Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What counts as reading?

I think part of my issue with the flashcards is that I'm not following DD's lead. DD isn't interested in reading at all. Or being read to. Not as a baby, not as a toddler, and not now as a 4 year old. From early on every few months I tried to establish the habit of reading before bed, and it always failed. DD would squirm away, or shut the book, or find something else to play with, or hum to herself, or jump around in bed, or outright tell me she didn't want me to read.

Then I wondered if maybe the reason she didn't like it was just because she couldn't do it herself (totally in character for her). That's why I borrowed the flash cards. I figured if I pushed/coaxed/bribed her for a few days to learn some words then she'd gain some independence and hopefully start to enjoy reading a bit more. And I think it's worked. Last night she let me read her two books (!) and she even read a simple reader (mostly) by herself.

She's pretty impatient, so I think recognising words without needing to decode them makes reading easier/faster/less work/more enjoyable for her. Now the question is should I push her to learn more words in the hope that it will increase her independence/enjoyment of reading, or back off. FWIW, my 'pushing' means spending about 5 min a day with the flash cards while DD4 huffs and makes a bored face, and there's usually some form of food bribery involved...

What does she like? Use that, and you can be creative.

Does she like games? You can make thousands of games out of words. My boys got a Bingo-type game with reading words given for a birthday. You can even play a game that she "keeps" every card she gets right and you can challenge her to get more cards than you.

Does she like treasure hunts? Make notes for her to read. We did this with our kids learning a second language. It was like "Bring back three balls." My oldest loved that game, and all we needed was post-it notes and a pen.

Do you visit the library and let her choose books? You may find that she really likes princess sparkle books or non-fiction weather books. You may find her passion.

I wouldn't push flash cards if she doesn't like them. There are way too many fun ways to teach a four-year-old.

Great ideas DianaG, thanks! DD is very competitive, and also loves treasure hunts, so turning it into either a competition or a hunt might work. Having said that, she's not easily fooled and if she suspects I'm just trying to get her to read it would be just as 'boring' as the cards

I asked her this morning if she would like some new books, now that she's 'reading', and she said yes (win!) asked for books on bunnies and the PJ Masks. So hopefully we've turned a corner now.

I made up some flash cards of my own and stuck them in the middle of the deck, to surprise DD. In order, they read: Daddy. Does. Smelly. Farts. DD nearly peed herself. And when we finished, she asked to do the cards again. Winning! Hehe.

My interpretation is a child is reading once they transition from decoding individual words and begin fluently reading sentences. My definition may be skewed by my oldest child reading books (dr Seuss level) by the time he turned 3. I probably didn't fully realize how strange that was until he got a bit older and we would pull up an old video. My middle child seems even brighter, but isn't as fascinated by letters/decoding. He is 3 1/2 and I wouldn't consider him to be a reader, despite his ability to recognize many words and spell names that are important to him.

When I would judge against a milestone chart, I'd use my definition of reading. If I'm talking to another parent, I accept whatever their definition may be.

This just made me laugh out loud and text your post to my husband.

*tips hat*

In our case, all three of those things occurred within a few months (age 6).

So...yes?

What a special moment Portia

DD is 3Y8M. She used to love to be read from her crawling days until she turned 3. That was the time she started Pre-K3 at a Public school.

Since starting school, her interest in books has become very selective. (I don't know if correlation = causation for this, but this did kind of coincide). She has since designated for herself specific times when she’ll choose to be read to – those also happen to be the times when she prefers to sit in one place for atleast several minutes. Breakfast, drinking milk, while on bed just before sleep etc. She’s a high-energy kid and generally wants to keep moving around all the time.

From what we’ve understood of her, she seems to be more visual than auditory. Phonics don't interest her. But visuals do. She once asked me (she was 3Y2M old then) what the sign on our apartment lobby said, and I read it out for her “Please do not sit on table”. Her first response “Where is THE? Shouldn’t it be Please do not sit on THE table?” (She's highly intolerant to others' grammatical and pronunciation mistakes) And since that instant, she could read the individual words in the sentence wherever she came across them.

Her latest interest is identifying cars on the road. She asked me a few weeks ago what the H symbol in front of a car in the parking lot meant. I said “Honda. It’s the brand of the car. Every car has a symbol which tells the brand of the car.” She asked me to take her around the parking lot and tell her the names of all cars by pointing at the symbol. Now, she can pretty much identify any car on the road from its logo.

Visuals, symbols, geometric shapes, signs, marks seem to fascinate her more than plain words. If words were a part of any of those, they get registered permanently in her. If not, she either chooses not to read, or chooses not to remember.

With her new chosen pattern of reading, she likes to read books which have an intense visual message. She’s currently obsessed with Fire Ants – from the Nat Geo Kids Ants book. She sometimes randomly picks the book and asks us to read just the page on Fire Ant. Needless to mention, she sight-reads the content of that page and a few other such pages.

I’m just inclined to stick with her lead on how she wants reading to happen. She seems to have her own method and her own pace of reading. We keep getting her books that we think may interest her. Sometimes she just picks a new book and tells us “I don’t like this book.” We have no idea why. She mostly chooses not to explain when we ask. But there are other new books she instantly takes interest in.