While contemplating what to get Reilly for Christmas and his birthday this year, I’ve started noticing toy commercials more. I tend be one to give creative or fun educational toys. Yes, I’m the aunt you can thank for the washable markers and the “Make your Own Stalagmites” kits. It’s not Grand Theft Auto: Punch a Hooker Edition, but they’ll thank me later.
Anyway, I’ve been seeing a lot of these Leapfrog books advertised lately. I’m not really sure what I think about it. I’m not an education expert or a teacher or a children’s development specialist, so I don’t know how to measure scientifically the impact these books have on reading. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, I kind of think if you drag a pen over the word and hear the word read to you, that ceases to be reading. I’d say that’s listening.
I don’t entirely get it. Sure, it seems cool and fun and how exciting that the book talks! I see the appeal. I was a little old for them, but I had step-sisters, so I remember those books with the buttons down the side that added sound effects to your story. It’s not like the concept of sound in books is new or unusual. I’d go as far as fun. But, I don’t really see how dragging the pen over a word and hearing it said for you teaches you to read it, but maybe it does. What happened to sounding things out? What about recognizing the letters and learning what sounds those letters make and what happens when you string them together? Maybe I’m just old school.
I know people learn other languages that way. Rosetta Stone uses an visual/audio connection to teach you to speak a foreign language, so I suppose the same principle applies here. Perhaps the combination of using both hearing and seeing helps solidify the information. I’ve always been more an auditory learner, was never one for much note-taking in school. I spent too much time writing things down and I’d miss the next thing the lecturer was saying, so I just paid attention unless it was imperative I take note. So I can understand how hearing the words read would help drive the point home.
I guess I just wonder where the line is drawn between reading and storytime. Or maybe its teaching that reading is play… and I agree it can be. Reading is awesome and as a child, I was a voracious reader. Adding the voices of the characters and hearing the story told for them robs the child of a piece of their imagination, part of the joys of reading. The ability to create your own scenario when you read is part of the fun of it, not having it spoon fed to you in the voice of Jack Black.
I have mixed feelings. What do you think?
The old leap-pad systems were very cool (the one where you had to put the book in the case with the connected pen). I’m not sure about the new system.
The old ones had all sorts of activities on all the pages. Especially if you if you got something more science or geography related. I always thought they were very engaging and educational.
You know, I had the same reservations. My thinking is, and anyone is free to disagree here, that hear someone read you the story is ok. But I’d rather it be a person, not a computer.
Reading to Reilly is a quality time thing – the closeness, the reading, the laughing and giggling… it’s all part of the experience for him and I do believe firmly that that kind of reading interaction makes people appreciate and associate good things with reading.
My grandmother read to me every day. And I love love love to read. So letting a robot do the work for me is a little sad for me.
I’m with you on this one Joelle. These things are just slightly more interactive than those insipid Teddy Ruxpins of the ‘80’s.
When Agatha was 3, I was reading her a story when she looked at me and said “I get it. The words tell you what the pictures are.” I tell you, the clouds parted, angels sang a heavenly chorus, people joined hands and world peace was declared while we all ate pounds of chocolate and lost weight.
*cough*
That little moment was the key that opened the door to her obsession with reading. I don’t know if a book that reads to you can do that.
I’m 43 years old and there really was no preschool that I can recall. In fact, i think it was just called day care back then. My father was in the military and my mom stayed home with the four of us kids. At the time, we ranged in age from 5 – 8. I was a January baby and didn’t start Kindergarten until I was 6. I vividly recall that while our older brother and sister were in school, my twin brother and I would sit with my mother and she would use paper letters she had cut from the covers of magazines to teach us to read and spell. As a result, we could read, spell and write (our names, anyway) before we started Kindergarten.
Because of my mother (and I seriously do think it was because of her), I excelled in English at a young age and still adore reading as much as I can. I just wish she had spent an equal amount of time on my grammar and math. i SUCK at math.
She was not a teacher. She was a nurse who went back to work after the four of us kids were in high school. She had four kids all under the age of five while my father was in Vietnam for 18 months. When my dad got back, she told him he had the better deal!
I don’t know how she did it, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for her. I know we put her through hell during that time and she never had any help.
Boy, talk about getting off point! Sorry! Here’s my point…
I don’t have any children so I’m just offering an observation more than an opinion, but it seems to me that parents, even the stay at home ones, don’t seem to spend the time with their kids the way my parents did when I was growing up. I’m not judging anyone. I just think technology has kind of just taken over. I think the next generation will be affected even more so. Some games and electronics have become more like babysitters rather than learning tools. I sometimes think that the ol’ Speak & Spell had more teaching qualities than most of the learning/teaching toys nowadays.
Sorry for the novel! Thanks for letting me speak!
As a teacher, I’m a little torn on this one. On the one hand I’m thinking “Anything to get kids to enjoy books”… on the other hand I totally agree with Cath, above. I guess what I think is that things like the Leap Pad/Leapfrog/Baby Enstein/Sesame Street etc. etc. etc. have their place – but should not be used to take the place of a parent taking the time to actually read with their child.
I have a nephew too. And due to the fact he has crappy parents (blah!). I thought about buying him this toy. But talked myself out of it because reading to him… is something so special to me. We don’t get to do it often, but when we do… I love it!
If you want a computer to read to your kid—Save the $60 bucks and go to SesameStreet.com; theres plenty of stories on there that the website reads to you and is rather fun.
I think, I’ll be buying him some fun games… =D
Anyhow, I’m just a lurker! But this topic is something I’ve been debating too!
But they aren’t being read to, necessarily…they are reading along with it. Unless we have kids out there that are closing their eyes, and then running the pen/stylus over the words and just listening as its being read to them, then I see it as being no different from me learning to read from my daily hour of Electric Company/Sesame Street as a kid. I learned to recognize the letter “w” by the time I was 18 months old. My mother was changing my diaper when I pointed and said, “dappydoo.” She looked at what I was pointing at, which was a container of wipes, and realized I was reading the letter “w” on the container. My father then put me into a high-speed letter/word-recognition program of his own making, where he would ask me to read the words after he read them to me in books, on freeway signs, and in menus. Wherever there were letters/words to be found, he could make the program work. I started reading full-fledged books when I was 3, so it must have worked.
I don’t see a problem with the Leap Pad books, personally. And I’ve had a bit of fun with some of them myself in the past!
I also don’t see them as replacing the ‘reading to the child’ bonding that parents do…hell, I still wanted my mom to read to me when I was 12, because she made funny voices for all the characters in the books she read! So I’m not sure what the issue is here…
I’ve been seeing all these commercials too. This year is going to be different due to the economy and all the things going on. There will be a lot of deals though if you have the cash to spend like normal. Your kids are going to be stuffed with gifts.
Fine……..I always thought they were very engaging and educational.
Thanks.
I bought leapfrog to my baby, he seems to be fond of it.. its educational and enhances his creative thinking.