Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school not reading yet

Thanks for everyone's insights, DD is pretty subversive with her learning too so who knows what is going on there. She oftern practises alone then lets us know, I just haven't seen anything takes this long!


I imagine reading together would be ideal - and we do read lots of different types of books together - however DD will not co operate at all with reading herself unless it's her idea which is rare. So I get they beginning books from the library all the time and put them in our book box, they get ignored completely. The reading eggs is 100% driven by her - I stay out of it!

We got some sight words stickers (easy to make your own too I guess) and pasted them all over the all (DS put some up and supervised the placement of those more than 4' from the floor).

Then we would get a flashlight and play 'word power' - we would take turns illuminating a word in the dark and ID-ing it. I would let him quiz me a lot just so he did not feel like a little kid. Anyway, it is a fun and non-intimidating way to practice sight words (and you get to play with flashlights too).

We have an array of these (Post-It makes a set of 50 high-frequency words, as well as primary-lined blank sticky notes) on our kitchen wall, left over from when #1 was learning to read (tells you how often we clean off our walls!). Also (from the same era), various labeled objects all over the house. I've noticed the preschooler reading these for fun, too, just because they're there.

Unless your DD is actually getting upset about her inability to read, I would back off completely and just concentrate on reading to her, to develop her listening comprehension and to foster a love of literature and knowledge. Based upon your particular description, I believe that her reading achievement will end up in the same place in a few years whether you interfere or not. There are so many separate abilities necessary for a child to ultimately read a chapter book with comprehension and enjoyment that it may be unwise to unduly focus on some of these early steps. I know of some parents who spent many months (sometimes years) pushing their child through the CVC stage, only to have their child stall for years before the ability to independently read with comprehension simple picture books with multi-syllabic words. It does not appear that you are pushing your DD, so I am simply advising that you don't start yet. My two younger children did not read until kindergarten but each jumped several grade levels within months. For example, the first book that DS read to me was a Maurice Sendak baby chapter book in the fall of K - we skipped over the CVC stage although I am sure that his K classroom provided phonics instruction. Anyhow, DS told me at the time that it was difficult to fully comprehend and think about the story while reading himself so working memory is certainly a factor. Reading a sentence is a far cry from reading a book, even an early reader book.

At three going on four, my DD, now 5.4 years old, was at a similar place in terms of reading as your DD. She knew all of the letter sounds, could sound out CVC words and was excellent with environmental print - she could "read" every store sign and knew what every logo meant. We hadn't given her any formal reading instruction at that point other than to let her play on Star fall site for a short time and read bed time stories.

Despite having all of these tools/knowledge at her disposal, she wasn't able to read a completely new book that was placed in front of her. She would "read" books to me all of the time that she must have memorized just from hearing me read them to her. I remember thinking, hmmm she's got all of the tools I wonder why she isn't making the leap to being able to decode words and read new books that contain the same vocab and are at the same level.

The turning point for her was when she started learning/figuring out sight/high frequency words. Her being able to read them gave her such a confidence boost. These words appear so often,(and are sometimes not pronounced in the most common phonetic way) that it made her feel like she could read fluently - she didn't have to try and sound out or ask for help with every word. This gave her the motivation to try sounding out the content words since reading every word didn't feel like such an up hill battle anymore.

I think I began by pointing out the word "the". Throughout the day whenever she saw that word she would say hey mom that says, "the". Sometimes if I was reading a novel and she was around I'd ask her to look at my book with me and point out the word "the" on the page. I did this with a couple of other high frequency words and she also started figuring out some of them herself. She started picking up these words more rapidly and after she'd mastered a good handful of them I noticed that her reading ability really took off.

I would try introducing some high frequency words to her, maybe one or two a day (I have a kid who only likes to listen to 2/3 of my instructions too) and see if that helps her. You can tell her to let you know whenever she see's those words during the day and make it into a game.

She sounds like she's almost there! Perhaps the high frequency words will help her reach that critical mass.

Good Luck!

ETA: I wanted to add, does she make up her own stories? DD used to tell me stories and I'd write them down for her, or she would make picture books/cards. We both had a lot of fun with those and I feel it helped her a lot with learning to read.

I don't think there is one right or wrong way to teach reading but I have seen some children get rather confused about reading when they start with a structured phonics program. They can read regular cvc words but they get frustrated when they start reading real books that they want to read but they do not have the tools to decode non-cvc words.

When this happens, I would suggest 1) do echo reading using Dr Seuss types of books for patterns recognition and high frequency words, 2) find a beginning reader series that the child is interested (I highly recommend the Piggie and Gerald series), and 3) read literature books to the child to develop vocabulary and literally analysis skills.

The problem with brighter (gifted) children is that they don't like repetition and often, they refuse to read the same thing over and over unless they really happen to love it. DD really loved Mo Willems' books.

I agree that with reading, earlier is not better. The only problem with waiting until the child is 7 or older is that many of them want to move to chapter books right away and when that doesn't happen immediately, they lose patience and want to give up. It can be a challenge to find beginning readers appropriate for gifted 7+ year olds.

I still think DD learned to read because she insisted on having subtitles every time she watched anything on screen.

I'm not sure if you can borrow read-aloud e-books for free somehow but those are helpful too as the red highlight moves along but it'd be expensive if you have to pay for each of them.

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I really agree with this. I would let the topic totally alone for now and not bring it up or ask her to do anything. Just read TO her. If she asks to do the computer stuff, that's fine. If you can't read to her as much as she desires, books on tape!! They are a godsend.

My DD was seemingly ready to read in every way as an early 2, and COULD read many sight words, environmental print, sound CVC words out, etc. She did not actually learn to read till 5, at which point she took off like a rocket. DS was far less early with the "about to read" milestones--no baby sight words at all-- but approached words more phonetically, and suddenly started reading on his own as a young 4 (we did have Bob books around and he watched phonics shows sometimes).

We just used the "do nothing" method.

Hi all, just want to reiterate there is ZERO pressure from us for dd to read, we occasionally offer it as an activity (which I think would happen in most pre school homes) and it is rejected most of the time, when she does have a go she loses heart very quickly. She can read a bit on the computer - single words not putting it together. If she's not ready then that's fine, however as she is a perfectionist developing a pretty severe non growth mind set I find it worrying the speed with which she gives up.

I have left it alone completely, not even suggesting reading and will continue to do so.