When did you learn how to read?

[brightlyiburn]

I'm not exactly sure where the thought came from, but I started thinking about when I learned to read. I couldn't have been more than three when mom started teaching me. I think she was hoping that if I could just learn, she'd never have to read "Kittens Are Like That" ever again. But anyway, I was kinda curious when other people learned, or at least began to learn. I know a lot of parents start their kids early, but I don't think you're expect to really know more than your ABCs before starting Kindergarten.
And since I'm on this line of thought anyway, when (if ever) did you begin to enjoy reading? I didn't really like it until I was about eight, and started reading horse books. I went (and am still going) through a horse crazy phase. And then one day I picked up a fantasy book cause there was a horse on the front, and that was pretty much it. Since then I've read more books than I can remember. Well, I remember them, just not how many.
Anyway, just kinda curious. And like I said, I don't know why. It just kinda popped into my head. When I was suppose to be preparing for tomorrow's mid-term tests.

 

[rgraham666]

I can't remember not being able to read. I could always look at a word and at least sound it out. And usually make a guess at it's meaning.

The first book I remember reading and being completely drawn into it was Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss. I was nine.

 

[SlickTony]

I don't remember precisely when I learned to read, but from first grade on, in reading classes segregated into "bluebirds" (fast, adept readers) "redbirds" (slower, less adept) and "yellowbirds" I was always a bluebird. I always read better than my classmates. As a result, reading lessons in school were a pain in the butt. The teacher would start the class reading aloud from some piece in the reader, beginning with the head of the alphabet. I had a name near the end. I got hopelessly bored with listenng to incompetent readers stumbling over words I knew very well, and by the time it was my turn to read, I'd have lost my place because I'd finished the piece and would be into the next one. I was always punished and criticized for this, of course. A love of reading was not valued when I was in school. Now school superintendents are offering kids vouchers for free pizza if they'll read 25 books a year. Go figure.

 

[Weird Harold]

I can't remember not being able to read. I could always look at a word and at least sound it out. And usually make a guess at it's meaning.

Likewise, I can't ever remember not being able to read. I do remember having to explain to my first grade teacher how I picked up a new vocabulary word from the context. ("See Jane kick the B**L" on a page that showed Jane kicking a ball to Dick couldn't have been any word exept "ball.")

My vocabulary wasn't always up to what I wanted to read, but I have always been able to been able to read up to my vocabulary and a bit beyond as far back as I can remember. (and my vocabulary has always been above that of my peers for most of my life.)

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I still haven't.
My cat is interpreting everything for me.
The other cat is typing.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I remember learning to read in kindergarten and first grade, with phonics. I think this was well before the "whole reading" fiasco, or whatever it was called. My parents make a big deal about how early my sister learned to read, so if it was any earlier than that I'd be surprised. Anyway, we had weekly (or so) trips to the library where we had to check out a book. I usually got non-fiction books about whatever was interesting to me at the time - rockets, parachutes, etc. I read some of the Tom Swift stories, which were sort of a sci-fi version of the Hardy Boys mysteries.

Plus, I loved to look at encyclopedias, like World Book, and those Time-Life books about Science and Nature. I couldn't wait to get those open and read them when they came in the mail.

 

[minsue]

I don't know for sure. I know it was well before kindergarten because I've had to hear the story of "how the teacher wouldn't believe my mother that I could read until they did the standardized testing in the spring" a million freakin' times a year. (Any of you who wonder why I repeat myself so much, it's hereditary )

I can't ever remember not reading. It was my escape from the world from the very start and it still is.

 

[shereads]

I know my parents read to me as often as I'd listen, and that I knew my favorite storybooks by heart - but I don't know when I stopped parroting the words from memory and started reading new ones. It just seemed to happen naturally, as things do when a kid is curious about something.

