Here’s a topic I just posted on the BrillKids Forum:

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Many of you probably have read about the recent controversy stirred up by the Today Show over YBCR and teaching babies to read in October last year, and again recently when the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) joined in the attack.

If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend reading Dr. Richard Gentry’s blog post on this: “Is There a “Baby Can Read” Witch Hunt?”.  Particularly fascinating were the comments the blog attracted, including a post by CCFC who were obviously not very pleased with what Dr. Gentry wrote.

One of the later comments then brought up a point about how CCFC twisted the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)’s recommendations regarding babies and screen time as supposed ‘evidence’ against YBCR.

Sadly, I don’t think CCFC are the first or only ones to represent/misrepresent the AAP’s recommendation to be something that’s absolute (ie., NO screen time for children under two, PERIOD).

So what did the AAP actually say?  Here’s the recommendation regarding babies and TV:

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Ever since I published videos of our daughter, Felicity, reading at twelve months of age on YouTube and switched career paths to the field of early childhood education, I have often heard negative comments by people concerning the idea of teaching babies to read.

At first, I was shocked by such a negative reaction, especially the intensity of some of it. Over time, I became accustomed to it, and saw that I was not the only one to experience this (see these discussion topics for example: Forum thread 1, Forum thread 2).

We explored the pros and cons of early reading and early learning in general in the BrillBaby.com articles here:

• Top 8 Myths of Early Reading
• The Arguments For + Against Early Learning

However, after watching the recent Today Show’s highly-critical piece on the “Your Baby Can Read” program, I decided to write out my direct responses to the common criticisms leveled at the topic of early reading.

Here are some of the most frequently-heard comments I hear from critics, and my responses to them:

• Those babies are not reading!
• What’s the rush?
• Why are you forcing that poor baby?
• Just let babies be babies!
• Teaching them to read would take time from other areas of development.
• Babies should be allowed to play.
• Teaching reading skills so early creates unhealthy pressure on the child.
• Babies should be taught to read through play.
• The best way to teach babies to read is by reading to them.
• Teaching babies to read in that manner is too formal, too unnatural.
• There is no scientific proof of any long-term benefit to early reading instruction.
• Won’t My Child Eventually Learn To Read In School Anyway?
• These children will be bored at school.
• These children will not fit in with their classmates.
• Teaching children to read should be left to teachers.
• It’s developmentally inappropriate. The child’s brain is not ready for reading.
• I wasn’t taught to read as a baby and I turned out okay!

Those babies are not reading!

Well, that depends on your definition of ‘reading.’ If you use the most common definition (e.g., Oxford Dictionary), then ‘reading’ simply means

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