Phonics in Utero (Part 1)

Parent Cafe
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<p>Wrote this for a homeschooling magazine this weekend - thought you might enjoy.</p>

<p>I can be a cranky sort of guy. Not a crank (or at least I hope you don’t think me so) or on crank (in my day job, I help folks find treatment to ween themselves off the stuff), just cranky. I usually sleep okay, though I recently discovered unhappily that the dentist now mixes epinephrine with the lydocaine, and that can make me a bit loopy.</p>

<p>Just cranky. I don’t tend to find conspiracies under every rock, but not because I don’t see the agglomeration of big business and big government (most of the time, it is difficult to know where one ends and the other begins, really) wrapping their blood- and brain-sucking tentacles around us and the rest of the world ever-more tightly. Rather, they don’t usually seem particularly secretive about it anymore, and perhaps that is more worrisome.</p>

<p>I attempt to share and ultimately dissipate my crankiness through humor. Homeschooling conventions and forums are therapy for me, so please keep the invitations coming so that I don’t turn into an ax murderer, or, avowed pacifist that I am, simply a crotchety old guy (“crustified”, says my younger daughter Meera, an adjective I seem to have earned when she turned the ripe old age of 14.)</p>

<p>I have joked for years at conferences how the past-President of the United States had come to believe that if little Johnny didn’t know his vowel sounds at 6 ½, he was destined to become a drug-addicted homeless criminal. (The current President believes the same thing – so much for partisan differences.) The logic chain seems ironclad: if Johnny doesn’t know his vowel sounds and ‘perform at grade level’, he will ‘fall behind’. If he falls behind, he will feel bad about himself. If he feels bad about himself, he won’t succeed in school. If he is not succeeding, he will be left back. If he is left back, he is likely to fall in with the wrong crowd. If he falls in with the wrong crowd, he is more likely to use drugs at an early age. If he uses drugs at an early age, he is more likely to become a criminal. If he is arrested and serves time in prison as a criminal, he is likely to find it difficult to find and hold a job. If he can’t hold a job, he will become homeless. Skid Row, the shooting gallery, and the state penitentiary are all the future has in store for little Johnny for failure to properly identify the Sa, Fa, Ma, and Pa quadruplets at the appointed time. There it is – bald, clear, and terrifying, and holds parents and entire communities as willing hostages. </p>

<p>The prescribed solution has been to mount the kids on the school conveyor belt at earlier and earlier ages – Head Start at ages 3-5, or Early Head Start at age 2. (That research has shown it doesn’t work, even on the President’s own terms, would be the subject of another column.) And then, I would jest, soon they’ll be teaching phonics in utero, which usually provokes some knowing laughs from homeschooling audiences.</p>

<p>Well, following one of these talks, a woman came up to me and presented me with a full-page advertisement cut out of a maternity magazine. There, lying on a bed with a book, is a smiling, clearly very pregnant, blonde woman (in most of the parenting magazines I have perused, with the exception of Mothering, blondes seem to be the symbol of blissful future motherhood, and they all “carry their pregnancies well”), with the following headline: “You’re never too young to learn. (In fact, you don’t even have to be born!)” The copy reads, in part, “BabyPlus® provides your child lifelong benefits by beginning the learning process even before your baby is born. Our prenatal curriculum, comprised of 16 weeks of audio “lessons,” is the first step in your child’s cognitive development….We suggest you and your child begin the lessons between weeks 18 and 32 of your pregnancy. Don’t miss the opportunity to provide your child this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” (The ad, by the way, gives no indication of how the curriculum is to be delivered.)</p>

<p>At least they seem to understand that you can’t get left back and be forced to retake week 29 before you are born. Detention goes with the territory. But if you don’t start the curriculum early, “research” undertaken in Russia (“limited in scope and substance due to budgetary constraints during a time of profound political upheaval”) seems to indicate your child will have: poorer school readiness and diminished intellectual abilities; shorter attention spans; later developmental milestones; decreased ability to self-soothe; poorer sleeping patterns beginning in early infancy; poorer nursing; and will be less alert and relaxed as a newborn. Put it together, and one can quickly see that to not utilize the Prenatal Education System™ – “When learning begins” is their motto – is to subject your future Susie to child abuse and neglect, and a life of continuous woe.</p>

