'whole' word or 'sight' reading.

Due to the newness of this product,

long-term benefits extending into school-age or adulthood have not been established.

Hi, I'm Lana, as the mother of three, I know parents everywhere are wondering

if we should teach our babies to read.

We've seen the commercials with kids as young as 1 seemingly reading.

Even if babies and toddlers can learn to read, what's the rush?

Well, in the next half hour, we're going to separate truth from hype,

with the help of Early Literacy Expert, Dr. Richard Gentry.

You'll also hear from parents who have tried for themselves

the next evolution in early learning. It's called Little Reader.

The benefits that I've seen with Little Reader have been dramatic,

and we didn't experience that with other systems that we've tried.

It's just amazing how much more I think she's going to be independent now,

in certain aspects of her learning because she's able to read.

Knowing that my not even 2 year old son recognizes words,

I am telling you I feel like Superwoman.

It's like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm teaching them something,

they're so happy, they're learning,"

She loves it.

She loves it.

It's fun time! It's Mommy and me time.

It's a perfect bonding experience, and learning at the same time.

It encouraged me to be a better parent to my child.

Some people asked, "are those babies and toddlers really reading?",

"Why should we teach them at such a young age?"

Well, I have the same questions too, so I asked Early Literacy Expert,

Dr. Richard Gentry, author of many books including

Raising Confident Readers From Baby to Aged 7.

With over 30 years of experiences, he is a former elementary school teacher

and university professor who has lectured on Early Learning and Literacy

throughout the world.

Can babies and toddlers really learn to read?

In a nutshell, yes,

and you can see many examples of babies and toddlers who have learned to read words.

Parents like author Winifred Stoner have been teaching babies to read since almost

a hundred years ago.

Then why have there been resistance by some experts to embrace the notion that

babies can learn to read?

There's an academic blind spot. Some experts hypothesize that babies can't read.

What we do know is that babies lack the 6-year-old brain capacity

which is needed for formal reading instruction.

Six year olds have to work hard to understand the complex reading system

with their left brain.

Babies, however, likely use their right brain capacities

for pattern and word recognition.

They learn informally, and to them, it's more like playing a game.

So, how can we teach babies and toddlers to read?

The one crucial component that has never changed is that

parents are the key to any success.

Just good old one-on-one parent and child interaction.

But an extremely important element is having a complete toolkit

that makes it easy for parents.

One such tool kit that helps parents teach their babies and toddlers to read

is Little Reader!

Before my conversation with Dr. Gentry,

we invited a group of parents to try out Little Reader on their babies or toddlers.

They used Little Reader on a regular basis and documented the learning process.

Let's meet one of these parents.

Hi I'm Amy and this is my daughter Willa.

She's almost 16 months old and we are very excited to try BrillKids Little Reader,

aren't we?

Everybody in our house is always on the computer,

it's a great way for her to have her own computer time...

Ready to start?

...and be educational at the same time! Right?

It's like it's tailor made for her attention span that we get on, she gets her little...

you know... word flash lessons and just she's tickled.

There's no pressure, you pick it up when you want to pick it up,

it turns off when you want to turn it off and, she loves it.

Now, I can actually say to her,

"Willa, do you want to go do your Little Reader?" and

she runs over where the laptop is and, waits for me to turn it on

It has been nothing but fun time and bonding activity for Willa and I together

Willa loves Little Reader

Say bye bye

There were several things that came up consistently between the parents who tried

Little Reader. One of them was how easy it was to use.

Little Reader deliberates. It makes a puzzle that anybody can pick it up,

turn it on, install it.

Everything is prompted in on the screen, so even I couldn't screw up.

All you have to do is click Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, press Play and go.

So I was like, "This is easy! I can do it! I can do it without him!"

It's 5 minutes a day, it's fun for them, they are learning at the same time.

Little Reader's short amount of time that they require of you

allows me to be truly focused on helping him and making it more exciting for him.

If I can make 10 minutes a day with 5 kids then, and a job,

I think pretty much anyone can do that.

As a parent you just want to help your children

and this is the easiest thing you could do.

Many of my friends have asked, "Shouldn't we just let babies be babies?"

I asked Dr. Gentry if we've become a generation of neurotic flash card parents

forcing the early learning issue.

The great news is that with baby and toddler reading, no force is necessary.

In fact, it's the COMPLETE OPPOSITE because babies and toddlers love to learn!

These lessons are just like playtime for her.

I'd go, "It's time for your lesson," and they all run for the room.

Owen will come up and say, "More flashcards, more Little Reader."

Lily will grab the laptop and say, "More, more, more!"

She loves it so much that she asks for it several times a day.

My son gets very excited as soon as he sees the first word pop onto the screen,

he realizes, "Oh, we're getting ready to do the program."

He absolutely loves it.

With this program, the kids are able to be kids and enjoy themselves

they don't even know they're learning.

They just think it's, like, a video game.

Isabella loves Little Reader. Like, it's amazing, honestly.

I know my son loves it, I know everybody else who's used it loves it.

We've seen some incredible footage of babies and toddlers reading

using the revolutionary Little Reader program.

However,

some experts question if they're actually reading or just memorizing the words.

I asked early literacy expert, Dr. Richard Gentry,

how do babies and toddlers learn to read?

Well, experts define reading in different ways.

We know that babies don't start out reading words phonetically.

They seem to start out reading the whole word and demonstrating that

they know its meaning.

However, incredibly, many parents are reporting that over time,

their toddlers seem to be picking up on word patterns intuitively.

Dr. Gentry, you've chosen to endorse Little Reader as the recommended toolkit

for teaching babies and toddlers to read.

What makes Little Reader so special and why does it work?

I've examined other programs, but Little Reader stands out for me.

It takes advantage of modern day technology to deliver lessons

that are more engaging for little children and easier for parents.

Because it's software-driven, it's able to deliver lessons in ways

that's never before been possible with flash cards or DVDs alone.

Little Reader I think goes above the DVD-based system because of its variation,

because it engages the kids a lot more,

We had used other programs with my daughter,

but I really liked with Little Reader that it was done in such short bursts.

It was better for a smaller infant's attention span,

Just every day, I see them finding something else that they enjoy about it,

because it changes every day.

It'll change the character, or the animal,

Different font, different color, different script, different voice saying it.

Not only are you learning the things that are programmed in,

you can teach them things about your own family.

"That's my mom in that picture," and

I'm identifying this word or

"That's our dog, in our own home."

When grandma comes into town, and the children have seen her on Little Reader,

over and over again, they warm up right away.

Every time Grandpa's picture came up, he would say,

"Grandpa!, Grandpa! Grandpa!"

...and when he saw Grandpa in person, that was like his favorite person...

Don't some pediatricians say that a baby shouldn't be watching anything on a screen

before the age of two?

The concern is over inappropriate content and the lack of parental interaction

if the TV is being used as a baby-sitter.

Today,

organizations like the National Association for the Education of Young Children

are recognizing the importance of technology,

and are moving to encourage parents to use technology in responsible ways.

In fact, with Little Reader, you also have access to one of the largest early learning

online communities in the world.

Giving you support from tens of thousands of parents

and the ability to download a ton of additional free content

in all sorts of different languages.

I really enjoy being a part of the Little Reader community online.

I can connect with parents all over the globe,

and not feel alone in early learning.

That kind of support is really valuable to parents

Yeah, I think the community involvement that you can download customized content

from people all over the globe, is phenomenal.

We have potentially years' worth of educational tools, you know, that we can tap into.