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FWIW I kept fairly extensive records of DS's development when he was younger (was on a mailing list that had a monthly "what are they doing now?" roll call) and with respect to reading, the thing I recorded that has most often seemed significant since was the first time he sat down with a book that I knew he'd never seen before and read it through aloud (he was 2y10m). That seemed like a watershed: I had known before that he could read loads of words, and sound simple things out, and read/"read" his own books that were familiar, but that occasion when he read a whole book in a sitting that wasn't familiar - glad I noted that :-) (It seemed significant to him too, and maybe it's not too far fetched to say that on that occasion he too realised that he could really read: anyway, he gained confidence very fast after that.)

I'm being obnoxious, just commming on to think out loud for fun, and not about anything specific, or meaningful in the contect of recording...

If I wer to really *define* what reading means to me, I would say that it's
1) being able to decode phonetically, maybe with some other tools as well, but being able to do this. In a system which does not use phonics, Iwould expect patterns to be recognised (in Chinese, you'd have to be able to use a dictionary to find novel words, maybe relying on a lot of skimming, but using some systematic means, like looking for roots)
2) using text for communication/information gathering
3) derriving pleasure from the process and/or direct result of #2

Three being my "magic line in the sand" -- that's what my DS cant't do yet, and it's the reason, i think, that he doesn't do much of the other two yet. Even if I just ask him to press the fourth floor button, and he loves pressing the button, and reading a single digit number is utterly trivial for him, the looking at the numbers step is one he'd rather skip, and he truly only does it because heknows ifhe's always pusing the wrong button I'll stop lettin him push elevator buttns. A rare success inn external motivation!

But a kid who can only barely read "cat bat hat" by the skin of his teeth, and who enjoys spendingu time sounding it out -- that kid is reading, even if he spent so much effort on the sounds he has no clue what words he jsut read!

The evveryday core of the Eenglish languaj consists of so many exceptions that I don't consider phonettic awwareness a major requirement for erly readers. You can use phonettics to successfully decode obscure scientific terms on a consistent basis, but for conversational Eenglish, the correct use of phonettic rules will yeeld incorrect pronunciations abbout a third of the time.

This post has ben renderred phonettickally compliant.

Yes! There are more exceptions to rules than adherents. My ds is very successful with his cast vocabulary of sight words - but I fear spelling. I believe his early reading will not be mirrored in spelling ability.

The nice benefit for my sight reader was getting a bit of a come-uppance with a 50% on his second ever spelling test. He was not pleased, and after looking for blame realized it was on him. Wasn't really anything before spelling which required intentional effort for him to learn. (not counting his writing as that is a different sort of learning)

As to reading, dunno how to measure that. We know his first word was "Comcast" ~20 months (yum, irony.) I would likely way underguess the number of words he knew by three (>500?), but because of his vision he couldn't much follow words on the page to read a story until the beginning of last school year.

See, phonetic spelling may be problematic in English, but reading, to me, is not a single- language skill. Reading an alphabet is a phonetic skill. Ideographic erc. systems generally have a system as well, otherwise they aren't very powerful.

Anyway, that's why I'm in the phonetics camp. DS reads ideographs quite well, and writes them frequently (mostly combining traffic signals and other ideographs common in north america). He has a strong sence of the system for those ideographs (particles for beware, do X, do not X, general ideas of how to simplify an image to form a glyph, where to put glyphs on a page to make a cohearent message, etc). But given our primary system is alphabetic, I put a premium on that kind of reading that I wasn't 100% aware of until just now.

Gee, I like this forum. I'm going to have awesome dreams tonight.

(typing on an ipad does not make for good looking posts about reading. Sigh)

True. There is more to it than just yes, he is reading, or no, he is not. I will for sure write down this "reading" milestone. And even though I can't say he is actually READING now, he is on his way.

Seemed his older brother, DS4, never read phonetically. Read his first easy reader at age 2yr 8mo but there was never any sounding out of words at all. Never once, at least in the beginning. A couple of months into it, as the books got more advanced, he would stop and look at a new word before reading it. I guess he was "sounding" it out in silence.

I do think my DS2.6 is "reading" at his speech level ... which is very simple. He's speech delayed and only speaks in words. More in terms of labeling objects, characters, animals and few verbs. He started sounding out words 2 months ago starting with words like cat, hat ... from then he's moved onto animals like kangaroo, zebra, octopus ... he uses his own mix of phonetic sounding out and sight recognition from books, tv and other sources around him. He doesn't like to have books read to him and prefers to go through them himself. He doesn't read in sentences ... but he doesn't speak in sentences either. His reading is strangely in sync with his speech. He knows the meanings of all the words he can read and he doesn't read words he doesn't recognize. That is why I think he is truly reading though in a very simple manner. I have actually started our own speech therapy with him where I write new words for him, tell him what it is and then he remembers the written word and adds it into his spoken vocabulary. We don't practice reading or anything like that ... he just brings me his magnadoodle when he feels like reading and wants me to write words for him so I do and he's happy . If he continues this pattern, he'll probably start reading real books pretty soon after he starts talking in sentences.

I think the sight reader/spelling thing must be more complicated than it seems. I was definitely a sight reader when I learned to read (my mom has stories that reflect this) but I've always been an excellent speller. My DD also clearly learned by sight (although phonetic rules were singing backup) and is a fantastic speller, following very much in my footsteps. I don't know about DS; he doesn't write much yet. But he started as a phonetic reader, so it should be interesting to compare.

You know, I was always good at spelling, too (but since any success achieved has been nulled by typing on a phone or kindle). I have no idea what type of reader I was. My dh is an awful speller -here's hoping ds takes after his mom on this one.