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I haven't found that to be the case with my dd (pure sight reader). She is 8 years old and she is at the very least at 8th grade level in reading. Most big/complex words are nothing more than compound words. If you know how to read two simple words, and they now appear together than you can read the new word as well.

I taught my first child to read phonetically because that is the way I was taught to read. She new all her letters and sounds for about 6 months before the magic switch went off in her brain and she truly understood the concept of reading words. Once she grasped the concept of reading she progressed quickly by memorizing words (whole reading) on her own. I believe it was beneficial for her to learn the process of phonetics, which was extremely helpful as she picked up her second language. She is prodominantly a whole reading reader and scored an abysmal 50% on the vowel phonetics section of her Stanford achievement test. Yet as a 3rd grader she is reading The Lord of the Rings for pleasure.

My second child learned to read a little later due to some vision and hearing problems. I also taught her phonetically but a friend of mine let her borrow some Dick and Jane books (whole reading). Once she started reading the Dick and Jane books her reading really took off.

The latest trend in literacy education is called Balanced Literacy. It is a combination of phonics and whole reading. As I discovered by accident, it is beneficial to introduce both types of reading to children.

Wren: Well, it's a process, and it isn't linear.

She may just be developing some other skill right now, and sometimes that shift means that some skills seem to languish for a while. She'll get back to it when she's ready, and she'll gain back what she seems to be lacking now and then some. Think spiral, not straight line. Ebbs and flows.

I'd let her decide if she wants to read. Don't push her. She may be working on something else, and that's okay.

Both my kids are pure sight readers also. They use context clues and vocabulary skills, in combination with length and the first syllable of unfamiliar words to figure them out. Since they have excellent visual memories, once they see a word, it is recognized easily from that point on, although recall of exact spelling is more difficult.

I'm fascinated by your personal experiences and the minds of your wee ones. This was an interesting thread for me to read this morning. I would still like someone from this group to write a book on our collective experiences. It would make a good gift for different types of people in my life. Sorry for the selfishness. ;-)

I think kids move very quickly to sight reading. I don't even know if the distinction is really valid. I did give DS one of those non-sense word tests and he didn't do as well as I thought he'd do. he reads words in context extremely well etc and decodes when he needs to.

I saw reference to a study at the SWR yahoogroup. The study was done in ENgland. Kids who read well and spell well use the same part of the brain for both but kids who read well and spell poorly use different parts of their brain. I'd love to get my hand on the original research!

Working my way backwards through this thread...



I once had someone argue that my DS6 wasn't really reading when he was 3yo because he didn't sound things out. "He just memorized the word and recognizes it when he sees it," she said.

Well, um, yeah! Isn't that the goal? I don't sound out every word I see! Most of them, I just know! Am I not reading?

I'm no reading expert, but I think there are a number of different ways to come to reading. Different kids require different strategies depending upon how they learn.

Even the pattern recognition stuff, I thik is reading. Unless they sometimes forget what they've memorized, I think memorization that can be applied in other contexts is reading. I mean, I don't somehow divine the inner truth of a word or something. I just have it committed to memory. I know it! That's reading.

Ann, I'd say that yes, what your son is doing is reading. If he knows the word--however he knows it--and he can recognize it and understand it when he sess it in other contexts, well, that sounds like reading to me!

I think sometimes we parents of HG+ kids try to persuade ourselves that what our kids are doing doesn't count. ANy other parent would count those things as reading! In fact, I think any other parent would count a lot of earlier stuff as reading! Honestly, I think this is GT denial running rampant!

Good points Kriston. You help bring me back to center when I wander off into the forest of GT denial. Last night DH told me that DS appeared to read something a couple of weeks ago, but he dismissed it as impossible. DH thinks DS is somewhat bright, but not particularly different from other children. The only way DH will buy into it is if he has test data on DS. However, I did note a little surprise on DH's face when DS read some text out of a book that neither one of us had read to him before.

Part of the confusion DS's teacher has is that DS appears bright but he behaves poorly. I may be reading DS's teacher wrong, but she implies that a smart kid wouldn't act the way DS does (i.e., he would behave better/older). Shrug.

I was deeply in GT denial about my whole family until the girls were tested. I think an evaluation from a professional can really help a GT denial person put things in perspective.
I highly support the eval.

I wouldn't put too much weight in the teacher's comment. I've found that most teachers think of gifted children as those who fall into the moderately gifted range. HG and plus are a whole different ball of wax. Most teachers don't have clue.
It's hard to describe what a yellow bellied sneetch looks like if you've never actually seen one. KWIM

Bah. Behavior and intelligence have virtually nothing to do with one another. And you can tell that teacher I said so!