Well, we can assume that most people here learned to read really young, right? We all seem to have a high verbal intelligence. Obviously you know you were an advanced reader to be starting at 2 years old. You are probably not going to get a fair representation of average from this board.
I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read either, but in truth, reading was just a means to an end for me: I wanted to learn to write and was tired of acting out my stories with dolls. When I finally learned to write, I never quit. Writing was my primary source of recreation up until my senior year of high school. The extensive practice I had from a young age is probably why I developed these skills very quickly.
For the record, I couldn’t skip or do math very well. That is still basically the case.
I can’t remember not being able to read Chinese, but I can’t remember not being able to read English either, and I know I couldn’t even speak it until I was 5 or 6. So let’s say my childhood memories are, ahem, lacking. My mother insists I was reading at age 2 but who knows what her definition of reading is. Parents are parents. I was probably guessing individual words.
I knew several pretty smart kids who bafflingly didn’t read until they were 7 or 8. They didn’t have any trouble with it or anything, they apparently just weren’t pushed very hard by their parents or teachers. Reading is pretty unnatural and your average kid will go a damn long time without learning it properly if you don’t make them.
What olives said. I think we’d get a more normalized curve by looking at our classmates, our cousins, etc.; the wider the net, the better.
In my case, I was one of 3 kids among 40 who entered P1 (3-4 years) being able to read (1); another caught up to us three in no time. Reading was one of the things we started learning in P1 and P2, but same as the P courses weren’t compulsory, reading wasn’t an expected skill until the end of First Grade. Many of my classmates and cousins would read syllabe-by-syllabe at the end of First Grade: “D…D…Thiiiiis… iiiis… aaaah… p… p… pooooo… taaaa…to! This is a potato! :D”, fluently midway through Second.
1: in Spanish, which is easier than English specially with my accent. I can’t speak for the other two but in my case it was printed but not handwritten (and big changes in type would set me back until I figured out the new set of pictures), and I could read but I didn’t know the alphabet and couldn’t spell. We were told about the alphabet for the first time in P2.
What do you mean by “read”? Do you mean “read a newspaper”? Or do you mean “read words”? Or do you mean “make a connection between something you already know and something new by use of symbol”?
It is normal for a child to begin to read in English at any age between 3 and 7. Outliers amoung children of normal intelligence without learning disabilities can be found from 2 years old to 9 years old. Early reading does not predict much of anything by itself, though phonemic awareness does. The best predictor of early reading ability is exposure to print materials and parental involvement.
Another reader-at-two-years-old here. When I was at nursery school at 4, I read the back of a Jell-O box out loud. The teacher was convinced I’d memorized it at home.
My own daughter is 16 months old and obsessed with looking at books (although not remotely close to reading), an obsession we didn’t instigate. Given that her mother is dyslexic, however, we’ll see how it goes with her.
I know I was reading in kindergarten, I got in trouble for bringing Spiderman comic books to class. I don’t remember not being able to read, but I don’t remember a lot.
My daughter read sight words and started reading a little phonetically at four. My son was six before he was actually reading - he was a six year old kindergartner and didn’t catch on on his own until someone taught him. They both read well above grade level currently, but do not enjoy reading.
When they teach reading in school, the start in preschool with pre-reading skills. This is recognition of sight words, knowing the alphabet. Most kids start kindergarten with some of these pre-reading skills in place from preschool or daycare or Mom or PBS. A few come to school as blank slates that can’t even say their ABCs, but the vast majority recognize most letters, read a few sight words.
I remember not being able to read. Most vivid is the memory of looking at comic books and making up the story based on pictures only. I think I was around 5 when I did the recognise-and-read-your-name thing, and started learning the alphabet at around the same time. Reading at about six with gradual improvement, but no great leaps.
Because of the associated stress, I clearly remember the reading test the teacher had to give all of us individually, and I was on the lower end of normal at age 8.
But that didn’t really negatively or positively influence my relationship with books, as I love reading. I think I owe that mostly to my mother, as I still fondly remember how we used lie curled up together and she would read to me (doing voices, too!).