I watched my nephew's parents turn him against reading, in a well-meaning attempt to make him an early reader. They sat him down in front of the TV and popped a "Phonics" tape in the VCR, then insisted he watch it when he wanted to watch cartoons. Suddenly reading was revealed to be an job, like bathing and learning table manners; a waste of time that might have been spent having fun. When he started school and still didn't like to read, they made a rule about earning TV time by spending a certain amount of time on reading each day. At that point, reading became the opposite of fun. He's a teenager now and still reads only when he has to.

His mother and I both grew up thinking reading was entertainment. We had all the comic books and picture books we wanted, followed by Mad Magazine. No one at home revealed the secret that reading was serious business and something we had to learn, or else. I didn't know that until I heard it from a school teacher trying to persuade a child who hated it - probably for the same reasons my nephew does now.

 

[rgraham666]

Tony? I had the same problem.

I remember the first time I got to stand in the corner in Grade 1. I had no idea where we were in out Dick and Jane book because I was reading a Grade 8 science textbook I had filched from the shelf of books next to me.

Set the pace for the rest of my schooling. Always learning, but since I wasn't doing it properly they assumed I wasn't learning at all.

 

[moonlight elf]

I know my parents read to me as often as I'd listen, and that I knew my favorite storybooks by heart - but I don't know when I stopped parroting the words from memory and started reading new ones. It just seemed to happen naturally, as things do when a kid is curious about something.

.

I too knew all my favorites by heart and my parents had storytime each night. Somewhere along the way, I stopped parroting and began reading. I think I began to by kindergarden or least I could read short sentences.


Then in I started to learn English during My first grade. I think I picked that up just as fast. By second grade I was reading English books much to the surprise of my Class teacher. Since then I've picked up two other languages.

 

[R. Richard]

I can't remember exactly when, but I learned to read when my father would read the Sunday comics to me. Once he explained the connection between the letters and the words, I was off and reading.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I didn't know I could read until my 4th birthday when my mom gave me the book "A Day on the Farm". I asked her to read it to me and she told me to read it to her. I did.

She has a cute picture of me at the age of 2. I'm holding the book "Dune" upside down, pretending to read it. (One of my favorite books.)

 

[susurrus]

I have my mom to thank for my learning to read. She came from a one-room school background, where kids advanced when they were ready to, not when some curriculum said it was time to move on. She became a teacher, herself, but when my brother and I came along, she put that on hold to raise us.

And then comes me. I'd have been in the class ahead of the one I ended up in, had I only been born four days earlier. My folks tried to get the school system to make an exception, insisting I was ready, but because my birthday was on the wrong side of the cutoff date, I had to wait.

Mom decided I was ready to learn to read, even though the school system told her to wait, so I could learn with the rest of my class (my mother, the rebel). I still remember my kindergarten teacher taking me to the pricipal's office to read for him.

I was stuck in kindergarten, but when first grade came around, I was already light years ahead of the other kids, so when it came time for reading, I was sent to second grade, when the schedules meshed. When the schedules didn't accommodate, I remember being given pictures to look at, and being told to write a story about what was going on in the picture. This was all primarily to keep me from disrupting the other kids, since they were learning stuff I'd known for at least a year already. So, my writing stuff started early, too.

I was bumped up a grade both in first and second grades for reading, and got to learn what the older kids were learning while my classmates were still doing basic stuff. I learned Greek/Roman mythology at this time.

When third grade rolled around, they refused to send me up a grade, and tried to convince me to re-do the same reading assignments I'd done the year before. After a little while of my being bored out of my mind enough that I started to disrupt class, I remember being allowed to go to the library and check out books. I was allowed to go to the part of the library the rest of my class was unable to, since I was reading at a higher level than they were. The one book in particular that I remember was a biography of Captain John Smith. I tried reading that one several times, primarily because it was the biggest book in the library, outside of the reference books, some 400+ pages. It, unfortunately, was pretty dry reading (for a kid of, what, 9-10?), so I don't remember ever really finishing the thing.

Anyhow, I remember going to the library during the summer once a week and getting to check out up to 10 books at a time. The big trick was to make sure to pace yourself so you didn't finish them all before the next trip in.

