Before I started schooling. My mother tells this nice story (makes a change from the what a problem I was stories) about how they used to sit me on the counter at the local shop and get me to read things. The locals used to marvel when I would repeat things like “confidential secretary”.
I assume she is telling the truth because the story has never varied, and I know that I was reading adult literature in primary school (ages 6 - 11 for me).
**You are not getting averages in this thread. **You’re getting a whole lot of early readers, even by today’s standards. My guess is that this bias is either because there’s a self-selection in the thread (normal to late readers are now too embarrassed to post) or because the Dope somehow attracts those especially gifted in reading and writing.
Here is the reading guide for one American school district. It’s pretty standard. As you can see, kindergartners (that’s 5-6 year olds) are expected to be learning which way reading goes (left to right) and recognizing letters. They may be reading a few words, but more likely they’re memorizing the patterns of words on a page. If your friend is worried about her child’s development, she can call her local school district and get a similar guide from them. That will let her know what her child will be expected to know before the first day of school.
Me? I learned to read at about 4.5. My mother reports that I was VERY upset after my first day of preschool because I hadn’t learned to read that day. But I was reading before kindergarten.
I learned in first grade, I think. I may have been doing it before then, but I vividly remember the first lesson we had, with the giant Dick and Jane book. I found a reprint of that same book recently and was able to find the very page we started with: Sally trying on Daddy’s shoes and saying “Look!” So I showed my kids the first word Mommy read. They were underwhelmed.
She should relax, though. My daughter didn’t read at all until kindergarten and by the end she was reading Beverly Cleary books. My son was barely making out any words at the beginning of first grade and he’s doing just fine now.
Yes, that’s true, but not really surprising. I was reading at age 4, and I don’t think my parents were trying to teach me to read that early (mother was a preschool teacher, father was a university lecturer specialising in child psychology). Basically, according to them, I taught myself to read, because they read to me a lot. I suspect that most children would learn reading earlier with a greater exposure to books in the home.
Interesting… schools here (Massachusetts) typically want kids reading by the end of kindergarten. So much is driven by standardized testing, which begins in earnest in the third grade. I think there’s a feeling that kids won’t be prepared for testing if they’re not reading by the time they start first grade.
I don’t remember not being able to read - I’m certain I was reading by 3. Amazed my relatives (not my mom, though).
Surprisingly, I do remember that “Eureeka!” moment, the moment when I realized that those things, there, in my favorite book (Green Eggs and Ham) said “I am Sam.” That that was what they meant. I’d had the book memorized from reading it with my mother, and was “reading” it one day when the realization hit me. I don’t remember how old I was, however.
My mom amazed my grandmother with my reading. Grammer was certain that I wasn’t reading yet, and said so. “She’s only got it memorized - it just looks like she’s reading.” Mom said, “Fine, think what you want, but go fetch something she hasn’t seen before and she’ll read it to you.” Grammer got the Bible, and was amazed as I read some biblical character’s story to her.
I don’t really remember my mom “teaching” me, specifically, but she was big on the books - she always read to me. And she and her sister would spell conversations a lot - you know, like you do when you’re hoping that the kids won’t understand? Sadly for her, we did.
I too confounded the teachers my first day of school. Took about half a day to find reading material that would be challenging enough.
First grade; I was 6 years old. It was 1957. The best memories I have of my school days are of that fall and winter when I first learned how to make letters into words. The sight of those old Dick, Jane and Sally books still evokes wonderful memories of discovering the world of literacy (though as a 6-year-old I never thought of it that way.)
I agree that you’re not going to get much of an average from this thread – probably from the kind of people who tend to respond voluntarily to questions like this.
Taught myself at 3, spent the next many many years in the library. The librarians were always amazed that I would check out (at age5-6) 4 books, which was the limit, of over 300 pages each and return them all read in 2 days.
