Your Baby Can Read?

Have you seen commercials lately for a program called Your Baby Can Read? They seemed to have upped their advertising budget because I've been seeing this commercial a lot more lately.   Can you believe that people pay hundreds of dollars for a program which promises to teach your young infant how to read?  I admit the commercials seem rather amazing, but then when I stop and think about it, it freaks me out.  The first thought that comes to my head is...let your baby be a baby.  The other thought is, let their brains develop properly, how they were intended to.

There is something really neat about your child being able to independently put words together.  You watch their confidence grow with each new success.  Carson will often come to us with the new words he has finally discovered how to articulate.  Usually he gets most excited about the words he comes up with on his own. Words we hadn't repeated to him over and over. 

I stumbled upon this article today: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39953918/

This article gives the opinion that all the program really does is teach memorization.   Even if that isn't the case and these babies are really able to learn to read, I still say...let your baby be a baby. Enjoy reading to your baby and enjoy that baby garble as long as you can because it only lasts for a very, very, very short time.