I will confess that I personally didn't wait for my daughter to spontaneously begin reading. She was over 5 and based on her behaviour DW and I thought that she could read. She could point to a page and tell anyone exactly what it said. I then discovered that she had just memorised the pages from them having been read to her or she was guessing based on the pictures. I kept trying to persuade her to try really reading because it would open up entire worlds to explore - she remained unconvinced.

I knew that she could handle it because she did know the letter sounds. I sat down with her one Saturday morning and it took us a couple of hours of 'very intense' one on one work to get through a very small book. I just extended the letter sounds, helped her with some of the 'combination vowel' and 'silent' letters. Everytime I saw her guessing we went back to the start of the page. We worked through tears (I felt like Dr Mengele myself inside) but I 'knew' she was ready for it. With just that one session, something must have 'clicked' inside. After that her was reading like a champion. One year later she had torn through the entire HP series multiple times, Redwall, Percy Jackson and even the Hobbit.

Was that hothousing or did I just help her to overcome her fear of failure/fear of something 'not easy at first glance' and push through until the 'code' was broken?

All I know is that she has never looked back and in retrospect I am glad that we went through that barrier together. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Last edited by madeinuk; 11/01/13 10:16 AM.
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