I really don’t remember frankly. But, if I had to guess, I’d say that I wasn’t taught to read words other than “Ball”, “Mom”, “Dad”, that sort of thing, until 1st grade officially. My son, who’s in 1st grade now sort of verifies that.
But, I was in kindergarten in 1968. There was a cloud of Pot smoke engulfing the United States at the time so…
Another early reader here, thanks to my parents and my older sisters teaching me to read very early indeed. My nursery school called my mother one day because we were making Jell-o in class and I was reading the back of the box – she was convinced I’d memorized the box at home and was reciting it from memory! That would have been <counts back> about 1971.
I vaguely recall getting letters in kindergarten and simple words (of the “cat”, “dog”, “ball”, etc variety), with most of the reading emphasis starting in first grade. In second grade we had those SRA reading assessment thingies, with graded levels of different colors that were supposed to take two years to go through; it took me two months and only because my teacher wouldn’t let me just plow through the whole lot in one go but instead rationed them out to me, a couple a week. Eventually they sent me to the fourth grade English class, where I had an experience similar to Innanna’s – the first day I got there, the teacher wrote a bunch of words on the board and told me “Now, you may not know what these all mean…” I was far too introverted a child to disabuse her.
I note that one of the common strains in this thread is that when parents and other family members actually make a concerted effort to teach children early, it has a quantifiably beneficial effect. The other one, of course, is that smart kids make teachers nervous. 
[hijack] Heh. “Phonics Nazi” Perfect, Uvula Donor.[/hijack]
I can’t recall whether reading was a goal for everyone, but at my kindergarten (back in 1972!) we were certainly given the tools to learn. I can remember as one by one a few of my classmates learned to read before I got it. I think I was the 4th or 5th. In classic narcissistic fashion, I can’t recall who or how many people after me learned to read, or whether we all could by 1st grade. I suspect so, though.
I’m a big reader now, but I wasn’t an “early reader” who could read before kindergarten. My mother was even a reading teacher. See, not EVERYONE on the SDMB is gifted!
My mother taught me to read before kindergarten, so for show and tell I would stand up and read a Little Golden Book to the class.
For me, reading is like breathing. If I don’t have a book somewhere with a bookmark stuck in it, I feel like I’m missing a limb. I even plan what I’m going to read next while I’m in the middle of a book.
My kids learned their letters and numbers before kindergarten, and so picked up reading very easily. My daughter always leaves books laying around the house, and my son took Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into his bedroom and finished over the course of a weekend.
I’m not the only one who does that? I feel much better. I also often have two or three books going at the same time.
I was reading by the time I was four, with little or no outside help, but I honestly don’t remember if reading was taught in KG. I know my first-grade teacher was into phonics big time, and it took several weeks for Mom to convince her to send me down to get tested and it was found that I was reading at a 4th or 6th grade (I don’t remember which) level. After that she quit bugging me about phonics.
In third grade I didn’t even do reading class. My teacher had a couple of shelves full of National Geographics and I’d go read them during reading class. Oddly, nobody resented me for this. Of course, she’d have squelched any of that real fast; she was one of those teachers who somehow makes her expectations VERY clear and is automatically obeyed, while not being scary at all.
Phew. I thought I was the only one. Looks like there’s at least three of us then.
I was another one of these kids who was reading by the age of three. In my case it was because I spent most of my time being looked after by my grandparents and two of my aunts. My aunts would read to me constantly, and encourage me to read as well. By the time I’d got to nursery (which is what we call Kindergarten over the Pond!), I was reading the books meant for the Reception class (grade 1).
When I went to infant school (probably grades 1-3), we had a graduated reading scheme, with each class having a recommended level. By the end of year two (grade 3), we were supposed to have reached level 5. I believe that they gave up on the level scheme with me, since I’d got to level 5 at the end of year 1, and was thoroughly bored. I was just allowed to read what I liked. 
I remember my parents being told after my having been at nursery for 6 months (I’d started in August 1984, and wasn’t due to go into the Reception class until August 1986 because of my age) that there was no point in my being there, as there was nothing more that they could teach me, and I’d be better off being transferred to the infant school in the coming August. Which I was, and so I have always been the youngest in my year.
Phew. I thought I was the only one. Looks like there’s at least three of us then.
I was another one of these kids who was reading by the age of three. In my case it was because I spent most of my time being looked after by my grandparents and two of my aunts. My aunts would read to me constantly, and encourage me to read as well. By the time I’d got to nursery (which is what we call Kindergarten over the Pond!), I was reading the books meant for the Reception class (grade 1).
When I went to infant school (probably grades 1-3), we had a graduated reading scheme, with each class having a recommended level. By the end of year two (grade 3), we were supposed to have reached level 5. I believe that they gave up on the level scheme with me, since I’d got to level 5 at the end of year 1, and was thoroughly bored. I was just allowed to read what I liked.
I remember my parents being told after my having been at nursery for 6 months (I’d started in August 1984, and wasn’t due to go into the Reception class until August 1986 because of my age) that there was no point in my being there, as there was nothing more that they could teach me, and I’d be better off being transferred to the infant school in the coming August. Which I was, and so I have always been the youngest in my year.
Me too. Before I was born, Mom was a grade school teacher, and she read to me even farther back than I can remember. She finally stopped actively teaching me to read because my passive reading vocab had gotten so far ahead of my ability to use it in conversation. By the time I started kindergarten I was reading on the 2nd or 3rd-grade level. She used to yell at me for reading under the covers with a flashlight, saying it would ruin my eyes. It was almost all I ever wanted to do.
