The video: A watchdog group is demanding that the feds silence advertisements for the "Your Baby Can Read" line of videos, flash cards, and books. The group, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, calls the company's claims that their $200 kits can help infants as young as three-months-old learn to read misleading and harmful. (Watch a Today report on the flap below.) Ads for the program, developed by educator Robert Titzer in the late 1990s, say infanthood is the best time for a child to acquire reading skills so parents should "seize this small window of opportunity." But leading child development experts say the babies and toddlers in the commercials are just memorizing flash cards, not reading them, and generally dismiss "baby genius" products as pointless.
The reaction: Face it, parents, says Madeline Holler at Babble. Your baby can't read — no baby can. So let's hope this advocacy group succeeds in banning these commercials the same way it "brought down Baby Einstein." "Memorizing is a great party trick," says Sasha Brown-Worsham at The Stir, but "it isn't actually reading." Parents ought to just let their kids discover books when they're ready. That's the way to "build a lifelong love of reading and learning in general." Watch the Today report:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Trump uses tariffs to upend Brazil's domestic politicsIN THE SPOTLIGHT By slapping a 50% tariff on Brazil for its criminal investigation into Bolsonaro, the Trump administration is brazenly putting its fingers on the scales of a key foreign election
-
3 questions to ask when deciding whether to repair or replace your broken appliancethe explainer There may be merit to fixing what you already have, but sometimes buying new is even more cost-effective
-
'Trump's authoritarian manipulation of language'Instant Opinion Vienna has become a 'convenient target for populists' | Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
