Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums When do you consider your child a reader?

Thanks every one. Our DD just turned 4 a couple weeks ago. She has been sounding out signs and single words for a long time. The earliest I can think of was when she was 2 we took her to a life sized maze and when she would get to a dead end she would read the sign. They said things like turn around or go back.

Once at a friends house she read a childrens book I know she had never seen at 3. She can spell and sound out pretty much any words we give her even the ones with what she calls trick letters. She makes pictures and writes sentences on them. I have given her lists of words to read and she got them all over 100 words she gets them pretty quick too like a second or two per word.

I have asked her to read board books before and she just says no you read it. Then recently she asked for a magic tree house book at the library and she read a whole page of it on her own. Then she told me to read it because I was faster and she could see the pictures in her head better when I read. She understands the story and is retaining the information, I have read four this week, which is not enough for her. She will read a page or two when I get busy, but as soon as I come back she has no interest in reading it herself.

I think she can read but I don't know how much or how to encourage her to get to that next step of reading on her own. She is like a sponge and is constantly wanting me to feed her information. I have two other very small children so if she would read on her own it would be a whole new world. Any ideas?

DS's first sight words came around two and were signs. The first book he read was The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe just after turning 5. He could read road signs, cereal boxes, computer games and instructions, and all the "secret" notes to parents for years before that, but never wanted to sit still to read a book until 5. We certainly never did more than just read to him (while he was bouncing off the walls looking like he didn't care, even though he could recite his favorite passages to you the next day) and answer his constant question, "what does that say?".

I don't have an answer for when to consider your child a reader, but I just looked at some of my notes on DS4. When he was 2.5, he was big into signs of all kinds. He'd ask what they said once, then he knew them and would read them whenever he saw them. He loved road work because of all the signs!

He was a sneak reader, though. I knew he knew a lot of words, because I would catch him reading something occasionally, but he wouldn't read to us. He wanted to be read to, and still does. Just before his 4th birthday, he finally wanted to read to us. He read a kids science book "There's No Place Like Space" and Days with Frog and Toad, with no difficulty.

I worried about him not reading (and also fantasized about getting a little extra me time if he'd just start reading his own books!) So we started telling him he could have an extra bedtime book if he would read it to us. That worked for a bit, but now he just chooses short books for himself. He is now 4 3/4 yo, and still won't read to us, but in the past 6 months he has read pages of Harry Potter books, chapters of ramona books, and most recently pages of Time Warp Trio books. So he's come a long way in a short time. I've pretty much given up on the fantasy of extra me time, and i only have one kid. Good luck! Oh, I had another trick too, but that backfired. I read him a capt underpants book, and I hated it. I told him i'd get him some more, but they would be his to read because I wasn't going to read them. I forgot to mention this plan to DH, who ended up reading them to my little schemer...

I remember the magic tree house days - when DS was 3.5 we had to read one a day until the whole series was complete! ugh. I'm very glad I rediscovered the library, though. Without it, we would be in the poor(er)house with all the books we go through with DS! (i'm a recovering book-buying addict.)

Oh, and DS never really sounded out words. He's a memorizer. He's starting to learn to look at words in parts though, which helps him figure out bigger words he hasn't seen.

LOL, I get a kick out of TLTWATW as a first book! That's great!


My oldest dd was a stealth reader. She has perfectionist tendencies, and she doesn't like to show what she knows until she feels competent with it. So though I know she was reading individual words at age one, I never got a good handle on exactly when she started really reading. It was when she was two, but probably a mid to late two. I call this the Michigan J Frog syndrome. She'd read all the words on the computer screen to play Reader Rabbit kindergarten, but then my mother would ask her to read a BOB Book and she'd freeze like a deer int eh headlights. My mom was convinced that I was delusional, and said things like, "You know dear, it's ok if she isn't reading as early as her brothers..."

I believe that with this kind of child it's important to talk about the steps of learning, how everything gets easier with practice, and to let them see us struggle once in a while trying to master something new. This same dd wrote her name for the first time when she was 2.4, but was unhappy with the appearance of her letters (they were legible, though) so she refused to write letters again until she was three.

