Comments on: Read Baby! Elizabeth Barrett on The Today Show

By: sandra

sandra — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:07:02 +0000

I saw the bit on the Today Show this morning about Elizabeth reading with great interest as this was my life as well. I was a very early reader, no real prompting by my parents. Although it did become my party piece as a 2 year old – to read the paper. No trauma! I started kindergarten at a 6th grade reading level and had progressed higher by 1st grade. Back in the dark ages (I’m 51) there were no gifted programs so the teacher didn’t know what to do with me, so they put me in the back of the room with a stack of books to read (2nd grade I read and reported on “Gone with the Wind”). Math was another area I was ahead of the pack. 2nd grade I was doing my Dad’s engineering problems – trig and calculus. Needless to say school was always boring. My only hard classes in high school were typing (I still can’t!) and home ec (slow learner at the cooking thing! Finally got it at age 32!).
Now I am an artist. Nurture Elizabeth, explore her talents, introduce her to new things daily! Enjoy!

By: LisaB333

LisaB333 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:25:35 +0000

Wow! My youngest son started reading when he was 2.5 years old and we thought that was pretty extraordinary but wow, 17 months! My son has hyperlexia which has contributed to his early reading and writing skills but I also firmly believe that the signing time series has also been EXTREMELY beneficial to him as well.

By: lesapinker

lesapinker — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:59:44 +0000

I read the story of Elizabeth with great interest, because my son who is 2 1/2 can read many words and even simple sentences (I write them on a chalkboard with no visual cues whatsoever. He doesn’t know what I’m going to write). When I heard that Elizabeth had watched Signing Time, I thought “well, isn’t that an interesting coincidence!” Our entire family has watched Signing Time since our son was about 9 months old. We all learned ASL together as we watched the videos and by the time Theo could talk, he was able to sign over 130 signs (yes, I counted!) and could understand but not sign many more. As he learned to talk, his signing dropped off, though even now as an extremely verbal toddler, he will sign certain words to emphasize a point when he’s excited. I always suspected that Signing Time had something to do with how verbal he was, and now I realize, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that he is already learning to read. Let me tell you, I will be a fan for life!

By: Kei

Kei — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:47:33 +0000

I was so delighted to see this! You know what Signing Time means to our family~ when I first saw William spelling the word ‘Red’ with the refrigerator magnets, saying “R… E… D… RED!” while he signed each letter and then the sign for Red, I was blown away! He was only 4Â½ years old at the time, which was a wonderful accomplishment, but that he has Down syndrome and verbal apraxia too, just emphasized for us that signing with him was the right thing to do from the time he was an infant. And Signing Time has been the biggest part of that, because he really learns and retains what he’s been learning from Signing Time. Not just the signs, but the concepts too. His first grade homework consists of reading 100 minutes or more a week, and thanks to the ability of Signing Time to add literacy benefits, he has no problem reaching that goal each week.

And when he can’t quite say something clearly, we ask him to sign or spell it for us, which is happy to oblige. Thanks for all you’ve done for him, and us!

By: jana francis

jana francis — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:02:58 +0000

Rachel this is so wonderful. I started to tear up when I saw Signing Time come up in the video, because ST! has meant so much to our family, especially baby Jane. Although at 22 months she’s not quite reading (lol) she knows the entire alphabet by sight, every color by sight, can count to 22 and sign the whole time. That’s not because we teach her all day, it’s because of Signing Time!