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<p>Part 2</p>

<p>The system costs $163.95, plus $14.95 shipping and handling, including the optional speakers and belt package “for those who feel their abdominal/physical size requires two sound sources for the use of Baby Plus®.” (The blonde in the picture clearly wouldn’t require it, but how would you be sure? And what would it mean to have a “feeling” about such matters? Do would-be mothers come specially equipped with such foreknowledge? What do I know? – my second X chromosome is missing a leg.) The package is pretty inexpensive, I’d say, given that the benefits will last a lifetime. Didn’t see a moneyback guarantee, though.</p>

<p>But I’m more than a little bit cranky about the product. It’s not that I’m a cheapskate (well, I am frugal, but not when it comes to my kids), nor in denial about its potential. No, in fact, I’m off the hook – one of my kids was born well before the product was invented, and the other is adopted – what we are doing for her is about two decades worth of remediation for her lack of access to a technology that could have positively transformed her life, and ours. Many of you, dear readers, can’t make identical claims, and therefore stand convicted, and it’s too late to do anything about it. </p>

<p>With the hair stiffening on the back of my neck, and blood pressure further from registering ‘dead’ than is normal for me, I sought to explore how it works. As this thing goes, I’m now an expert! What BabyPlus® claims to do is introduce lessons to prenates through “the only language they understand – the maternal heartbeat.” What’s not to love? It’s not a vitamin, it’s communication, and the technology speaks the language of the heart! And the baby learns to discriminate the BabyPlus® sounds from those of the mother, and is stimulated, and along comes little Einstein, only a happy, alert, relaxed, sleeping, nursing one who performs above grade level! There seem to be lots of satisfied customers – there are bunch of testimonials on the product website from very happy, what seem to be first-time mothers and fathers. They even posted one with a 9/11 hook from a New York City Police Officer! None reports on whether the prenatal curriculum helped their kid get into Yale - yet, but perhaps that is forthcoming. Anyway, check it all out at <a href=“http://www.BabyPlus.com%5B/url%5D”>www.BabyPlus.com</a></p>

<p>I’m still cranky. I’m not sure I’d be more peeved if the product works or if it doesn’t. Doesn’t it seem to imply that the mother’s heartbeat is somehow insufficient for the future well-being of the baby? I guess that’s the heart of the matter for me: if parents are willing, for the sake of the sonnyboy of course, to surrender the language of the mother’s heartbeat, what won’t they be willing to surrender later to a larger societal view of “what is best for the child?” to further the child’s “education”? The thing is, if I am a mother- (or father-) to-be, am I supposed to feel ecstatic or violated?</p>

<p>I don’t have any easy answers. I do know that the 1998 California Legislature was so concerned with how the child’s “brain is organized”, that they enacted the California Children and Families Act “to provide, on a community-by-community basis, all children prenatal (my emphasis) to five with a comprehensive, integrated system of early childhood development services.” With a little imagination, one can imagine public health nurses going door-to-door making sure that to-be moms are wearing their belts correctly (with the extra sound source if called for), and school officials charging those who don’t wear their belts religiously with aiding and abetting the fetuses in being truant in utero. Actually, home visits will likely be unnecessary; implanting microchips in pregnant moms to monitor them to ensure they are ‘laying the proper emotional, physical, and intellectual foundation for their children’ would work just as well. I know - I’m getting ahead of myself. (I’ve always loved this metaphor, as it likely implies that most of them time I am actually behind myself, which means I could use some remedial assistance in catching up. I’m sure Meera would likely agree that I can be a little slow on the uptake.)</p>

<p>Frankly, my objections appear to amount to a bunch of metaphors. “A child’s womb is his castle.” “A mother’s womb is sacred space.” “There is a sacred bond between mother and child that is not to be interfered with.” “The language of the mother’s heartbeat is not to be bought or sold.” The rhetoric may make for good protest signs, or counteradvertising, but I hope you, dear reader, expect more from me. I certainly do. </p>