So, I'm sure I've babbled on long enough, but that basically gives the idea when I learned to read, and then some. I've been reading ever since, obviously, and to this day, can't understand people who don't like to.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I was a spontaneous reader. I can't remember not being able to read, or how I learned it. I do remember reading a book to other children at the nursey school; it was one of those little square cardboard books, and it was blue and glittering and had little 3-D pictures in it. In kindergarten ... I, um, sat quietly by myself. For a brief period they tortured me with phonics, but at last they left me to read in peace.

My mother says that when I was very little, we were driving in the car out to Surf City for a family vacation. I was evidently telling her that I could read (I don't remember this.) She didn't believe me, so I pointed at a baker's and said, "That sign says 'bakery.'" My dad was impressed, but my mother pointed out that the sign started with a huge "B" and had cakes in the window - hardly likely to say "butcher's." Then I apparently pointed at a water tower and said, "That sign says 'Surf City." Again, dad was all for me - thanks dad! - but mom pointed out that the sign had a big "S" and "C" and we'd been talking about going to Surf City for weeks. Then I pointed at a billboard and said, "That sign says 'A smile a day makes the world a better place.'" And dad said, "Ok, explain that one."

Rah dad.

Shanglan

 

[angelicminx]

My mother tells me that I was reading to her when I was 2. I have few memories before I was 12 so I have to rely on that information. She tells me that I was always a precocious child with a voracious appetite for the written word. I was seldom seen without a book in my hand.

I know from the time that I was 12 (when most of my memories begin), I read an average of 800 pages a day. All I read until I was about 19 (unless it was required reading), were Harlequin type books. I also experienced my first porn novels around age 12, lol. Dad's collection. At 19, my tastes diversified.

When I first received it, I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in just under 10 hours. I love to read.

I used to read an average of 3 novels per week, until I found the internet, lol. Now, I just don't have a book in my hand that often.

 

[CWatson]

I too had my favorite storybooks memorized, but it was being forced to recite one of them that convinced me that I could "read". And, really, who's to say I couldn't? I knew what words were and could assimilate them; I could talk just fine. The hard part, evidently, was connecting the squiggle on the page to the noise coming out of my mouth. Once I had done that, I was off like a rocket. I think I was four at the time.

I don't remember when I started to enjoy reading, but I bet it was fairly early; I've always had an overactive imagination, and it was when books really began to feed it that I became permanently and unabashedly addicted to them, the same way I've always loved imaginative movies and television. The 'simplest' book I can remember having read is Sarah, Plain and Tall; but soon after that came Mossflower from Brian Jacques' Redwall series, and then a 'grown-up' novel, Ghost Legion by Margaret Weis (not adult as in Literotica adult, but not-written-for-children adult). I was in 5th grade, and astonished by her use of the F-word. *wry smile* But it had laser swords on the cover. What else would make a 10-year-old boy happier?

 

[cloudy]

Just like most here, I don't ever remember not knowing how to read. I've carried a book around with me for years and years and years. I was in gifted and honors classes all the way through school, and even wrote/illustrated and sold a children's book when I was in eighth grade. Go figure.

 

[angelicminx]

Just like most here, I don't ever remember not knowing how to read. I've carried a book around with me for years and years and years. I was in gifted and honors classes all the way through school, and even wrote/illustrated and sold a children's book when I was in eighth grade. Go figure.

Impressive Cloudy!

 

[DrFreud]

I was a spontaneous reader. I can't remember not being able to read, or how I learned it. I do remember reading a book to other children at the nursey school; it was one of those little square cardboard books, and it was blue and glittering and had little 3-D pictures in it. In kindergarten ... I, um, sat quietly by myself. For a brief period they tortured me with phonics, but at last they left me to read in peace.

