Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums 2 year old learning to read?

Beware the quiet ones!

Yes, she is always listening, even when you don't realize it!
Listening and processing, it's good to be aware of that!

Have fun this is such a fun age. Both my kids derive such joy from those aha moments, enjoy!

Kimberly - I think everyone's given great advice already (and kickball, i really like that "whatever you think they can do, take it times ten"). But I'll add my two cents, anyway.

I see you are having concerns about the flashcards/appropriate materials for a 2-year-old. Since DS4 is my first, I had no ideas what was appropriate, and I just got things I thought he'd like. So we did have some alphabet/word flash cards when he was around 2. They had blue from blues clues on them, and he liked blue then. So, like others here, I think that if you're child is asking for something, it can't be hothousing.

Have fun!

Ditto. If she is the one asking for it (or demonstrating interest), it can't hurt to go over phonetics or read more books to her. You may have to deal with upset kindergarten teachers if she reads before school, but it sounds as if your other children have entered knowing the basics of reading. My five cousins, with whom I stayed early in my life, all read at about the age of your older ones, and I was the two-year-old who induced phonetics to learn on my own. My aunt and my mom always checked out library books or bought enrichment activities when we showed interest, and it has worked out well enough. You aren't pushing her if she is the one interested in learning. It's just attentive parenting

my little guy loved the leapfrog fridge magnet set that you can purchase....one is just the alphabet letters and then you place them into a holder and it tells you the alphabet name and sound and then there is a word builder set as well and you can place the alphabet letters into 3 slots onto the holder and it will sound out the word you made and read it. Our fridge was covered and he just loved messing around with how the letters sounded in different spots :-)

It's amazing how different children can be. My DS4 was reading some words at 19 months, and by 2 1/2 read very well. By 3 he could read 4th/5th grade stuff. I remember when it started he was in nursery at church at 19 months and his teacher told me he could read. I laughed of course because that couldn't be possible, then she went on to say she held something up to the class that said "God made man" but instead said to the class "God made me." DS corrected her and pointed at the last word and said "that says 'man' " I was shocked. Later that week we wrote some words down and asked them what they were and sure enough he could read. He started out by memorization it seemed, but he had so many words we weren't sure. Then before 2 he was sounding things out phonetically as well so we never could figure out how he picked it up. I never pointed to words when I read or anything, but we read tons because he always LOVED books. He was always into letters and numbers. It seemed he knew his alphabet by about 14 months and knew all the sounds letter made around that time as well.

Anyhow, I am sharing this to let you now it absolutely can happen. I also have a DD who is almost 15 mo, she has no interest in books at all...or letters or numbers. She is very bright but in a completely different way. She doesn't talk much but understands pretty much everything I say. She has only sat through a couple books in her life (when I read really quick or really overly engage her). We try every day, but it's tough. I read as she walks away sometimes.

Your DD may have initially taking interest in it because of her siblings, but if it wasn't interesting to her she wouldn't keep doing it. my DD watches DS read books...but still isn't interested....(although she loves to carry them, chew on them, and as of today...rip pages out of them). Fun times, LOL

Thanks for the responses. We've lived in many parts of the country and have just had a more pleasant experience in more liberal towns so that's what we are looking for. We are very moderate liberal and not political...more of a live and let live mentality. We live now in a very conservative part of NC outside of Charlotte and just find it to be not our style.
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silvester
"http://www.alcoholaddiction.org/wyoming"

Thanks for the responses. We've lived in many parts of the country and have just had a more pleasant experience in more liberal towns so that's what we are looking for. We are very moderate liberal and not political...more of a live and let live mentality. We live now in a very conservative part of NC outside of Charlotte and just find it to be not our style.
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silvester
Wyoming Alcohol Addiction Treatment

I see you are having concerns about the flashcards/appropriate materials for a 2-year-old. Since DS4 is my first, I had no ideas what was appropriate, and I just got things I thought he'd like.
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silvester
Wyoming Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Anyhow, I am sharing this to let you now it absolutely can happen. I also have a DD who is almost 15 mo, she has no interest in books at all...or letters or numbers. She is very bright but in a completely different way.
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silvester
Wyoming Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Your daughter sounds a lot like mine! Mine will be 3 in December and she's been doing some early reading for... gosh... six months or so now? I have struggled with ALL the same issues about what to do with her. SHe's my oldest so she doens't have older siblings to be jealous of but she knows anyway that there is stuff out there to learn and BY GOLLY she wants to KNOW IT! So i've been working on how to stimulate her and keep her enthusiasm going without overwhelming her or burning her out! It's a challange.

My advice would be to foster and go for whatever she's excited about. Workbooks, copying letters, whatever. and just understand that kids have "learning spurts" and plateaus and sometimes she'll be blasting through some words and loving it and other times she'll just stay at the same level for a while and focus more on play... and all of that is okay. That's all that has kept my sanity!

I use the target workbooks too. She LOVEs to do subtraction. Since she can't physically draw numbers yet and is still memorizing them (she did letters only for a long time and I kinda forgot to teach her her numbers :-S) I mostly just read the questions to her and let her answer. She loves that too. and a lot of times I let her hand hold the pencil with me and we draw the answer and then the page gets a sticker. SHe feels like she accomplishing something like a big kid.

I ALWAYS try to say that we're all done when she still wants to do more. I let her spend a decent amount of time on letters and reading short words and then when I think she's still really liking it but will probably get sick of it in about 5 minutes we quit and do math (simple naming numbers and addition and subtraction) and this she really loves so maybe I make her quit too soon but I usually tell her it's time to be done when she's probably good to go for like 10 more minutes. That way she's eager next time and never "tired of it" or ready to be done! I hope that helps. It's kinda an experiment. :-)