Our daughter is now 26 months old (wow, when did that happen?!). She tells me a couple of times a day that she is "too tiny to read these words". She has asked me to teach her to read and she is obviously wanting to, but she won't try sounding out the words. She knows about 50 words by sight and she knows all of her letters and the sounds they make. If I ask her what letter "dog" starts with, she will tell me "d"...but she does not understand how to start sounding out words. She is watches me demonstrate sounding out the words, but she does not want to try at all. Instead, it almost gives up and says "Mama, you read it to me."

Are there any tricks that will help me teach her? I really think she would be happy if she could sit down with a book and read on her own. As it is, she is great at memorizing them, but she knows she s not truly reading.

Thanks for any ideas. Happy New Year!

Well, sight words count as reading, too ... do you sound out every word you read? I certainly don't! Try telling her that you've memorized many words, and that's how you read so quickly, and see what she says.

DS6 was a big sight reader to start and had a *huge* sight word vocabulary. I didn't hear him sound out a word until he was definitely past 4 and he started reading real books around 3yo. So sounding out doesn't necessarily = reading!

We made ds a little "sight word" book when he was starting to read to build his confidence; he loved it. It had words like Mama, Daddy, stop, exit, etc ... and then we added phrases of familiar things, like "orange coat" and "green car". It was great for him to see that he could recognise, and thus read, real words.

Hi,

My DS4 started reading around the same age as your DD and he is the same. He still does not sound out words, much to his teachers frustration. I was taught to read by sight words - there was no phonics at all, so I don't think that there is a best way of doing it.
Is your DD visual? Memorizing is probably her way. DS had books memorized and then then suddenly he realised that where ever he saw the letters c-o-o-k together it always meant cook and then blam! reading.
I gave up trying to get DS to sound out words...it was frustrating to him. Now i only make him sound out the words that he knows but is to lazy to read properly...the most i make him do is 1 or 2 words a page, i tell him the rest because he just remembers it forever.

I second the making her some books that she can read. My DS still loves this though they are getting harder for me to write!

I love the idea of making books she can read. I also encourage you to sit at the computer and have her dictate to you what the books should say.

In my son's Kindergarden class, one of their methods of teaching kids to read was to take a familiar book with repetitive words, and change the words themselves a little bit.

Of course she may not really have the 'visual maturity' to actually read a whole paragraph. It's is frustrating in general to have part of your mind read to do a skill and perhaps other parts of your development not ready. We call is 'Asynchrounous Development' (spelling uncertian) and it's a pain.

So, at this age, try to encourage her as she seems to want, figure out how to help her deal with frustration, use humor whenever possible, but most importantly 'keep the joy' in whatever activities you can.

There is a Suess book called 'I can read with my eye's shut.' Your family might get a chuckle out of that. You can encourage her to write 'tiny' books for 'tiny' kids.

Also - read 'Many Moons' by James Thurber. Even though they are 'our children' there is a limit to how much one can 'get inside another person's mind and understand everything about them' so after you read it, ask her what she thinks 'reading' and 'tiny' mean.

Start planning financially for her school years. You may not end up homeschooling her, but your do want to be in a position to use all of possible ways of schooling if you can. I wish there was a book I could refer you to called: 'financial planning for parents of gifted toddlers' (LOL)

Best Wishes,
Grinity

One trick that might work is to purchase 2 sets of inexpensive magnetic letters (98 cents at WalMart). Use a cookie sheet and encourage her to make and sound out words. You can replace a letter and show her how easy it is to change "pan" to "man" to "fan" etc. I would start with 2 letter words/sounds unless she is already beyond it... (an, it, ot, etc). Also, check out the easy readers and BOB books at your library. Sometimes, the picture books/easy readers with words and a picture thrown in work nicely (I can't remember what they are called; there is a specific term for it; one of these types of books is called The Big Snowball). That way, she can "read" the picture embedded in the middle of text. HTH & Good luck!

