# Memories before literacy

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 25, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629 "2014-06-25T17:53:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629/21 "2014-06-26T00:45:54Z")

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Oh yes. I start to have lots of memories around the time of my third birthday. I didn’t learn to read until they taught me in first grade. I was six-and-change by then.

I didn’t begin to read for pleasure until I was eight.

Finished my Ph.D. at twenty-six, so I’m not a big believer in the importance of early reading.

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**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629/22 "2014-06-26T05:35:46Z")

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I have memories from before I could walk or talk. And I remember watching my father write a letter, in long hand. I then “wrote” my own letter, in the style of long hand. If you looked at it from a few feet away, it probably would look genuine.

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**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629/23 "2014-06-26T05:40:50Z")

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I have a few fuzzy memories of kindergarten class and a hugely traumatic set of events that took place between 5-8 years old.

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**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629/24 "2014-06-26T14:36:30Z")

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I have several vivid memories before I learned to read, and I remember very clearly the day I, at four years old, first read a book. It was raining out, my mother was ironing and my older brother was delivering the clothes to the proper rooms, using the vacuum cleaner as his horse. I picked up a book about two Scottish terriers called Mac and Jeff and sounded out the letters.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memories-before-literacy/691629/25 "2014-06-26T15:21:16Z")

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Before being able to read? Hell yes. I didn’t learn how to read before 1st grade. I don’t have a clear specific memory of not knowing the letters of the alphabet. By 3, I knew how to write my name and a few other words, but I can recall writing it backwards (right to left) and being corrected. Similarly I can recall confidently announcing to my parents that I knew how to spell Ford, because I could see the letters on the car: “D, R, O, F!” (I’m not dyslexic, it just hadn’t sunk in that left to right was how it was done, and I didn’t associate letters with specific sounds yet either—phonics came later)

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