The Glenn Doman Method

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Glenn Doman is the founder for the Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) whose initial focus was to help develop a program for treating children with brain injuries.  With this program, they were able to help brain injured children catch up in their physical and mental development so that no difference could be detected between them and their “normal” peers. They accelerated their reading, Math, general knowledge, and physical development.

After the success of this program with brain-injured children, they later adopted these approaches with normal children and thus began the “Gentle Revolution“. Intended for children from birth to 6 years, the objective of the Gentle Revolution is: “to give all parents the knowledge required to make highly intelligent, extremely capable, and delightful children, and, by so doing, to make a highly humane, sane and decent world.”

Founder Glenn Doman says young children love to learn more than anything else and this desire should not be ignored. Using Doman’s programs, you can feed your child’s desire to learn and teach your baby to read, math, encyclopedic knowledge, and physical excellence. Glenn Doman has published a number of books that outline how to achieve this:

1. How To Teach Your Baby To Read (The Gentle Revolution)
2. How To Teach Your Baby Math: The Gentle Revolution
3. How To Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence (Gentle Revolution)
4. How To Teach Your Baby To Be Physically Superb: From Birth To Age Six; The Gentle Revolution
5. How To Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge: The Gentle Revolution
6. How Smart is Your Baby? Develop and Nurture Your Newborn’s Full Potential
7. Fit Baby, Smart Baby, Your Baby: From Birth to Age 6
8. How to Teach Your Baby to Swim: From Birth to Age 6

More from Glenn Doman

How to Teach Your Baby to Read

Janet Doman on Teaching Babies Math

Learn How to teach Maths using Glenn Doman’s Red Dot Cards. You can also follow the BrillKids Little Math program to build your child’s foundation in Math.

Glenn Doman on Encyclopedic Knowledge

Babies are Linguistic Geniuses

More about the Linguistic Genius of Babies.

Guidelines for Following the Glenn Doman Method

1. Begin as young as possible
2. Be joyous at all times – keep it fun. Keep your voice bright and cheerful.
3. Respect and trust your child.
4. Teach only when you and your child are happy. If your child is sick, take a break and resume when your child is well again.
5. Create a good learning environment. After each flashcard session, play actively with your child as this helps him to retain the information he has just learned.
6. Stop before your child wants to stop – always keep your child wanting more. If your child turns away, stop immediately and resume the next day.
7. Introduce new materials often. Show the cards once and put them away. Avoid the temptation to repeat the cards too many times. Children learn quickly and will get bored easily.
8. Be organised and consistent.
9. Do not test your child. Do not make your child repeat after you. You can play a game and ask your child which card shows the word “…” and display a few cards to let your child choose. Do not use the game as a test, it should be done as a fun activity.
10. Prepare your materials carefully and stay ahead. Never let your child play with the cards. If you are making your own cards, make sure that the font is large enough for your child to read. If the font is too small, your child may not be able to read it. As you get to the later part of the program when your child is beginning to read books, you may find her struggling with certain books. If that’s the case, increase the font size and try again.
11. Avoid introducing letters of the alphabet. Start with words as they are more useful and have more meaning to a baby than the letters of the alphabet. Useful words with meaning will be more interesting to your child than a list of abstract symbols that represent letters which mean nothing to them. Start with words that mean something in their world, such as names of people they often see – Mummy, Daddy, grandpa, grandma; food they eat – cereal, cracker, water, milk. Because these words have meaning in their lives, they will be more interested to learn how to recognise them.
12. Remember the fail-safe law: if you aren’t having a wonderful time and your child isn’t having a wonderful time – stop.  You are doing something wrong.

Once your children have completed the entire Glenn Doman reading program, they will naturally learn to read more words on their own without requiring future assistance.  Although children are taught how to read using “phonics” at school, this system will be complimentary to the Glenn Doman method for learning how to read.

Flash Card Resources

• Reading Flash Cards (see also: BrillKids Little Reader Program)
• Math Flash Cards (see also: BrillKids Little Math Program)
• General Knowledge Flash Cards