Hi - Our DS4, very soon to be 5, has never wanted to sound out words. I am pretty sure he just memorized words from being read to. For his first bday, he got a leapfrog magnetic fridge letter thing, that he pushed incessently, so he was familiar with all the "b says buh" stuff, but when we tried to sound out words with him, he'd have none of it. Now, when he's reading something unfamiliar, I can cover up parts of the word until he recognizes that, then he can figure out the rest. So it's more like adding words together than phonics. I figure if he needs to know phonics at some point in school, we'll tackle it then.

So I'm in the camp that says even if you don't know phonics, you can still be a reader.

Me, too. I was nodding right along with Mia when I read her "Do you sound out every word that you come across?"

I think the best readers don't read phonetically except on rare occasions. I'm an EXTREMELY fast and accurate reader, and I tend to read whole lines at one time. The idea of reading letter-by-letter sounds like torture to me!

I suspect many GT kids are like this. I'd bet it's part of that "seeing the whole before the parts" thing that lots of visual learners have. And while it is important to understand phonics eventually, I don't think it's the only (or even best) way to learn for all kids. I know it wasn't for me!

You might try the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Engelmann. I can't remember the theory behind it but we used it for my then 3 1/2 year old because he wanted to read but couldn't quite get there by himself. He'd be in tears because he wanted to read so badly. He got it within about the first 1/4 of the book and wanted to do 4-5 lessons a day. Very easy to use - about 15 minutes once a day. Seems like there was a writing part as well but we didn't do it. Yours might be too young, I'm not sure. I do like that it includes all the letters in a word (unlike the phonics programs I've seen) but has the ones you actually hear in a different size print. Might be worth a look.

I love this idea!

These are called rebus books... I knew it would finally come to me.
ITA with Kriston. We didn't waste time on phonics. Both kids read one day when they were around 4 yrs of age and quickly progressed to reading chapter books, etc. I am still amazed at whatever decoding process "clicked" in their brains and enabled them to read. I know 4 yo is "late" for this board but the point is that they were fluent, confident readers without any guidance or coaching on my part. That said, your child is doing great and it is terrific that you are seeking ways to enhance her skill base. I also love the make your book idea and wish I'd thought of it when they were younger. Happy Holidays!

We're going thru the "too many words on a page" stage. Miss 4 is easily reading early reader books (1 sentence per page). She's a whole word reader and has a large memory bank of words. She doesn't like coming across words she doesn't know *groan* so I'm going to have to go back to some phonetics to rectify this. But how do I get over the "too many words on a page" problem? She previously made the leap to simple chapter books, but has now regressed. I think she did this because of her perfectionism issues - perhaps the book had too many words she didn't recognise (?) But how do I get her going again, or is it a case of simply wait and see... jojo

I think I'd let her read some easier books and not think too much about it for a while. She'll get bored and move on. Just keep some more interesting (and challenging!) stuff around, too. There's nothing wrong with mixing it up. Pleasure reading IS supposed to be fun, after all.

Someone mentioned here --maybe even in this very post, but i'm too lazy to go back and read it - that the beautiful picture books that are written for parents to read to children are often written at a higher level, but they only have a sentence or two on them. These are much more interesting than the Bob books, etc. My DS4almost5 has this same issue, and lately he's been picking books for himself to read by dr seuss (the bigger ones) and books like The Little Engine That Could. I plan to go digging through the book piles to find some more picture books. Also, loads of little golden books are fairly short but have interesting stories (lately for us: saggy baggy elephant, hansel and gretel, etc). Good luck!

I keep reading the title of this thread and think my reaction would be to scoop her up and say, "That's OK, soon you'll be reading but right now I want to read to you." Get some of the books recommended above, let her enjoy the pictures and the melody of your voice as you read the words. Read them several times, sometimes concentrating on reading with expression and fluency, other times slowing down and using your finger to follow along. She'll pick it up soon enough.