<p>At bottom, I think my objection is not so much to the technology (after all, I’d urge pregnant women to take folic acid) as to guilt-tripping parents into believing that, to ensure their children’s “success”, they’ve got to mount the kids on the conveyor belt even sooner than they do now. If I question the morality of stereotyping and scapegoating “late readers” as “slow learners”, or the drugging of seven-year-olds because they indicate through their actions that they would rather be playing outside rather than confined to the interrogation rooms, or the social machinery of school itself as a system of tools designed to maintain and reinforce social class distinctions, why wouldn’t I question the morality of a technology which goads parents to get their kids into the game that much sooner, even before they are born! for heaven’s sake! whether it works or not?</p>

<p>I fully expect to be chewing on this at least until my next epinephrine-free dentist appointment. My crankiness is not likely to fade away anytime soon. Since I am not at rest with this matter to my own satisfaction as of yet, and I expect some of you dear readers are not either, I want to invite you to send me your own comments (<a href="mailto:shantinik@earthlink.net">shantinik@earthlink.net</a>), and with my publishers’ permission, I’ll try to put them together for a later column.</p>

<p>In the meantime, and imagining infinite regress and the importance of finding ways to get the dads involved, I’m hoping against hope that someone doesn’t come up to me at a homeschooling conference with an ad headlined “Sing to Your Sperm”.</p>

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<p>the time to really take folic acid is for the men before the baby is concieved- ( prevents neural defects)</p>

<p>I remember putting headphones on my belly and playing classical music in an attempt to get the babe to settle down so I could go to sleep- why is it that they are so squirmy when I was quiet?</p>

4

<p>Similarly, a number of people have also claimed that playing classical music to your pre-born children will have some positive influences, and this may also be the case. </p>

<p>As another homeschooler, I see the range of other homeschoolers who either try to get their kids to read as soon as possible or those who unschool to the EXTREME (some unschoolers are OK, but others use it as an excuse for parental laziness, and their kids are approaching ten years old without knowing how to read well). I cannot remember the exact source, but I recall reading somewhere that the academic achievement level of children (whether homeschooled or public schooled) correlates fairly closely with the English speaking ability (at least in US) of their teachers. My wife and I have “spoiled” our 4 kids when they were quite young by letting them sleep next to us in our bed until they were about 1, and the kids seemed happiest when we were having typical conversations about random topics.</p>

<p>I am definitely of the mindset that phonics is a more effective method of teaching reading than whole language (although bright kids will discover phonics on their own, even if it not taught), but I do not see how you could teach this in utero. I guess you could blast them with the songs from Sing, Spell, Read & Write (a program that I think works fairly well for musical kids) in hopes that they would somehow become familiar with the songs. Does seem to be a bit of overkill!</p>

<p>Despite the high-tech nature of the world, I still think reading well and doing mathematics are the two most important skills (and frankly the ONLY important skills for them to acquire before they are about 8 years old), ALONG WITH EXCITEMENT AND A THIRST FOR LEARNING. There seems to be PLENTY OF TIME to learn these skills after birth. Furthermore, having a little kid know that Mom and Dad love him is probably just as important.</p>

<p>For those parents who are “worry-warts” about having their kids be as advanced at a young age as possible, Thomas Sowell has some interesting writings related to kids who do not speak as early as others. I also miss the good old days when my friends and I just went outside to PLAY (rather than having some well-defined structured activity, such as soccer, piano, ballet, gymnastics, etc.). </p>

<p>My youngest kid is 11, and barring a medical miracle, my wife and I will not have any more (although we have occasionally considered adoption). In the future, if one of my kids were to discuss purchasing such a product when raising their own families, I would prefer they spend the $200 or so on a swingset or a high quality magnifying glass that their kids can use in the backyard when they are 2 to 5 years old.</p>

