Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Your child started reading when!

My DD4 was my earliest. She told me she wanted to learn how to read between 3 and 3 1/2. I wrote the word "cat" and she just sounded it out. She wanted lesson, so we started. I didn't have to give her nearly as much instruction as my other two, though. She amazed me at how quickly she could pick up something.

She's up to what seems to be a solid second grade level right now. I stopped lessons a while ago, yet she can read words using sound combinations I never taught her. sometimes she'll figure out a word, stop, and say "That word doesn't follow the rules" or "g next to e sounds like j here [orange]."

I see that others wrote "mine just reads whole words." She does this too, often the first time she reads them (not always; she inserts the wrong word sometimes, too). So tonight she got "growling" on sight, yet she also trips up on simple things (possibly because she's going too fast).


Here's one thing she trips on: sometimes she switches the words "I" and "A." Anyone else see this?

Val

We spell things in front of our kitties.

So the other night at bedtime, one of the cats was meowing. DS9 said "What does he want?" I was busy getting someone out of the shower, and so I said "I think he wants n-i-p (our cat-understandable word for catnip)."

Of course DD4 yelled "NIP!!!" and cat went barmy.

Val

What is a "2nd grade level" or a "first grade level"?

How are those terms defined by the child's reading ability (as opposed to the grade level of the book)?

I know this has been covered before, but I can't seem to find it in the archives.

Thanks.

I haven't noticed DD doing that. But she does have a few little funny things. Sometimes she reverses words or reads words out of order, which has me a bit worried (especially since her dad is dyslexic). She also does that thing where she reads faster than she can talk (I know because sometimes she looks up while finishing a sentence), and sometimes that is an issue when she is reading aloud.

I am a first grade teacher. Determining a reading level is based on assessment but you can get a ballpark idea and here are some suggestions. Of course, this is all based on my experience and others may disagree. In a classroom setting teachers consider students to be on level for instruction if they are reading a book at around 90 to 95% accuracy with very little support. Of course, they also should be able to read it fluently enough to understand what the story is about (fluency kicks in once kids are beyond the very early reader stage, when they have many more sight words). End of first grade level would be early chapter books (around Level 2ish) like Frog and Toad or Henry and Mudge. End of second grade level would be transitional chapter books like Magic Tree House or Junie B. There are many much more detailed lists of leveled books out there and I'm sure there are links to them on this site, but I generally tell parents that 90 to 95% accuracy (with comfortable fluency and comprehension!) means that it's about your child's level.

Our DS5 doesn't switch letters, but he completely ignores "an." If it says "an apple," he'll read "a apple." We've talked about why the n is there, but he's not interested.

I realized that my DS4 could read when he began picking words out of the newspaper at breakfast when he was 2 1/2. I hadn't done anything to teach him other than to read oodles of books to him and play word games while we were driving, which he loved. Once I discovered he was reading, I introduced him to Starfall.com, which seemed to solidify his understanding of phonics in just 1 or 2 sittings. By 3 he could read things like Frog and Toad without much trouble and was doing things like correcting my adult friend when she wrote "yea" as "yeah." He's 4 years 4 months now and reads Roald Dahl to me at night, with fluency and total comprehension. Comic books and graphic novels have been a great bridge to independent reading. He recently read a 200+ page Wizard of Oz graphic novel to himself and loved it.

My son was 2 1/2 when his dad told me that he was putting the j-e-e-p (my son's Christmas gift so he spelled it out for me) in the shed and my son told us he wanted to see the jeep. I realized that was an easy word so I started spelling out other words for him when he took his bath--things that he could see in the tub like soap, tub, water, etc. and he would point to whatever I spelled. He absolutely loved this game and he especially loved to play it for older kids who would spell words for him. They would give him the hardest words they knew how to spell--usually science words--and he would usually get them right because, after all, he liked to read science encyclopedias. He loved the attention. It seemed like he didn't even have to think about the words, he just knew what they were as soon as they were spelled. I remember one time when he was about 3 1/2, I showed his very bright 11 year old cousin how he could do this. I quickly spelled out words like curtain and window and he told me that my son was getting them faster than he could. He then spelled out words that I wasn't sure my son had ever read and he got those right too.

When he was preschool age, he didn't go to preschool, but he loved being read to from How it Works books and Aesop's Fables and books that I thought should have been above his ability to comprehend but he just loved learning new words and especially those with more than one meaning because he could use these when making up jokes.

His reading ability didn't matter, of course, when it came time for him to start kindergarten. He couldn't or wouldn't color in the lines and that was what the teacher wanted to focus on.

I bought an easy reader book for him when he was 2 1/2 that he had never seen before and he was able to read it.

At that time, I had never heard of two year olds reading and I had certainly not tried to teach him to read. All I did was read to him with my finger underneath the words as I read. He demanded to be read to a lot and one of his favorite books before he had even turned one was a Dr Seuss alphabet book and I still have that book memorized because I read it too him so much. He could identify some letters at 12 months.

My daughter was reading at 4 but she went to preschool and I think she must have learned to read there. I thought four was early and she did very well in elementary school. She fit in better than my son because she was smart but not too smart and she could draw and color in the lines beautifully, unlike my son, so she was the perfect student. I have to homeschool my son.

DD4 read her first word in front of me when she was 2.5. Right before she turned 3, she was reading some words and trying more. She is 4.5 and can read chapter books. It seems that it was gradual and then suddenly accelerated.

She is very verbal, but she is more math and physics oriented. She was not an early talker, but when she started, she zoomed. When she was about 20 months, people really noticed her verbal abilities, her clarity in speaking and her vocabulary was strong. And the reading was similar in the way she tackled it.
Slow, and then zoomed.

Ren

CFK... your son did not have a late start to anything. Your post just proves that all children learn in their own way and soar when they are ready. And it also proves that it really doesn't matter if your child reads at 2, 3 or 4. Reading early is not a prerequisite to being gifted.