My mother says that when I was very little, we were driving in the car out to Surf City for a family vacation. I was evidently telling her that I could read (I don't remember this.) She didn't believe me, so I pointed at a baker's and said, "That sign says 'bakery.'" My dad was impressed, but my mother pointed out that the sign started with a huge "B" and had cakes in the window - hardly likely to say "butcher's." Then I apparently pointed at a water tower and said, "That sign says 'Surf City." Again, dad was all for me - thanks dad! - but mom pointed out that the sign had a big "S" and "C" and we'd been talking about going to Surf City for weeks. Then I pointed at a billboard and said, "That sign says 'A smile a day makes the world a better place.'" And dad said, "Ok, explain that one."

Rah dad.

Shanglan

For someone who doesn't remember you sure had all the details. You're not making this up, are you?

It's weird that only mothers that have smart kids doubt their abilities, while the other moms rave about their not-so-smart offsprings.

 

[Dar~]

I was reading at a fifth grade level when I started school. My mom worked at a montesori school, and she was allowed to bring me from when I was very young. I just sat in on all the classes and picked it up.

 

[English Lady]

I seem to remember reading alot from being little, I don't remember starting but i know by the time I went into infants school I could read bits and pieces. I was always a good reader, right up near the top of my class, there was one lad always a colour ahead of me who finally got free licence to read anything in the library. I remember being very proud of myself when a month or so later I was given that priviledge (I was about 8 at the time) I've always enjoyed reading. Always and it's good to see my daughter learning to read now. the other day she completely surprised me by shouting "Hamilton Square!" when we pulled into a station on the train.

"how did you know that?" I asked her.

"it's says there mummy." she replied pointing at one of the signs.

It's beautiful to see a child learning

 

[Guest]

6 months.




(Just being flip - can't help myself).


Brightly, maybe your thought came from reading my post in the thread about being born writers? I was talking about my eldest daughter in that thread, and the fact that she could read pretty well by the time she went to nursery school - when she hit three.


Like most here, I can't remember not being able to read. Reading is learnt in a progressive and cummulative manner, so it's not as if we woke up one day with that ability. On average, it takes children about three years to go from learning the alphabet, to being competent basic level readers (I've spent a lot of time around young readers, in school). Usually, by the age of six or seven, most children can read the building blocks and know most of the letter group and word structure rules, so can then go on to work out new words for themselves. Teaching phonics first, I have found, is the best way to teach a child to read. They learn the sounds of the letters, or letter groups/clusters and can then sound out new words with relative ease.

I actually have to monitor what my eight year old reads, because she has been able to read anything, and I mean anything, since before she was 5. I had to hide all my horror books away when she was four, because I didn't want her picking one up and reading it - seriously! Although, her comprehension wasn't up to the standard of her reading ability back then.

Anyway, before I start waffling about my kids again, I'll shut up.

Lou

 

[snooper]

She has a cute picture of me at the age of 2. I'm holding the book "Dune" upside down, pretending to read it. (One of my favorite books.)

I learned to read upside down, watching my parents read to me. It upset my mother when I was reading a book upside down one day, and she didn't believe me. However, my fluency in reading was, at times, a distinct disadvantage. I knew all these words and what they meant, but I didn't have the vaguest idea how they were pronounced, which led to some very embarrassing situations.

PS. I, too, like Dune, but not what the film makers did to it.

 

[Guest]

green eggs and ham. i still read it nightly. dont remember when i read that, but it mustve been around 12, when i got my first period...ah! those were the days.

 

[ishtat]

First Words.

I can't remember when I couldn't read but I can remember from kindergarten that the teacher had three signs.

The first was on pink card and said "all the Girls have handkerchiefs today"

The second in blue said the same about the boys.

And the third in yellow (rarely used) said "Everyone has their handkerchief today"

I missed the message but I couldn't get over what a wonderful word handkerchief was - it was so huge the biggest word ever. I was entranced with that word and I think my addiction to reading started about then.

I started on cartoons and proceeded quickly to "Cassels Book of World Knowledge"( 8 vols & we only had 7) all sepia photographs and very dated but it was like an adventure. I still have a wierd addiction to reference books.