Challenge to Literacy
Glenn Doman's Method in Practice 
To risk a new educational approach, a "Challenge to Literacy" was the least that I could do to contribute to the modifications of our antiquated educational system. To challenge the present day process of eliminating illiteracy is an obligation for all serious educators. Perhaps it was because of this conviction that I did not hesitate to teach my babies to read. What damage could be done? None whatsoever! There is much controversy among specialists over the best methods to facilitate learning in infancy. While these controversies continue, we parents and educators, who are in contact with our children since birth, must not prevent the appearance of solutions.
We must struggle and find the solutions. We need to see the possibility of a new educational approach. Is it utopian to imagine 4 year old children entering school already literate? How much time and effort would be saved in society and in the educational system as a whole? In the world of stimuli that they are exposed, the ability to read is a tangible concept, among others, that they manipulate (with their eyes) and as a concept is assimilated, absorbed. The experiences that follow from this are accommodated, resulting in a growing necessity to acquire always more of the concept, the ability to read. The activity of reading, which began as a game, becomes itself a game all the time. As the game is played more and more, more does the child wish to dominate the game itself. The fact that reading is a spontaneous game, made real by the child’s own mind, shows that mental activities are the only things that we really learn, and as such, lead the baby to dominate real objects and their abstractions during her integration in the family and in society. Glenn Doman, the director of The Institute of Human Potential, in Philadelphia, initiated a clinical project, working in the beginning with children with brain defects, which led generally to unexpected results. He perceived that problems with the ears, eyes, feet, among others, could be minimized if the treatment began in the mind. He introduced an approach which emphasized the brain with the objective to detect and resolve problems of other organs. In this difficult task, he discovered that even a child with millions of dead brain cells may perform and learn certain tasks that were considered impossible. He noted that a child with half the brain removed appeared to perform equal to another child with an intact brain. The challenge presented itself in the form of the question “Why would not a child in normal conditions not have a better performance, perhaps a factor two better, than a child with cerebral problems?” Asked was could be wrong with the education of normal children, Glenn Doman discovered that we were teaching children to speak, to listen, but giving no opportunity for them to see the words, that that would lead obviously to the ability to read, if we were to do so. He suggested to parents that they begin a “smooth revolution,” increasing letter size and showing them to children daily, in the form of a game. He verified that they would learn well, and successfully. In his book 'How to Teach Your Baby to Read' Glenn Doman prepares the parent to confront the controversies and prejudices. He presents in Chapter 7 his method, which if only seen superficially, can appear as a useless ‘recipe’, which would lead to nothing. In my book “Babies Can (and did!) Read”, I can say that I have tested such a ‘recipe’ and that it is not what it seems to be initially; this ‘recipe’ is, above all, a true instrument which will conduce to an effective revolution in human education, of the normal child. The application of Glenn Doman’s method to my three children, which will be briefly explained in the following pages, was the scientific validation in Brazil of the applied and experienced method, added to its respective results. The results obtained and annexed at the end of my book will serve to foment new research in the educational field, and will give way to more inquiries into the workings of the educational system and in the ways we have been dealing with our children since early childhood. Let's all 'Challenge Literacy' and with it, increase our babies learning!!! Eliane Leao, PhD 2006 Challenge to Literacy
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