<p>I do, however, have one final question. Does listening to books on tape in utero count as an appropriate EC that a student could list on his resume?</p>

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<p>There is a great section in the book, Take My Student PLease, where the dad talks about taking is 2 year old to the beach, and wondering if that counts as an environmental study in marine biology, or some such thing…pretty funny</p>

<p>I would play the Stones all the time, and with my infants strapped in the little car seats, play the oldies - their first song- Barbara Ann</p>

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<p>My oldest one’s first song was “Help Me Rhonda”.</p>

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<p>Mini - have you read “Hard Times” once too often? Or just listened to a lot of Pink Floyd? </p>

<p>Not that I disagree - I hate the trend of commercializing childrearing. DVDs in minivans - can’t the kids look out the window, talk, or read during the trip? Ten million plastic toys - don’t get me started. What’s wrong with a book and Lincoln Logs? Knee, elbow, and hand guards for kids on bicycles - you skin your knee, it’s called life. It’ll happen. It’s part of being a kid. Ugh.</p>

<p>Makes me want to start a new reality TV show - how to raise your kid without age-appropriate, educational, psychologist-tested computer games, Leapfrog books, vitamen supplements, and uber-selective preschools. It will make the Survivor foodstuffs look mild. </p>

<p>Grrrr.</p>

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<p>Homeschool, shmomeschool. In utero, in shmutero. Baby Mozart & Einstein, Bay Shmozart and - well you get the drift. The most verbally active and quick kids I have ever seen are my wife’s grand-nephews and nieces, who currently range in age from 3 to 10. How did they get that way? Well, since they were born, their grandmother (my sister-in-law) (who is a retired preschool teacher) was constantly singing to them, nursery rhymes, childrens’ songs, game songs and various popular songs, and, as soon as they could make sounds, having them fill in words.</p>

<p>These kids could sing whole verses before they could talk much - long before they could construct sentences they were singing whole songs, with multiple verses. I have long admired the patience of my sister-in-law, who’s done this for years, singing the same songs a gazillion times each in order to get those kids where they are. My wife also did the same, but we have only one offspring, whereas my sister-in-law has four grandchildren (and before that, no doubt did the same thing with her own four kids, not to mention countless kids that she taught at preschool.)</p>

<p>Save the money on the tapes and sing to your kids, as often and as loud as you can - when they’re very young, so that they can pick up good verbal habits before they find out what a terrible singer you are (yes, I also did some singing until everyone around me asked me to stop; but my wife has a good voice - peope LIKE to hear her sing.).</p>

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<p><a href=“yes,%20I%20also%20did%20some%20singing%20until%20everyone%20around%20me%20asked%20me%20to%20stop;%20but%20my%20wife%20has%20a%20good%20voice%20-%20peope%20LIKE%20to%20hear%20her%20sing.”>i</a>.*</p>

<p>This reminds me of a daughter who was horribly embarrased when her father was singing a tune on the sidewalks of NYC.
The punch line is the dad was Billy Joel.</p>

<p>I was a nanny for a mom who was doing the doman-delcato program but she didn’t expect me to do it with them.
I did do extra things with both my kids- my oldest was born 10 weeks early and while she was relatively normal there was still some delays. I took her to Little Gym ( a national chain now- but the founder lived down the street) and to co-op preschools so that I could get support and advice from other parents ( we didnt have any extended family to speak of). I also read a lot to her- must have paid off, she taught herself to read at three, which was amazing to see because she was the size of an average one year old.
She also really liked singing and music and was a very happy tot.
I read to her sister a great deal as well- but she actively resisted any attempt to teach her to read. When I skimmed my finger along the words when reading- the only thing that I did to teach her sister, she would take the book and shut it or even throw it down. Just too much pressure.
Despite my and her schools best efforts she didn’t learn letter sounds until she was 8 and in special education. However by spring she was reading Harry Potter so something must have just clicked and she now reads with comprehension way above grade level.</p>

