Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Books to read to gifted 4yo

But, seriously, whyever not?! Even if they taught themselves to read at a week old, that seems so sad!!

I'm surprised that any child in a print-rich environment wouldn't ASK to be read to prior to gaining literacy for themselves.

Just because they ask doesn't mean a parent won't say no. If there's unlimited screen time from birth and they have never had the experience of cuddling up a having a story together they may not ask.

My eldest was read to in the womb and daily from birth. She had no screen time a all until 2+ years and then very limited time. As far as I can tell it had absolutely no impact on helping her learn to read at all (extremely delayed reading)...

Second child we basically forgot to read to before 6 months, we were so overwhelmed dealing with both of them. By then she was old enough to have an opinion on being read to, which amounted to "no way in hell". She found the love of books a few months later but probably never had the same volume per day, just not interested in sitting around that long. She learned the alphabet at 2 (before her 4.5yrs older sister who was struggling so much, as a side product of our attempts to teach her sister). She was reading novels well before the age her older sister mastered the alphabet...

Youngest child, similar story to the 2nd, only she was later again in tolerating being read to (over 12 months) and at 3yrs old still rarely tolerates more than 1-2 books a day... But learned the alphabet at 18months and is learning to sound things out and spell (iPad). I'm guessing she'll read the earliest.

Book interest and exposure has had an almost inverse relationship to reading aloud in our house.... Which I'm pretty sure is not evidence of anything at all, other than my kids are odd, and different from each other...

HK, not only does my youngest not ask she declines to be read to when offered... And yet I would describe her as loving books, enthusiastically choosing which book, etc. she just seems to have a clear idea about when and how much...

Oh, I definitely understand that. My DD very SELDOM wanted to be read to, and that was from day one. But she did ask periodically-- as you say, on HER terms, however.

I think the key word there is "aloud", because if you love being read to, why tip off the parents that you could be left alone?

22B: Might I ask what the philosophy behind "we do not read to our children" would be?

There's no "philosophy" and I never said we wouldn't have read to them. It's more that it just didn't end up happening.

? I totally don't get it.