When I started kindergarten at the local neighborhood school, the teachers told me I wasn’t allowed to read, and took my book away and forced me to make Playdoh sculptures with the other kids. When Mom found out, she was furious and threatened to pull me out and home-school me if they didn’t transfer me to the local magnet school. They did, and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Who the hell tells a child NOT to read?
Eva, are we long lost sisters or something? I used to do the same thing. And get yelled at by my parents for doing so.
Apparently, we’re rare. I was in a job hunting seminar once - they had some kind of personality test, and one type was said to have multiple books going at once. I was the only one of that personality type in the room. Until that moment, I thought almost everyone read multiple books at once. Most of my family does.
I also read under the covers by the light of the electric blanket remote control. I was supposed to be asleep.
Anyway, to the OP, I could read at 3, so, no I wasn’t taught to read there. (I also never got in trouble for it, except with substitutes. I annoyed substitutes, which was hard, because I really didn’t want to…but I think I threw them.) But the rest of the students were. And could get through a book by the end of the year. This was Catholic school in the late 70s.
I don’t have kids, but I work with 1st and 2nd graders once a week. The first graders who were taught by their parents to read can. The ones who are being taught to read at school can recognize a few words and sound things out if you help them. They can’t (or won’t think to) do it on their own.
Well, as you can tell from my post above, my kindergarten teacher.
But it wasn’t quite the horror story that Uvula Donor alluded to. At about that time, and perhaps as a result of that incident, my Mom took me down to the local public library, which was only a block or two away, and got me a library card. There were all the books I could possibly want! And my Dad began sharing his evening newspaper with me when he got home from work–my tastes in the paper in those days ran mainly to the comics page, but there were also news stories about astronauts and sports reports and other things that interested me.
Made for an interesting few years of school, I must say. In the same day, I’d go from easy reading primers at school (“Look, Dick! Look, Jane! See Spot run! Oh, look!”) to reading such things as “Today, the two astronauts in their Gemini spacecraft reported that…”
Hmm… That’s strange. Most of my family decidedly do not like reading books at all. Hence, I’ve spent most of my time believing I’m a freak. My brother, who is five (almost 6) years younger than me hates reading, and will avoid books at all costs…
Well, stranger things have been known to happen! My family thinks I’m a freak, too. (They do mostly read books for fun, though, but not as much as I do. And my sister, I’m convinced, was switched at birth.) Anyone at Londope do quickie DNA analysis?
(Remind me sometime to dig up and forward you an article on Jewish genealogy by genetics. Apparently my people get around.)
I think we have a tenable theory here!!
Will do - it sounds fascinating.
Born in 1955. In KG the teacher put labels on some objects in the room, specifically “Book,” but we didn’t officially learn to read until 1st grade (Dick and Jane). In first grade, each kid had to read the alphabet from the strip of letters above the blackboard before we could all go to lunch… And there were a couple of kids who didn’t know it.
**I got in trouble for reading in kindergarten.
Seems that in our school, reading was taught in first grade, and wasn’t something kindergarteners were supposed to know how to do. **
I can remember getting bitched at for “working ahead” – not so much in reading (my elementary school REALLY stressed reading) but in other subjects. That’s what I don’t like about schools today: no individualization. Kids aren’t allowed to work at their own pace. The faster ones are bored to tears because the classes are dumbed down to accomodate “average” students, and the ones who are slower in some subjects struggle because they’re just not ready for the material yet.
I’m 17, went to kindergarten in 1990. I’d already started reading easy storybooks and things like that before the school year started, and by the last quarter of the school year, say, March, we started to read things of a “See Spot Run” nature. My brother is 10 now, and it seems to me that he wasn’t reading until a year or so later than I was, if I remember right.
Amen to that. Because I can pick and choose what classes I want now, (I’m a senior) it’s a little better, but I remember spending most of my k-8 years being bored out of my mind waiting for others to be caught up. In junior high they spent a couple years where they tried to “track” us based on ability in a couple different subjects (reading and math, I think). It worked great, but they stopped doing it.
I remember those! I hated them, they had such dumb stories on them, and I wasn’t allowed to read the long ones at the back. But my teachers did let me read extra, and gave me extra fun math workbooks too.
I can’t remember what my kindergarten taught, being another of those who learned to read beforehand. Like ivylass and Angua, I read all the time (hey, do you read while you’re brushing your teeth, too? I do…). But I seem to recall that K was basically ‘fun stuff’ and serious work didn’t begin until 1st grade. There are kids who aren’t wired to start reading that soon, and do better if they hold off until a little later. Making kids learn what they aren’t ready for (as opposed to letting them read if they want) is IMO a bad idea in early elementary school.
I remember those as well. Except I was allowed to read the hard ones at the back. In fact, I was encouraged to, cause I would act up otherwise, as I was bored out of my skull.
Not anymore. I used to, but my mother trained that habit out of me. I do read all the time though. When I was in Cambridge, which is far more pedestrian friendly than Birmingham, I’d read whilst walking sometimes
Absolutely. You have to teach kids at their own pace. Forcing them will not work. Also, each kid has different aptitudes, strengths and learning styles. In many cases, to get kids to learn effectively, you need to tailor your approach to multiple learning styles and strengths.