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<p>Well, my older son applied for a job teaching English in Japan. (didn’t get it, unfortunately…) This particular company had classes for all age levels, including PRENATAL classes! Apparently they put headphones on the women’s bellies and speak English to the unborn babies, assuming this will help them learn the language better after they are born.</p>

<p>Sounds a bit overboard to me, but then what do I know?</p>

11

<p>Mini:
When I was within a couple of weeks of giving birth to S1, H and I went to hear the Messiah (big mistake, my back was killing me). Half-way through the Hallelujah chorus (hurray, got to stand up) I found S kicking me in time to the beat! By the time S was six months old, he refused to eat unless we put on some music. We went through a phase of eating dinner to the music of Beethoven’s 5th, Gilbert and Sullivan, Bartok, etc… I once invited friends to dinner and they fell about laughing when, just before dinner, I got up to put Beethoven’s 5th on. How’s that for pompous, portentous background music?I don’t know what that says about music in utero, though.</p>

<p>Now, what about flashcards that would somehow be readable from inside the womb? I had a neighbor who insisted on showing flashcards to her 3-month old. Think of the headstart she could have had if she could have flashed those cards to her as yet unborn baby!</p>

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<p>emeraldkity4,
My sons sound like your daughters. We read aloud a lot to both. The first was reading Star Trek adult books by age six with almost no actual instruction. My second had no interest in reading, but caught on when he was 8 or 9 ( no special ed because he was homeschooled) and was reading well above grade level by the end of 3rd grade. Unofrtunately, he still does not really like to read, unless it is a music score. Those he devours…</p>

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<p>Similar to dadofsam, my kids apparently inherited their musical abilities from my wife. They have not only loved listening to music from a young age, and being read to by Mom and Dad (I still have The Grinch Stole Christmas memorized from when they were two or three), but also recorded books. My kids have listened to recorded books since they were very little; we were typically the only ones who had checked out the various LPs or tapes from the library (that’s right, I said LPs), many of which had Shakespearing actors reading childrens books. Good libraries now have many of these on CDs.</p>

<p>One day about ten years ago I was driving my son’s car pool to soccer practice (a bunch of 9 year olds), with the cassette of one of the tales of Narnia, and the other kids in the van were mesmerized. They had never heard good children’s literature.</p>

<p>I have also made my kids read aloud to make sure they are pronouncing words properly, etc. I read somewhere that Abraham Lincoln used to move his lips when he read because he often read things quietly aloud to himself. As a kid I always read novels at conversation speed, sounding out the various exclamations as I went along. Not as fast as I could have read, but I think I enjoyed it much more.</p>

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<p>Random thoughts:</p>

<p>It never occurred to me to buy “programs” or something for my baby - unborn or otherwise. I just really liked being with them, and was fortunate enough to have that opportunity. I really, really believe that most of these programs work (assuming they do) mainly because the parents are paying attention to their kids. We played Beethoven because we like Beethoven, and were happy when they also did. (It’s nice to learn after the fact that maybe we did something right.) </p>

<p>My first son went through a stage, between 10 and 12 months when he wanted to know “what does cow say?” and such. It progressed to “what does a M say?” and by 15 months he knew all the names and sounds of the refrigerator magnet letters. (Couldn’t put them in order - A - B - C … till about 2). When he was 2 we were at the doctor’s office (I was pregnant with #2) and he asked me what E-X-I-T spelled. I told him to sound it out. He studied it for a few moments, then he asked “What does exit mean?” The other ladies in the waiting room all accused me of being “one of those mothers who spends all my time doing flashcards” (which had never even occured to me.)</p>

<p>Our schools went through a phase of overboard phonics teaching, using a computer program, called “writing to read” or something, that would mark a child “wrong” if he spelled apple correctly – it was supposed to be “apl.” I was glad my kids knew how to read early. The kids who went through this had a heck of a time learning how to spell.</p>

<p>Second and third children progressed differently. Second child didn’t even speak much till he was nearly 2. (He meowed.) My mother asked me if the doctor thought he was ■■■■■■■■. I said I didn’t know; I didn’t ask. Kids are different, and I wasn’t raising a clone. Doctor did then say that he thought kid had a healthy imagination! But he “composed” his first melody at about 18 months, which he would hum over and over. </p>