OHGrandma, I am so with you on this one. My dd is now 8 1/2 and she still loves it when I read to her.

oneisenough,

I read somewhere that the phonic method is not necessarily the right path to take with the gifted. If you consider that the phonic teaching style is used for the masses and the gifted are hardwired differently you might find that your daughter is just not coded for phonics. We are in the same boat with my DD. She reads words through memorization and can 'read' a lot of story books to us such as 3 little pigs and the little red hen. It is really cute b/c we know she has it memorized but she recites it verbatim. I have tried the sound out game with her and if I ask her what letter makes the 'dddd' sound she will tell us 'D' and maybe the next letter that she hears, but tends to be bored with the game and doesn't want to finish it. We have purchased some I can read books recently and for the most part she is learning through memorization and I think the phonics will have to come at a later date when she gets to a word that is not so easily memorized.

My advice is just be patient b/c if your DD is anything like mine she is probably a perfectionist and telling you she is too tiny is her way of showing her frustration with not just getting it. We just continue to read to her and let her chime in on words we know she knows and using the finger to underline the text as we read. We also try to stay ahead of her memorization game by providing new books she hasn't seen.

You are all great! Thank you so much for all of the ideas!! I love the idea of making our own books, and I think I will try that. I definitely love reading to her and she knows that even when she can read on her own we will still have a lot of special reading time together. I would love to solve the problem by scooping her up and saying, "don't worry about it, you will read soon enough and right now I want to read to you" but the fact is that she wants to read on her own. I can not tell you how many times a day I hear, "Mama, I want read. Mama my turn."
Anyhow...I hear what you are all saying that phonetics might not be the best way for her to learn. I suppose I will just try my best to keep it fun and let my daughter lead the way, I just hope that she doesn't become too frustrated in the mean time.

THank you all again. I am going to reread all of your posts again!

Wow! I am so relieved to hear that "reading" is not necessarily being able to phonetically sound out the words! And I agree that I too do not sound out each word as I am reading. My DD5 has been able to memorize, recognize, and repeat words on a page for a few years now, but since she was not sounding out each word, I did not classify her as a early reader. I was beginning to wonder why she demonstrated all the other characteristics of GTness EXCEPT early reading! She is just now (at 5) learning to sound out the words. I value this info because I now know that I should probably alter my teaching style (or at least research a little more). Thanks!

One, I'm so glad you started this thread. Great insights, as always.

I agree with the suggestions here not to push phonics, but I want to suggest two things that you might want to have around in case they take your DD's fancy:
- first, http://www.starfall.com , which my DS loved around the same age. (The ABCs section was a favourite for a long time; he used other sections too, but not so much.)
- second, if you have the budget (I say this because DS went through them like a house on fire and buying a new level every week or two gets pricey!), some of the Oxford Reading Tree Songbird Phonics readers. I chose these for DS-then-2 because he was clearly learning phonically to some extent (to my surprise - he was obsessed with spelling at 2.5!) but I think they'd work for a whole-word learner too in fact. I decided to get reading books for him because he was getting frustrated with story books which would have a few words he could decode/recognise followed by one he couldn't. We had a rule that nobody ever read the reading books *to* him, they were just for him to read. We'd tell him a word if he had trouble with it, but actually it seldom happened: they are very carefully graded. We never explicitly encouraged reading - there was no need to! - but we did have a rule that at bed time he got two stories read to him, and then could go on reading to himself as long as he liked, so reading was the only acceptable bedtime postponement ruse.

This may be a function of neurological maturity. Her eyes may not be able to effectively use the proper sustained focus and eye movements to allow her to comfortably read "too many words" per page.

To see if this is the issue, you could do a couple of things. Take the text from a "sentence per page" book and put them all on a single page in paragraph form. Ask dd to read it. If she stumbles or balks, show her the same words in the one sentence per page and ask her to read it. If she is able to read it in the one sentence per page, it may be that she doesn't have the oculomotor control yet for the more words per page books.

DON'T WORRY!! My dd9 around age 4, did this and is now reading at an 8th grade level! It seems like it is the same idea as learning anything else for GT kids. Their brain knows what it wants to do, but the body just isn't mature enough. THen if you add perfectionism to the mix, you have one frustrated kiddo!