I am pretty sure the average here is going to be much lower than in the general population. There were people in my 9th grade English class who had trouble reading full sentences. Those people would probably find posting to this board more trouble than it’s worth. For the record, I learned to read Chinese when I was 2 or something. I’d say I can’t remember not being able to read but that’s completely untrue, as I have been functionally illiterate (and these days just regular illiterate) since about 10 or so, so it doesn’t really matter anymore.
Before age 3. My parents brought me to kindergarten as soon as I turned 3 (it wasn’t available sooner); one day the director calls them and berates them for “having forced their poor daughter into literacy”. Mom and Dad looked at each other, asked in stereo “you taught her to read?” “me? I didn’t know a kid that young could read!”
I could only read print, but that I read well. I even had a decent notion how to use the dictionary, alphabetic order still had me a tad confused but I knew that if I read a word’s definition and it included another word I didn’t understand, I could look up the second word. Dad remember that once I’d see him with the newspaper and asked “what are you doing?”, he’d explained about reading and letters, and after that there had been a period when I’d sometimes ask “what does it say there?” They knew I would spend hours with our “Diccionario Ilustrado” (a regular dictionary but with panels of colored pictures for things like flags and animals) but had no idea I was actually already on the letter F, they thought I was just looking at the pretty pictures.
Spanish has “direct phonetic correlation”, specially if you’re from Northern Spain as is the case: 90% of letters sound the same every time; g and c sound different depending on what’s behind. X and W act funny but you don’t run into them often. So actually learning to read before age 5 is not that unusual, 2 other kids in my 4-yr-old class of 80 could read too (they couldn’t use the dictionary; for statistical purposes one was a boy, one a girl).
I think I was four. I remembered for a long time the painful writing exercise we had at the kindergarten, every saturday morning (actually, that’s what I remembered the most from this time). The teacher would write a text on the blackboard and we had to copy it. It was awfully long.
Some years ago, I found my school stuff and looked at the “texts” : they were actually two lines long…
In threads like this we’ve had before, it seems that either dopers or dopers that respond to these types of threads are early readers. I was a very early reader. My mom relates stories of me reciting the alphabet phonetically in the crib and some of my earliest memories are of reading a newspaper to my grandfather at around 2 and a half.
My brother was a late reader (later diagnosed as dyslexic) and was learning to read with my mother as I was growing up. I was being taught at the same time.
Well, you must have had a glass window into you womb, to see the pages.
That means ParentalAdvisory ha a Womb with a View. 
I was 2 or 3 when I started reading. Mom taught me the ABCs right off, read to me from old collections of Pogo comic strips, & Sesame Street did the rest.
According to my dad, I was two, going on three. I was strapped into the backseat of the car, and started exclaiming “Open, its open!”
My dad comes back and checks on the door and makes sure it’s secure and everything. We repeat the process, me screaming, him checking the door. Finally, I point, and he sees I’m talking about a sign across the street that says “Open”.
I have no idea how old I was, but I don’t remember much before about age 6.
My oldest son was reading at 2 1/2 as well, and you’re right about there being no correlation. Mike didn’t have any reading problems to slow him down, but reading early didn’t seem to help much. His grades were average, and he aced the spelling bees, but that’s about it.
He read a sign for the school principal, the first day of kindergarten – “Registration in the Auditorium”. He was good with numbers too.
I’m told 2 1/2 but I can’t remember not reading. In first grade I would stand up and read “see Dick run. See Jane run” Then sit down and return to reading Trixie Beldon mysteries.
I don’t remember not being able to read.
I do, however, remember very clearly learning to read aloud: a very painful but ultimately beneficial experience.
I was six. Clear through most of kindergarten I was quite happy knowing my ABCs and having absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with them (beyond “A is for Apple, B is for Bunny, C is for Cat,” etc.). It made sense at the time.
I made up for lost time pretty fast, though. I have a fun (but largely irrelevant) story about that, if anyone cares.
I was 26.
They taught us the alpabet when I was in kindergarten, and we began to read in first grade, so I had just turned six.