<p>Our only attempt at prenatal training was when I read in my nursing book that I was at the stage where the babies ears / hearing were developing, and suggested that my husband say something “fatherly” to our baby. H leaned over and whispered “E=MC2”. </p>

<p>We still like to read aloud at the dinner table. (It’s my diet. I read while everyone else eats.) We’ve read everything from “Wayside School” to “The Hobbit” to “Narnia” to Roald Dahl. Have done so since kids were tiny. When we had foster kids, the teachers all used to tell me I needed to spend more time reading with them, but our schedules were so packed as it was, this was the only way I could fit it in. It became a habit, and has continued long after we quit fostering.</p>

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<p>emeraldkity, every time music was played, my in-utero daughter started kicking - so the last thing I would have done to make her quiet down was put on the music. That’s how I knew, before birth, that she was a dancer. I saw a production of 42nd Street when I was about 5 months’ pregnant, and she was tapping away inside. I’m quite sure from the way it felt that she must have had tap shoes in there, too - though they mysteriously disappeared before birth.</p>

<p>Marite, I’m thinking my d. must be related to your son. She seemed to be born already familiar with Mozart & Beethoven. </p>

<p>But you can’t force it on the kid. We did the in utero playing of music for my son and I also read to him in utero, plus read to him every day in infancy. He never was much of a music lover -seemed oblivious to music until he was college age - and he turned out to be dyslexic and couldn’t read well until age 11. So much for the in-utero programming. </p>

<p>D, being younger, was pretty much ignored during early childhood, mostly being dragged around as a passenger in the car to whatever activities her brother was scheduled for. She’s the one who was the self-taught reader at age 4. And as noted, she emerged from the womb a classical music lover.</p>

<p>NOTE: I didn’t do the in utero stuff with my son in an effort to teach him anything. He was my first and I was just overly obsessed with the idea that I was going to have a baby. I had a nickname for him (“U.B.” for “unborn”) and talked to him and patted my belly a lot etc. He was the first grandchild for both sets of grandparents, too.</p>

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<p>In another life, Eamom worked in a prominent local OB-Gyn office. They encountered several cases of children being born with severe hearing deficits as a result of having music played loudly through a speaker resting on the mother’s abdomen during the course of the entire pregnancy. Amniotic fluid is apparently a great transmitter/conduit of sounds. I guess the message here is if you’re going to do it, keep the volume very low.</p>

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<p>interesting eadad
I actually didn’t keep up the playing of music- it didnt really work to settle the baby down
she was such a wiggleworm that she tied her cord into three true knots and cut off her food supply- that’ll teach her!</p>

<p>with the 2nd I didn’t really do anything to try and influence her except for to do inversions to encourage her to turn- they had to turn her externally on two seperate occasions and she didn’t like to stay like that- lil stinker (oddly enough though once I was in active labor she did turn the right direction)</p>

18

<p>Yikes! Just want to clarify that when I played music for my in utero babies, the stereo speakers were in their usual position on the shelves in the room, at ordinary volume. It never occured to me to try to enhance the sound level for the baby-- and my little unborn dancer could hear just fine. The first time I felt definite movement early in the pregnancy was while attending an opera, and we were sitting in the 4th balcony - no where near enough to be blasted by sound. And no rock concerts, either.</p>

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<p>She hated it, and wanted out! ;)</p>

<p>(You did know that is the connection between teen sex and rock 'n roll - the sperm want to escape as fast as they can! NEVER take a 14-year-old boy to the opera!)</p>

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<p>Ditto, here. The music was strictly ambient rather than directed. When I was carrying S1, we lived in a condo on one floor. Whatever we listened to, S#1 got to hear in utero. That included countertenors, as H was heavily into early music (S#2 sings bass). When I had S2, we continued to listen to the same classical music, but by then we were spread on several floors. S#2 likes techno music. Thankfully, he has earphones.</p>