I have to say I’m amazed at the number of posters who can remember that they were reading by age 2. I don’t remember anything from when I was 2. :rolleyes:
If you’re referring to me, I should clarify that I meant “reading when I was two years old” (i.e. before my third birthday), not reading by my second birthday. But my earliest memories (not of reading) are from around my second birthday, so make of that what you will.
I don’t want this to be a bragfest either, but the assertion that it’s impossible for a toddler to read is wrong. Celtling started reading simple words at 13 months, and I was fortunate to get her into a phonics program at her school. they work with her three days per week fro an hour at a time. Now at 2.5 years she knows all the letters and their sounds, can sound out words she doesn’t know, and build fairly complex sentences using word cards.
Her little hands aren’t developed enough for writing yet, but she can form a crude approximation of her name with a crayon. With her bathtub foam letters and numbers she spells words from Mommy to rhino. (She can read rhinocerous, but gets a little lost in spelling it.
She has just about completed the first grade reading curriculum and will start on second grade in January.
I started reading at 2, and by Kindergarten I got in trouble for reading the newspapers on the craft table instead of doing the crafts.
Every child has individual strengths, and some are just hard-wired for reading. It tends to run in families.
In my case I mean I was asking things like “what does communism mean” and my parents would think I’d picked the word up from the TV or in the street - but I’d read it in the newspaper. After the pre-P teacher yelled at them for “forcing their poor daughter to learn to read” (prompting “you’ve taught her to read?” in stereo), my parents discovered I hadn’t just been “looking at the pretty pictures” in their collection of Mafalda strips (which promptly got placed out of my reach, as the political nature of some of the jokes got them to be classified “for adults”), I’d also been reading parts of the newspaper.
The P1 teacher, after I finished the three books of exercises in less than a month, would give me her newspaper to read and, after the midmorning break, bring two other newspapers she borrowed from other teachers. So I was reading El Pensamiento Navarro (now disappeared and the same one Dad bought), Diario de Navarra and El País pretty much cover to cover at age 4. By age 7 I’d figured out the sports pages weren’t worth reading.
In the case of most other kids, as I’ve said, by age 7 they were finally being able to read whole sentences out loud without sounding them out first.
I can remember as if it was yesterday, our very first reading lesson (it was in first grade, and I was 4 years and 9 months old). We sat in a semi-circle around teacher, who was holding up a book, and the First Word on the cover was “Look”. Teacher was very serious and pointed to the word ‘look’ and repeated it.
And we all looked, and my world was changed forever.
(I remember going home on a Friday, bummed out because we were going to learn a new word that started with an ‘A’ and I’d have to wait until Monday to find out what it was. it was ‘away’.)
My mother tells me that I was reading simple books on my own by age 4. I distinctly remember in 1st grade (age 5/6) being sent to the quiet corner to read books on my own during lessons when the other kids were learning how to read.
My own daughter is 31 months old now, and has realised that there are words written in her story books, which she tells Mummy to “speak”. This phonics website is also a big hit with my daughter.
It’s plausible, I think. I remember a couple things from around that age, though they were really important events in my life. I have a vivid memory of testifying in court when I was 2 or 3. I slobbered all over the microphone and I was utterly transfixed by a question regarding my birthday. I also remember winning a coloring contest at McDonald’s (random drawing) by stabbing a pencil through all of a clown’s polka dots. I won a trip to the circus, which was (presumably) awesome. I remember a recurring nightmare of mine. I remember realizing my schizophrenic uncle was a little off as he told me about Aerosmith’s song, ‘‘Dude Looks Like a Lady.’’
It’s not hard to imagine some people would remember reading.
I love the idea that a parent’s account can be trusted on something like this. My husband swears my daughter was speaking full sentences by 10 months. I promise you, she wasn’t.
ETA; I remember learning at the usual time. About 5 I guess.
Well, I’d like to believe you, but I can’t trust a parent’s account on something like that. So I flipped a coin and I’m going with your hub. Sorry, dude.
