Book Review: My Baby Compass Two-Four Years by Kathyrn Gruhn, MA, CCC-SLP

I am truly in love with this book. There is NO feeling in the world like teaching your children skills that they will use and continue to develop their entire lives. The book I received was the My Baby Compass, an Easy Program to Help Your Child Think, Speak, Move & Thrive, Two to Four (Volume .

Just flipping through it for the first time, I could definitely tell that Kathryn has 35 years of experience in Child Development. The book is simple to read and put to good use! It’s an amazing book, I seriously feel like this is a how-to guide for 2-4 year olds, lol!

I love that she teaches the value of one-on-one contact with children, and how to easily teach them through this contact. It is a nice step down from our high-tech world that usually revolves around the T.V., Smartphones, and Tablets.

There is NOTHING better than sitting down with your child and playing games while also helping them learn. If you make it fun and engaging, they will definitely love it and want more of that positive interaction.

It is very straight to the point and interactive to both the child and the parent. It makes each parent realize what skills their children should be able to do by what age, and then helps us engage in teaching them those skills with just simple games, demonstrations, and a fold out milestone checklist so we know what skills are yet to show up in our kid so we can focus on those!

This book is broken down into easy to find Chapters:

Ch. 1- “Getting to Know Your Toddler”

Ch. 2- “ “The Communication Process”

Ch. 3- “Tracking Your Child’s Progress: The Baby Compass Checklists”

Ch. 4- “My Child Did Not Meet a Milestone, Now What?”

Ch. 5- “Age-Appropriate Toys and Playtime”

Ch. 6- “Music and Rhymes for Fun and Learning”

Each checklist identifies milestones that your child should be reaching or have already been reached. They are skills, behaviors, physical developments that commonly occur around each age.

*Speech/Language

*Hearing

*Cognitive/Reasoning

*Physical

*Vision

*Social/Emotional

 

I love that the activities in this book are fun, quick ways to stimulate those skills and behaviors. It is something that you’ll both enjoy! Something that can just be added to your daily routine. Not only will your child benefit but you will also. This is special one-on-one time that will help not only learning but helping you connect on another level with them!

Throughout the book, you’ll notice certain symbols. The beginning of the book breaks these symbols down and explains them to you so that you’ll know what it means. I really like this because it tells you what to expect from certain games. Whether your child will gain help in speech, social, vision, physical, or reasoning!

It also helps you understand how to use the My Baby Compass Checklists. There is a color-coded Checklist of milestones in each booklet for these areas:

* Two-Year-old/Three-Year-Old Talks (Speech/Expressive Language) Color Code- Red

* Two-Year-old/Three-Year-Old Hears (Hearing/Receptive Language Color Code: Orange

* Two-Year-old/Three-Year-Old Understands ((Cognitive/Reasoning) Color Code: Yellow

* Two-Year-old/Three-Year-Old Moves (Physical/Motor) Color Code: Green

* Two-Year-old/Three-Year-Old Feels (Social/Emotional) Color Code: Purple

Here are some examples of what is inside the book:

Toys and playtime activities. There are other months, I am just sharing from the 37-42 months section. She is beginning to sort color, size, and shape. You can help her by having her sort all of the same colors, shapes, and sizes, naming them as she plays. Use the words “big”. “bigger”, and “biggest” in addition to “small”, “smaller”, and “smallest”. This teaches that an object can have many different attributes (color, shape, AND size).

I love that it not only shows you how to “teach” your kids, but it lets you know from a teacher/parent point of view of what they will be gaining. That way if your child is behind on a certain skill (such as Motor development) you can just focus more on those activities.

Here is a sample of one of the checklists. I love this! It is definitely amazing just as a journal for your child’s accomplishments. This is a keepsake! You could keep this so when they get older and ask “when did I do this or that?” you’ll have something to show them.

They have a baby version of this as well. I wish I had known about it. I would have gotten one for both my son and daughter. My son was really premature and I had to write all this stuff down in a regular notebook for his checkups and specialist appointments.

This book is hands down AMAZING. Not only would these books be awesome for parents but they could definitely be given to child care providers, teachers, and even relatives such as aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

 

About the Book:

My Baby Compass, Two to Four Years, is an easy program that has 275 skills with checklists and activities in five developmental areas. It will allow busy parents a quick assessment to see if their child is on target which will provide a history to share with their child's health care providers. There are corresponding simple activities to facilitate these skills, along with appropriate toys, nursery rhymes, finger plays, sign language, music selections and useful resources. This program is recommended by child development specialists. It is great for teachers, health care providers besides parents. Everything you need in one simple book.

Buy it:

My Baby Compass, an Easy Program to Help Your Child Think, Speak, Move & Thrive, Two to Four (Volume  Spiral Bound Book with pull-out checklists $39.94

You can also buy it from the Baby Compass Website

Jessica Renee