The above sentence sounds insane doesn’t it? We don’t need to teach our babies to hear. They’ve been able to hear spoken language since before we knew what they looked like (except for those 3d sonograms which I don’t agree with). Teaching children to to hear isn’t necessary because hearing is a function of the brain. Almost as long as they’ve been able to hear they’ve been able to listen. They’ve been wanting to make sense of the world around them and the language that is being spoken to them. Regardless of which of the planet’s 6,900 languages they’ve been listening to. Hearing is not a subject that we teach in school such as science or other subjects. Teaching a child to hear doesn’t involve any pressure on that child, by the same token teaching a child to read doesn’t involve any stress. We’ve heard the argument that teaching your child through Spanish DVDs, fun books, colorful flashcards and games is stressful for a baby and should not happen. In reality learning to read in a formal setting without the love of your parents, in a strict environment where no talking is to take place, where you are not allowed to mix playing with learning IS a stressful environment. Yet, that is the environment that most of us learned to read in. Programs such as Reading Amigo allow parents to move that learning into the family room where the child can be loved, cared for, and played with by the best teacher of them all, their parent.