Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Teaching kids to read?

To me this is a red flag that if you don't teach her now, she will conclude that there's something wrong with her/learning new things just isn't possible/whatever she does isn't the real deal. I took a very hands-off approach with my second one and decided I didn't mind if she didn't read until school. By then every time she thought about text she had such a negative idea of her abilities that she didn't work on it enough to learn for a year and a half. Neither of my kids picked up reading by osmosis and it was critical to have the attitude that it's normal to work on this a bit and it's normal for it to be a little hard. Once I started insisting on daily reading time and showed her the progress that she made, she also made huge leaps and bounds in every other area - physical, social, and academic. I'm still reeling from the 'growth spurt' she made over the last month.

So while I have no useful suggestions of curriculum, I think it's damaging to not teach a child who is asking to learn and probably is able to.

Oh - and I remember my sister at around 2.5 sadly insisting that she couldn't really read real books, just words on pages and signs and... We eventually made her a book she could read (I don't think we had access to Bob books at that time) and her confidence just flowered.

So while I have no useful suggestions of curriculum, I think it's damaging to not teach a child who is asking to learn and probably is able to.

I think so, too. I bitterly regret not taking the initiative to teach DD at 2, when she was VERY clearly capable, and eager to learn.

She's so highly visual that being read to was really not as enjoyable for her as reading silently to herself. I look back and realize that it was selfish of us to want to preserve the experience of reading TO her-- which she ditched almost immediately and without a backwards glance. I can count on one hand the number of books I've read TO her since she was 5 years old. Her preference.

NOT teaching her two years sooner was a mistake. That's two years that she could have more fully enjoyed print materials.

I have nothing against teaching a child who WANTS to learn to read at an early age. The key being if the child wants the help. Just to keep in mind that it might be slow going at first and that it isn't a big deal if a child doesn't read until they are a bit older. I like the suggestion that you keep a book to illustrate the progress she has made.

But I have seen many parents who PUSH their child to start reading at a young age who aren't interested, and schools that push reading earlier and earlier to no major gain on the kids part. I had numerous parents in K want to know what "magic" I did to get my son to read. And I really didn't have a good answer.

YES!

I almost think the developmental burst that allows school to teach a child to read is not in some innate ability to read, but the maturity (or whatever you want to call it) to learn what someone else wants to teach when the child has no desire to learn it themselves. I'm sure that there is some reading-ability change as well, but the motivation behind the teaching (adult or child request) makes all the difference in the world.

Thank you! I'm sure she will get it. She's still young. I just hate seeing her frustrated by it. We read constantly, tons of print in the house, she's started writing more (DS6's writing lead to his reading- not sure if that is typical for these kids). Perhaps part of it is sibling stuff. DS reads SO much and is so passionate about sharing what he's read. She wants that, too. I get it!

I'm on my cell and missed the entire second page of discussion. Ljoy... That's what I'm feeling. She wants to, she's frustrated. She too young to feel this frustrated. And it must be difficult to have a sibling 19 months older than you gushing about how fun it is. I think I'll just try little bits of instruction to see. Not sure what, exactly, but just so she feels she us making progress.

Part of this is my own issue... I know people think I hothoused our eldest and we did not. So now teaching the second sorta feels like hot housing, if that makes sense.

And HK, your DD sounds like my eldest. His reading happened so quickly and with such speed. I was happy that he was reading but I mourned our read aloud time. I'm too slow for him- and that happened within a couple months of him learning to read. Now, at six, he will appease me once in a great while and allow me to read something but he would rather read silently.

Both my kids were interested in reading young, loved learning their letters, were into phonics, asked me to spell things so they could write, and were read to very often, but they didn't learn to actually read until they started school at 5. Boom, within days. Not sure what those teachers were doing that we weren't, but obviously they know their stuff Once the kids got started, they raced away - reading a year ahead literally within weeks, and at college level well before they hit their teens.
So I wouldn't worry - just try to keep her positive The "learning to" should be as fun as the achieving, with any luck

Thanks AvoCado!