‘link’ is really an amazing show. I began to show ‘link’ to my daughter when she was 7 months. She was reading from flashcards at 1, sounding out words at 18 months and reading books at 2. My 8 month old is watching them now and she really enjoys them. She smiles and waves her arms. My older child is now 3. One thing that amazes me is that she has better reading skills than 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders I have heard reading. I'm not sure if learning earlier improves reading ability or if there is something about this method. When children learn phonics at school they go through drills to learn the sounds of each letter. Sounding out letters is slow and definitely not a fun way to learn to read. It could be enough to kill a child's love of reading. A child who watches ‘link’ figures out letter sounds on their own. As Titzer's website says, if a child knows bat, cat, house and hippo they can figure out the word hat. When my daughter comes across new one syllable words she can quickly figure them out. When she comes across a word with multiple syllables she pronounces each syllable. She never has to sound out the individual letters. I think this is why she reads much better than older kids who have learned using the traditional phonics method. She can figure out unfamilar words much more quickly. As a result, she reads more quickly and can focus on the story instead of focusing on the individual words. This makes reading more enjoyable. Anyway, I'm very impressed with ‘link’ and glad that my children won't have to learn to read using the traditional phonics method.

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