babble DVDs, and so here is the first one of them. Just to clarify the title a bit, each of the DVDs is dedicated to teaching all the basic words which contain certain sounds. For instance, Baby Babble 2 – First Words: P B M teaches children words which contain the sounds P, B and M. It’s as simple as that really.

Baby Babble 2 – First Words: P B M

Serving as a follow-up to the first video, this one is divided into four main sections.

• The first one focuses mostly on objects and words which contain the P, B and M sounds. The interesting part is that they are introduced not in a dry and lifeless fashion, but through toys in action, pretend play, music and more… they use ways which are going to attract the child’s attention seeing as how the video is much more interactive this way.

  Also, between the video clips of pretend playing and toys you are going to be presented with the afore-mentioned speech therapists who show exactly how to make the P, B and M sounds with their mouths.

• The second section of the DVD which looks into what you can do as a parent to have your child exercising their speech by themselves. There are some truly insightful tips given here, and if you stick to them, you are going to be amazed at how autonomous your child has become, at least in terms of learning.

  Also, needless to say, it will help your child develop a love for education, making his journey in school much easier.

• The third section of the video is dedicated to the speech therapists as they make use of sign language, in addition to which they carefully sound out certain objects and concepts which were presented to your children earlier.

  This is a good way to help them remember what they learn, reinforcing what they have been shown in the main section of the video.

• The last part of the video isn’t exactly part of the education process, but it could be if you want it to; it shows you all the toys they use in the main video so that you can purchase them for your child.

  Having the exact same equipment as those in the video in front of him or her will make it easier to relate to what he or she is learning.

Baby Babble and Speech Development

Before you make any kind of decision in regards to Baby Babble, I’d like to point something out: many of the parents who are using it have children with speech development problems… some of them are even autistic. The good news is that practically every single parent who has a child with one of the problems mentioned above is more than happy with the results the Baby Babble series gives.

For instance, a certain reviewer mentioned having a son with Autism and Apraxia. Needless to say, the parents had trouble with their son, especially from a learning standpoint, but the first thing they noticed is that it had a very calming effect on him. Second of all, after only a few days he started to articulate the letters P, B and M much clearly than he had been before.

Another parent told his or her story about having a boy who was diagnosed with speech impediments at around 2 years of age. When the parents got him the Baby Babble DVDs, he was pretty much hooked on them instantly, even asking for more. He took pleasure in making the noises along with the therapists, and since then, the parents claims their child’s language skills have gone a very long way; while he doesn’t speak too much, he does possess some impressive writing skills, not to mention that he is patient and learns things fast. All in all, the parents believe that Baby Babble taught their kids something beyond speech.

I don’t make a habit of posting customer reviews on my website, but in this case, I feel like they are really going to give you the true perspective as to what Baby Babble is capable of accomplishing for your children. Here are a few extracts from people who have tried this product with their children:

I just have to say that both of these videos are a hit with my boys. I have a nearly 5 year old son that has Autism and Apraxia. I got the first video when he was less than a year old. It used to be the only thing that calmed him down when he started to tantrum or melt down. I used to be amazed by the calming affect it had on him. Besides the fact that these videos are very addicting to young children, they are also great for helping with speech. My son is articulating his P, B, M words so much better now that he’s been watching the 2nd video…they really do learn from these.

Source: Amazon.com – Not Just for Babies…Great for Apraxia & Autism by Ballet Mom “Mom2Boys”

This is the best video for speech out there in the market.The two ladies did an excellent job in enhancing speech for the children. My 2 yr old is speech delayed and i can already see the improvement in her babbling and she picked up a few words and signs after watching the video over and over.
would highly recommend this product and look forward to more baby babble series.

Source: Amazon.com – Baby Babble 2 – First Words: P B M (DVD) by sagar

The Final Verdict

You probably already know what it is: Baby Babble 2 – First Words: P B M is definitely worth getting if you are trying to teach your baby, toddler or child how to speak. I especially recommend that you get it if your child is experiencing any kind of speech development difficulties seeing as how so many parents have had success with this DVD in such a situation, as you can tell by reading the reviews above.

All in all, Baby Babble’s new take on speech learning is really changing the landscape of early education techniques, and there is no way your toddler won’t benefit from them. Also, if this is the first you hear about Baby Babble, I’d suggest you have a look at the first Baby Babble DVD (or my Baby Babble review); after all, when climbing up a ladder you can’t start above the bottom.

Next time around I’m going to have a look at the next Baby Babble DVD (Baby Babble 3 – Next Words: T D N), so stick around to see what I have to say about it.

To place your order for this groundbreaking speech development program, simply head on over to the following link below, where you can get it at a 25% discount.