My DS is in preschool. He is an excellent reader and has been reading since right around the time he turned two. He is one of those kids, like many here, who just seemed to spontaneously start reading on his own. We read to him regularly as a baby, but otherwise did nothing special to prompt early reading.
Now in this preschool, his teacher has been surprised at how quickly DS can read words (including big, complex words) but says DS is really resistant when it comes to sounding out words or doing any sort of phonics exercises. I guess when the teacher asks him how to spell a word, DS gets annoyed/bored/jokey immediately and simply doesn't want to. The issue isn't pressed, because... well, this is just preschool afterall! But the teacher was surprised by the apparent incongruity of a kid that reads so quickly/effortlessly but yet seems to run away when asked what sound the letter "b" makes. (FWIW, I know DS knows the letters and letter sounds because he was playing a game online a few weeks ago that had that as an element. But I don't think he can necessarily build a word with this knowledge. Then again, I've never asked him to...)
But I was wondering... for kids that start reading really early, is this normal? Maybe he has simply memorized a dictionaries worth of words so it appears that he is a fast reader, but he really doesn't know how to spell or decode words? Does that make sense?
I'd love to hear from other parents of early readers... Is this something I should actually be working on with him? We've always taken a pretty hands-off approach in terms of formal teaching in our house. Our kids are both preschool (and pre-preschool) age and our time with them is more focused on play and messy art projects and running at the park kind of things. I'm not even sure where to begin if I were supposed to teach him how to spell words at home. (?)
Sorry to ramble, hope this makes sense!
Last edited by sweetpeas; 09/13/12 08:52 AM.