Hope this is helpful. I am by no means an expert but with all the vision/perception issues my dd7 has going on, I am getting quite an education in these matters!!

Good Luck!

I wouldn't be too concerned by a child not sounding out words - my son detests doing this & had similar issues, even though he could identify the starting letter of a word easily enough. Beyond that - he has taught himself to read and is probably around Grade 3 level (he is 5). I never really heard or saw him sound out words - though he'll often test himself on things like like secretly - even as a baby, he would coo and babble incessently when alone in the room, but not when someone walked in. I'm sure he did learn phoncis - some at Montessori and from TV (Sesame Street etc). The environment we provided included the Leap Frog ball with letters, phonic sounds and music. It's the only Leap Frog device I got for him as I try to steer away from video games, computer and TV, especially as he has grown older. However, keeping a radio or TV on from birth helps children to learn a language so we did that and always had the subtitles on. He didn't pay much attention to the Leap Frog ball at 11 months, but really became fascinated probably around 15-16 months and pressed the buttons over and over. We still have sub-titles on the TV all the time, and around age 3, he started reading an early reader that was about a Grade 1 level and I couldn't believe what he knew already. The subject of the book was based on a show he watched a great deal on DVD, again with subtitles and "story book" sections that highlight words in the story on the screen. I spent sometime with him on the computer around Age 2 using "cat" and "bat" phonic type exercies on a really old fashioned computer game - it was obvious he didn't "totally get it". By age 4, he was completely fluent at reading without any further help from us. I was shocked. I appreciate all the comments from parents in this section, and others about allowing your child to fail / not giving them an answer - but telling them "just try, give it a shot". I did this last night when trying to get him to "compose" his own writing. I had to keep asking him "well, what would that word look like if you were reading" - because he struggles a little to correlate what I know he can read with actually spelling it and writing it down on paper. He seemed scared to get it wrong, and really happy after getting it right or "almost perfect". My son will still sometimes say "Oh, you just read it" - and I figure that is becasue he is scared and frustrated by the words he gets stuck on, and also because he learns by watching me read. However, it has always frustrated him if I point at words, or read at a slow pace that I would consider reasonable for most toddlers/young children. I've read to him since before he was a year old, and even then, he used to like us to turn the pages really fast, especially when doing single letter pages such "A, B, C". We never even got around to using his Phonics set - because it occurred to me last year, he could read every book in the set without any further "schooling". Also thanks MamaBear for some great pointers - I think I can use those to help my little one read the "harder books" which are intimidating him as he kept on saying "too many words" and he has eye sight issues and wears a patch to correct his alignment too. It might also help with the written composition. Spread the words out on the page.

Oh yes - ColinsMum is so right! My mother bought a couple of those for my son last Christmas - and again - he could alreayd read everything easily which actually helped alert me to the fact that he was way beyond the level he "should be" at for his age. I recommend them too!

well dd has started sounding out words now! So she has words that she definitely is reading as site words, and now she is adding in her phonics reading. She is one happy kid!!

I let DD watch "Between the lions" at that age. She started sounding out words because of watching them.

thanks! I was thinking about some sort of tv show to help her with it, but so far she seems to be doing fine. I will keep Between the Loins in mind though...I don't think we have it in Canada, but I see it is on youtube!

Between the loins? Hmm, that sounds like an interesting show!

LOL! Some typos are better than others!

hahahaha I wish I could say that was on purpose! lol funny!

Sounds like something Tom Wolfe said in "A Man in Full!!"

My son was reading level 1-2 books by three. He's 6 now and reads at a 4th grade level. He did not learn how to read by sounding out words. Once he knew the "rules" of reading, he would just look at a word and say it. This isn't saying that he didn't make mistakes, he just would rather try and say the whole word than slow down and sound out each part. For example, explaining that a word ending in an e makes the vowel "say itself" is a general rule.