Ella reading in 5 languages at 22 months
We first started using Little Reader when Ella was 14 months old.
Ella first learned to read single words through another program. The major limitation of that program was that the baby is limited to learning only the 200 or so words that are taught in a limited number of DVDs and that's it.
That's why I was so happy when I came across Little Reader. Not only does Little Reader reinforce the sight words that she already knew, but more importantly, it goes on to teach phonics, couplets, sentences, and stories. It seamlessly bridges the wide gap between sight-reading single words and reading whole books phonetically! Even though Ella got her head start learning to read by using other videos, I would say that Little Reader is the one learning tool that helped her make the big jump from reading single words to reading whole books, and that's not only in English, but in Chinese too!
Using the Little Reader software, there is literally a limitless amount of things you can teach your baby. It is also highly configurable to your needs. For example, you can choose to show the words with pictures and videos, the words only, the images only, etc etc.
It is also very very user friendly. Even for someone as un-tech savvy as I am, I was able to use Little Reader to create not just custom English language files but also Chinese language files for Ella to learn to read.
Which brings me to the other major thing I love about Little Reader – you can adapt it to teach your baby to read in other languages as well! In fact, we are also using Little Reader to teach Ella Spanish and Filipino!
One other important thing I would like to mention about Little Reader (well, all of the BrillKids products actually) is that the after-sales customer support is excellent. I have recommended Little Reader and Little Math to my sister, sisters-in-law, and friends and have not regretted it. Thanks a lot to the BrillKids team! :D
P.S. Ella is now reading English at about a 3rd grade level and Chinese at approximately 2nd-3rd grade level. She can read phonetically in Spanish and can sight-read more than two hundred words in French even though we don't speak either of these two languages at home. I am now also using LR to teach her to read in Filipino!