Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Quirks of an Early Reader?

My ds did the same thing (although he wasn't an early reader. Before he learned to read (when he was really young) he used to seem to memorize full books. Once he learned to read he was reading college-level books within a year or so... and because he seemed to learn to read so effortlessly we just never paid much attention to whether or not he had been exposed to and learned phonics at school. He has a huge vocabulary which can't possibly have all come from conversations at home and school, and he never needs to look up word definitions, so I've always guessed that he's picking up the meaning of words from the context of what he's reading.

FWIW it doesn't seem to have impacted him in other areas - he studied one foreign language when he was in elementary and did really well, and he's studying another in middle school and also doing well.

polarbear

This is my DS too. He wasn't reading as early as yours - instead he started sounding out basic words at three. He has a language processing disorder, so I'm not sure if he fits with this discussion... but now at the age of 8 he's very similar in that he prefers big, "chunky" words - he just remembers them - over smaller, simple and phonetic words. He'll mess up the easy words (i.e. say "saw" instead of "was" for example), but is quite solid and consistent with the larger, non-phonetic words.

Yes. At the TAG school my daughter goes to, they don't teach reading but they do spend part of the 1st grade year teaching all of the tricks that kids miss out on when they teach themselves to read. (I have no idea what those tricks are, I just remember her teacher saying this at curriculum night last year.)
My dd would never sound out words, she was a word memorizer. No phonics for her!

This problem isn't limited to whole language readers. I've seen numerous, though not frequent, kids who just "Get it" when it comes to math, even Algebra and Calc. They don't have to write the problem down and work through it on paper, it just computes in their head. They become very resistant and frustrated when the teacher wants them to show their work and deducts points for not doing so, it makes no sense to them, why should they have to show their work as long as they got the right answer? What work was there to show since...it wasn't work? They also often figure out their own way of doing math that indeed does work, it might not be the quickest way, however, it's the way that makes sense to them. There are pros and cons to that, they're able to solve complex math problems without being taught (a great thing), however, it's often not fast.

Yes, this is true. I think that when teachers say "Show your work," they should define what they mean. I suspect that most teachers mean, "Show it the way I wrote it out in the examples on the board." Yet their statements could easily be interpreted as "Show YOUR work, as in, what you had to write down." Sometimes, some kids just have to write the answer.

At the same time, I see huge value in learning how to write out a stepwise solution to a math problem. It's great to be able to solve problems in your head, but how can you explain (and justify) the solution if you can't also write out the logical steps it takes to get there? IMO, this is a critical skill for anyone who will ever be in a position that requires explaining something to someone. These situation would include writing something (a scientific paper, a book, a proposal, etc.), giving a talk, explaining to your boss and colleagues why your cool new method is so much better than the old one, convincing people that they should invest in your ideas, and so on.

My two children learned to read quite differently. DD, who did not learn terribly early (late 4, very nearly 5) despite having quite a few sight words as a toddler, was much more of a sight reader. She was very apt to just kind of throw a guess out there, but also clearly remembered long words that she'd run across a few times. DS learned as a young 4 and was much, much more phonetic. I thought he might be much more slow and steady than DD was, and at first he seemed to be. But now he is a meticulous reader who sounds out with speed and accuracy. Inevitably I find myself saying, "Well, it would make perfect sense to say it that way, but..." (These days he is reading tons of weather books aloud to me. Lots of hard words.) Anyway, he is absolutely phonics-based and self-taught unless you count a bit of Starfall and Word World. Oh, we did have Leapfrog Fridge Magnets! He had a phase with those.

Right, I wasn't debating that showing the process isn't needed, I agree it's necessary to know how to do so. My point was that to that student it seems silly and they become resistant to doing so. For my eldest DS, it took a very understanding AP Calc teacher to show him why it was a good thing to write down the process and visually digest it as well as computing it in his head.

Bonus tricky on the showing the work concept is a teacher can easily convey the message that they view the student as fundamentally dishonest and untrustworthy.

Right again; I also wasn't trying to imply anything about your message. I was primarily writing out ideas because I think it's worthwhile to write them out.

I'm going through this process with my eldest and even my youngest (barely 8). Both of them have minds that race, and trying to teach them that writing it all out can be a good thing is a challenge.

Yes, this is the problem that DS(now10) has. He didn't do any work to get the answer, and doesn't know what to write down. On the baby stuff that he brought home once in a while in first grade, where the question was "how do you know this is the answer?" this showed up as "because it is." Seriously, how do you show your work for 5+1 = 6? Well, I added 1 to 5, and it was 6.

DS was reading by age 2, and he never sounded anything out. He just read the words, no matter how big they were or what they looked like. I was afraid we'd have to go back and teach him phonics, but he appeared to have absorbed it through osmosis. He never had any trouble with it, he just knew it. On the Word Attack part of the WJIII when he was 5, he scored something like "15th grade" or age 21+ -- there wasn't a collection of letters there that he couldn't read.

He was also pretty resistant to the "what sound does B make" sort of questions -- luckily, he had teachers who knew not to ask him things like that. He didn't want any part of it.

Note that the "problem" in school came with his lack of comprehension. He has consistently tested "low" (which means low for him and usually around or only slightly above grade level) on comprehension, while maxing out the parts that measure ability to read. Teachers latch onto this as an area for concern, but it's perfectly understandable. When you're 2 and can read everything, naturally you don't understand what it's all about yet. That takes life experience, and a lot more reading. Gradually comprehension catches up. To me, it would be a lot worse to have more comprehension than reading skills. That would just be awful. But that's me. And, well, who among us can comprehend everything we read? Ever read the tax code? State statutes? Bills before Congress?