Oh, and on the "late bloomer" front, DD11 had all kinds of early reading issues. Now granted, she's probably officially (remediated? stealth?) dyslexic, and also has some minor visual issues....but for what it's worth now, in 5th (10/11) she is reading like a fiend! At 6/7 and even 8, I never thought I'd see the day that I didn't have to all but hog tie her to get her required daily reading done.

Oh, we also had some early success with colored overlays. If nothing else, they are fun to experiment with.

colored overlays

What are they? I'm all for experimenting. And thanks for the encouragement.

They are just that....see through sheets of colored plastics. They work miracles for certain types of dyslexics. We ordered the whole kit of sample colors, let me see if I can find a link. But you can usually find some basic shades of blue, yellow and red at any educational type supply store. DD swore by the red-orange for a season.

http://www.dyslexiacure.com/purchase.htm

A friend found ones that were like little rulers, to help be a guide as well, but I don't know that I can find a link for those. The above link will at least share the thinking.

Oh, this link has the ruler things. Neither of these places is where we ordered ours from, but it's been a few years. These will give you a general idea.

http://www.crossboweducation.com/Eye_Level_Reading_Ruler.htm

Thank you. Btw, i'm sitting here reading Ruf's book and she says not letting kids watch TV shows on reading delays reading. Well, we had absolutely no TV until age 2, per AAP guidelines, and like you, my only book was the what to expect series. Which I loved by the way. I was just concerned about DS meeting the milestones. Never occurred to me to focus on the fact that he was meeting most things very early. Who knew? I knew nothing about kids. Even had to have a lesson on disper-changing in the hospital! LOL!

I'll check out those links when I get back on the computer. Thank you!

My kids were all reading fluently before age three, and none of them watched a lot of tv. My current wee one didn't watch anything before two, except Signing Time dvds. She did know many signs and the whole ASL alphabet before turning two.

If I think on it more, my earliest reader started watching Sesame Street in the mornings when I was getting his brother ready for school when he was about 11 months. That was all he watched for the first two years, and it's funny I hadn't thought about it much before. I was stricter with the other kids, but guiltily resorted to the "electronic babysitter" when in a pinch. School mornings were tough with my oldest, who has AS. We didn't know why transitions were so hard for him at the time.

Sorry, that doesn't look right. I wanted to say that I don't think kids NEED to have tv to become early readers, but that maybe it does help speed them on their way. It goes against my very limited tv stance to say so, but I want to be honest about my opinion.

I think they're sponges, so any input--even from TV--is absorbed.

Better than TV, generally, is human interaction. But I think there's a big exception: if you're not expecting your babies to read yet, you don't know to teach them as if they can read. TV makes no assumptions about reading level, as people do, and therefore kids might learn things from TV that they wouldn't learn from us...because we aren't teaching them that stuff yet.

I haven't had coffee yet, so I'm not sure if I'm making sense...

All true, and DS didn't watch any tv until 2, and never watched Sesame Street (he didn't like it). After 2, he watched some shows on Noggin (liked that channel b/c it had no commercials), but never an academic show. His favorite thing to watch at 2 was River Dance - he had a bit of a crush on Jean Butler!

My son liked the "old" Sesame St. It changed quite a bit when he was small and I really only recall his being a fan as a young toddler.

My current toddler has only seen it once or twice. It's not what it used to be.