Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I started around 3.5 according to my mom. My mom is a SPED teacher and I have a sister 18 months older. My parents read to us/with us every night. I can remember my mother having a series of Golden Books like readers; one side was a couple of short words in short sentences (meant for the child) and and the opposite page was bigger words and more sentences (meant for the parent to read). My mom had me reading her page long before Kindergarten age.
My mother is a pretty severe dyslexic and dislikes reading for pleasure as it's a struggle. She wanted to instill a love of words in us as young as possible (and I'm guessing being a SPED teacher, looking for possible issues.) My dad would pull out the dictionary and we had to learn 3 new words every week; spelling and usage.
Both my sister and I are voracious readers since childhood; we both credit my mother with it.
I didn't read very well until the third grade. My third grade teacher Mrs Donaldson provided the spark I needed to really learn and enjoy reading. I'm forever thankful to her. This was in 1959.
I find it rather humorous that nearly all of the responses thus far skew heavily on the earlier reading side. Statistically, it isn't representative of the mean at all. Perhaps the people who started reading later feel embarrassed to post. I think I've said this in another post, but I know a reading specialist that argues you shouldn't teach kids how to read (unless they are intrinsically motivated to learn) until the middle to end of second grade. I was an early reader (3), but my husband was a later one (7.5). Both of us went on to achieve multiple graduate degrees and he is arguably a more avid reader than I am. People put too much emphasis on how early kids do things these days. It's always a competition to see who reads first, who walks first, who grew tall fastest, or who could throw/catch a ball first when all of these things tend to come out in the wash at the end.
I noticed this as well. I also found it odd that two of my co workers said they could read at 2. That is just so rare. It made me wonder if we have different definitions of reading.
I find it rather humorous that nearly all of the responses thus far skew heavily on the earlier reading side. Statistically, it isn't representative of the mean at all. Perhaps the people who started reading later feel embarrassed to post.
You're right - the title of the thread is self-selecting.
Quote:
... I was an early reader (3), but my husband was a later one (7.5). Both of us went on to achieve multiple graduate degrees and he is arguably a more avid reader than I am. People put too much emphasis on how early kids do things these days. It's always a competition to see who reads first, who walks first, who grew tall fastest, or who could throw/catch a ball first when all of these things tend to come out in the wash at the end.
That's what happens when you live in a society that has a chain of "high end" daycare centers called Creme de la Creme which describes itself thus on its website:
Quote:
Our team taught curriculum makes it fun for your child to excel. With our qualified team instruction and rigorous academic curriculum, students achieve high scholastic goals.
Rigorous academic curriculum!? These are kids who are at an age where their biggest intellectual challenges should be learning to go in the potty and keeping Legos out of their noses.
I strongly agree with your statement: it all comes out in the wash at the end. It's said Albert Einstein didn't read until he was four - and there was no Creme de la Creme to "save" him. I was fortunate in that my parents went to bat for me - it was the school that saw me as a resource to be used in shaming the other kids into working harder at school. We've forgotten as a society how to let kids be kids, and the value of leisure time. My siblings and I spent our summers playing -- how do kids spend their summers today?
I have known people who said they were reading at 2.
My mother taught me how to read before kindergarten. So, I think about 4. If you read a lot to children, and read the same books, which n my experience, they love. they naturally become curious about words and letters of the alphabet. If they watch TV and video games all the time, and reading s not an exciting family ritual, they naturally will be less interested in reading and books.
My children saw my husband and I reading a lot. We would have times where where would turn off all electronics and read together.
They are in their 20s now, and they are still readers.
I still think it's possible to groom your children you be readers today. It's a bt more challenging, but entirely possible.
Since I read quite a bit to my children, they also read before entering first grade or kindergarten. They started to "sight read" at 3 (my son) and 4 (daughter)
I started around 3.5 according to my mom. My mom is a SPED teacher and I have a sister 18 months older. My parents read to us/with us every night. I can remember my mother having a series of Golden Books like readers; one side was a couple of short words in short sentences (meant for the child) and and the opposite page was bigger words and more sentences (meant for the parent to read). My mom had me reading her page long before Kindergarten age.
My mother is a pretty severe dyslexic and dislikes reading for pleasure as it's a struggle. She wanted to instill a love of words in us as young as possible (and I'm guessing being a SPED teacher, looking for possible issues.) My dad would pull out the dictionary and we had to learn 3 new words every week; spelling and usage.
Both my sister and I are voracious readers since childhood; we both credit my mother with it.
Your post brought up fond memories for me. My father also had us learn a few new words from the dictionary every weekend. We looked forward to that. I think it was usually Fridays or Saturday nights when he didn't have to work the next day.
He was a secondary History teacher, but he never worked as one, the lure of earning money superseded his desire to teach, but I think he was a natural teacher.
It's interesting that your mother instilled a love of words into you, although she suffered from dyslexia, and that she was also a special education teacher.
My parents also loved words, and passed that trait to us. My high school was one of the few public schools that taught Latin in junior high school. Not only did it make French and Spanish easier to learn, it increased my vocabulary and helped my verbal SAT score immensely.
I strongly agree with your statement: it all comes out in the wash at the end. It's said Albert Einstein didn't read until he was four - and there was no Creme de la Creme to "save" him.
That legend is not true. He was talking in complete sentences between age 2 and age 3. This was reported by his grandparents in a letter to relatives when his sister was born (he was 2.5 at that time).
He had such difficulty with language that those around him feared he would never learn to speak. But this fear also proved unfounded. When the 2.5 -year-old-was told of the arrival of a little sister with whom he could play, he imagined a kind of toy, for at the sight of this new creature he asked, with great disappointment, “Yes, but where are its wheels?”
Quote:
“The grandparents, visiting two-year-old Albert, did not observe any developmental particularities and, in a letter to other family members, expressed enthusiasm about the grandson’s good behavior and “drollige Einfälle” (funny or droll ideas or vagaries). , Albert, obviously expecting a toy to play with, could already verbalize his disappointment: “But where are its wheels (Rädle)?”
That legend is not true. He was talking in complete sentences between age 2 and age 3. This was reported by his grandparents in a letter to relatives when his sister was born (he was 2.5 at that time).
I don't really care if it's true or not, just wanted to correct the obvious slip. No one would be surprised that Einstein was not reading at four!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
re
