Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Most kids don't learn to read until kindergarten or first grade. But one expert says your baby can read. And that doctor's system seems to have worked for a toddler in Maryland, who really can read, and she's not quite two years old!
Jennifer Franciotti has the story.
Bernard Boit/ Autumn's Dad: "I was a skeptic at first because I never heard of children reading at nine, ten months."
While the Boits are extremely proud of Autumn, they credit her amazing ability to read to Dr. Robert Titzer. The California educator is the developer of a set of videos and dvds called "Your Baby Can Read!"
It's a concept that combines the written word with sounds and visual examples. Linda started the program with Autumn at three and a half months. She could identify words at 15 months and took off from there.
Linda Boit/ Autumn's Mom: "Things like 'Hechts' off a shopping bag, or Taco Bell. Just reading the word 'Starbucks', 'Booksellers', 'Barnes and Noble'."
Bernard Boit/ Autumn's Dad: "Anything. To include handwriting, street signs, billboards."
Dr. Robert Titzer/ Educator: "If they're allowed to see the language, they can learn the patterns of the written language very naturally. Especially if they learn earlier in life when their brains are developing very rapidly."
Dr. Titzer says most children don't learn to read until the age of five or six. BUt he says the ability is there as early as nine months. As for credits...
Dr. Titzer: "We've been doing it the wrong way for such a long time that people look at this and say why would you do this? But anyone else who's used the system says why in the world would you wait?"
Autumn is clearly a happy child and the Boits say they've never pressured her to learn.
Linda Boit: "It's opened up a world for her in that she can entertain herself. She can read books in the car now."
Now that autumn's learning has progressed, her parents find that she has started understanding the words that they're spelling out.
