When did you learn to read?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Sorry if this is the wrong forum.

I was talking to some friends of mine and we couldn’t agree when was the average age to begin reading. One of my friends has a daughter of 3 and is already worried that she can’t recognise many words, but I thought he was worrying too much.

I don’t seem to remember reading until I was at least 4, probably closer to 5. Even then I wasn’t happy reading brand new things by myself until about 6. I was just wondering how old other people were when they could read by themselves. Thanks.

2

I was four.

3

I was 2 1/2.

4

According to my mother, I was reading books - not just memorizing and repeating - when I was 3. Personally, I don’t remember ever not being able to read. I figure I sprang from the womb with the ability. :smiley:

5

I was also four.

6

I honestly can’t remember not being able to read. I must have been pretty advanced by the time I started school, though, because I remember them having to ask the high school for books for me, as they had nothing appropriate to my ability.

7

I don’t think I even tried until I was in kindergarten, which would have made me 5. That’s when I remember learning the alphabet.

8

In the womb.

9

I was reading Shakespeare in the womb.

10

Curse you Parental Advisory. A pox on both your houses! (See, I retained what I read in the womb.)

11

Two and some, according to oral tradition. With my own kids, the first one learned by age two and a half, the second probably closer to five. There is zero correlation between how early they learned to read and how they’re doing in school these days.

12

My mom taught me to read, write and spell from the beginning. When I got to kindergarten, they freaked out because I was reading at grade eight level. They’d never seen anyone like that before.

13

I was 5.

Back then there was no push to get a kid to read early.

Learning to read so “late” certainly didn’t hamper me academically.

14

I’d say around 3-4.

15

I read at 3; my mom says I taught myself. Having an older sibling might’ve had something to do with it.

My wife also read at 3. Both my boys started reading and writing at 3. My youngest son wrote, when he was 3, the sentence “Daddy walk to the store” with all the letters nearly perfect.

Today, at 4, he is writing up a storm, and he figures out things that his also brilliant 7yo brother still hasn’t. A child psych observed his reading, writing and vocabulary casually and said “his IQ is probably 160, 170.” :eek: I don’t believe that; I think the fact he’s reading early skews any IQ measurement at this stage.

16

In first grade, at age 6. I’d say I’ve done well for myself considering this heinous deficiency in my early life.

17

2 1/2. Of course, my mom is a child psychologist and her friends loved to evaluate new tests on me so I was more of a lab rat than an average child.

My nieces learned at 3, 3 and 4.

18

I was about four I think, and I drove my mom nuts reading to her. I remember following her around the house with my latest Dr. Suess and explaining the stories to her after I’d read a page. She was a great mom and the one who taught me to read.

19

Hmm, before kindergarten. My mom was a grade school teacher and taught all of us to read before we ever went to school using McGuffy’s Readers. They might have been antiques, but they worked.

20

Three, so I’m told. Mom didn’t like the method the city schools used, so she taught phonics to my older brother and me. At about that time, I could read as well upside down as right side up.