In some ways I have used the old saying, "learning to read" and "reading to learn" to point out when things really clicked for my DD7. She could spell and identify many 3 letter words at 2.5 but she wasn't reading like others on the board have described. She loved books and stories. At 4 she was still acquiring words in order to read a story smoothly. At 4.5 it all clicked and she could read anything. I define it as actually reading when the process of reading is no longer relevant to them. When it becomes this natural and they begin to accumulate information from what they read using books to satisfy their curosity.

I like Mamaandmore's defintion and think that would fit with us as well. The summer before Kindy my dd just could read. I didn't need to sit with her, she could read aloud with emphasis and appropriate breaks and she could read silently. I think the ability to read silently is what really defined it for us. That and she began to learn things on her own without any intervention from us.

Im in gratified's camp -- it took me a while to realize what was going on!

I consider ds6 was "a reader" at about 3.5yo, though he was reading before that -- that was the point where he could choose a picture book off the shelf at a bookstore and read it. He was a big sight reader and didn't bother with phonics-- he extrapolated phonics from his sight word knowledge rather than vice-versa, so he had a ton of sight words and new words almost automatically became sight words. This really speeded his reading and comprehension. He tested mid-second grade at 4.5yo, and mid-fifth grade at 5.5yo.

So I guess I consider a "reader" to be a child who can pick up a new book, read it fluently and understand what he's reading.

I have a question and since this topic is about reading I figured I would post it here. My 27 month DD has been reading site words for a while. She informs us what store we are going in by the signs and recognizes specific words. She also knows all here ABCs (upper and lower case) and the sounds they make. My inlaws came over yesterday for T-day and brought some simple puzzles that when you pick up the pieces there were words for each object. She was playing with the pieces and looking at the words and sounding it out then saying the word. She did it with each space so my mom was sure it was reading, so I took the puzzle and took away all the pieces and she did it again with just the words. I am not convinced she is reading but using her memory which she has what I call picture perfect.

So tonight we went to a Mexican restaurant b/c I have had my share of turkey and she had crayons and piece of paper. I wrote purple with the purple color and had her sound it out with my help. Then I took the pink color and wrote pink. She sounded it out on her own and said pink, but again she has a very logical brain and I figure she put it together and knew what I was doing. However, that is the first time I tried that game.

So my question is how do you really know if they are reading and what tips could you give me to figure it out. I have thought I should just get some I Can Read books and see how she does. I can't pick up any of her books around here b/c she has them memorized. I tried to write/type the words out and have her tell me, but she was not interested and blew me off. Maybe I should try this technique again, but she is not exactly the sit down type.

I am just not convinced she is truly reading yet.

My DD5 started out by knowing her ABC's by 12 months. We had a game we would play when it was bath time, I had sponge letters I would throw in the tub with her, she would ask "what this?" I started telling her the letters and to my amazement she was learning them, I could ask her to pick up any letter and she knew which one, so she knew them before she could say them.
(by the way I tried this with DD4 and she just chewed on them)

She was at the kitchen table one day and just mattter of fact like said "Mommy", Mommy begins with the letter "M" mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. She was 18 months. Shortly after that she started reading street signs, not just stop,right turn only, but the street names, this is also when she became a back-seat driver.Mommy are you going 45? Are we suppose to turn on Main St. we just past it. LOL

Before age two I used flash cards (OK shot me and didn't know your not suppose to use these) it took her about 2 times going through 320 words to learn them. Mainly because she had no problem sounding them out and once you told her what a word was, she doesn't forget.

At 2 1/2 I put a book in front of her and she read it. I told one of my sister in laws this and she said "oh they memorized at this age" My reply "65 pages?"

By 3 I could play board games with her (Sorry, Monopoly the pet shop version, and the allowance game) she could read what she needed to do add up her own dice ect...

Today she is 5 and can read pretty much anything as far as I can tell. She reads alot for pleasure (loves the princess stories) little princess is one of her favorites, she's read it twice:)

Anyway to answer the question I would say it was somewhere between 18 months to 2 years that I would consider her a reader. Because she could sound out the words and could do this with words she had not seen before.

My DD4 started reading sight word books at 3 1/2 but I still don't consider her a reader because she doesn't know the phonics yet, she's just starting to understand it, so I'm sure it will come when she's ready.