Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Officially Reading OR DD is playing games!

I have a question and posted under the reading topic but I think it got lost so I figured I would post it in a new thread.

My 27 month DD has been reading site words since before she was 2. 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 on Thanksgiving 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 out each word than telling us the word. She did it with each space so my mom was sure it was reading, so I took the puzzle pieces away 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 close to photographic, b/c she will come up with things that she shouldn't remember from before she was 16 months old.

So Friday, we went to a Mexican restaurant b/c I have had my share of turkey. 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. She learns on her own terms so techniques such as this is really hard to get her to cooperate.

I am just not convinced she is truly reading yet.

Try foam letters in the bathtub or magnetic letters on the fridge. Make simple words like CAT, DOG, PIG, etc.

We have magnetic letters on the fridge and simple words are what I call site words she knows those but when I try to line up more complicated words she just does not want to play. She is so frustrating.

I think of sight words as the ones that you can't sound out like "the", "you", etc.

Maybe if you change the game around. She makes a "word" and you sound it out--with hilarious results

And I see site words as words that are memorized like CAT which was her first word. I had been reading MousePaint to her and the cat bowl has C A T on it. So she was driving me crazy while I was visiting with my friend so I grabbed her doodlepad and was writing letters on it and wrote CAT which she informed me "that spells CAT" She didn't sound it out just recognized it so it was a site word in my opinion.

But maybe reversing the game might help. I will try it. Thanks Cathy.

I also let her type in MSWord sometimes she types words for me but here lately it has been about exploring the keyboard and watching the menu keys come up. The game was she would ask to push a specific key but she had to tell me what sound it made before pushing the key. But now the rules have diminished and she takes advantage of typing all over the place. And if I try to type and have her tell me well she doesn't want anything to do with it. (Deep sighs)

Another game is to put out the letters ___AT (or something similar)

and then have her fill in the blank with different letters to make

bat
cat
fat
hat
mat
pat
rat
sat
vat

I have played that game with her in the past but not recently so I will try it again. She was pretty good with it if I remember right. She would know cat and get fat, hat, bat but again bored with it moving on, so I will definitely try it again.

It sounds to me like your DD is definitely in the beginning to read phase. You may have a "sneak" reader, like I have. Around the same age as your DD, my DS was asking what every sign he saw said. Then he lived for road construction, because he loved to read the signs. After sign phase, he kept quiet about the words he knew. I knew he knew many, many words, because if I read something incorrectly, he would point it out. Or he would read a long sign when out and about. I remember saying many times "I don't know where he learned that word - it's not in any of his books." (My DS4 still doesn't like to read to us, but he's warming to doing every other page every once in a while.) From reading signs at 2.5, he could do easy readers just before 3. Between just before 4 and now (4 yrs 10 mos), his reading ability really took off - from Frog and Toad early chapter books to Harry Potter.

I think when DS was late 2, he got his first educational software (prek-k clifford). I think the computer games really helped DS's reading. (I often joke that DS learned how to read so well so he could play internet tower defense games.)

As for sight words, if you google dolch sight words, you can get free lists of them on the internet. Here's what dolchsightwords.org says about whether they can be sounded out or not:

Try the free lessons at www.headsprout.com She may not have the coordination to work the mouse, but when my dd9 was that age, she would sit on my desk and point to the answer and I would click. She loved the program and I did end up purchasing the entire thing, but she got bored with it at about lesson 20. At that point, she had "cracked the reading code" and took off faster than the program would allow.

I also did it with dd7 at that age. She also had the same result but made it through the entire program (more so she could watch the in between antics I think.) She also has visual/perceptual issues so I think it was really a great training opportunity for her as well.

I loved helping my kids learn to read!! (I wish I had the same enthusiasm for math!! lol)

Pbskids.org has loads of fun games too. Looks like Between the Lions, clifford, superwhy, dragontales, and wordworld all have beginner reader games.

I have a good mouse suggestion that I disovered by chance. I have wrist issues, so i have a stationary mouse with a trackball, so you just have to move the ball, and the mouse stays put. This was much easier for my DS to learn on than the regular mouse, which he would get frustrated from when it strayed further and further from the mouse pad. I have this one, but there are others. microsoft explorer trackball mouse