Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums "I'm too tiny to read"

Our daughter is now 26 months old (wow, when did that happen?!). She tells me a couple of times a day that she is "too tiny to read these words". She has asked me to teach her to read and she is obviously wanting to, but she won't try sounding out the words. She knows about 50 words by sight and she knows all of her letters and the sounds they make. If I ask her what letter "dog" starts with, she will tell me "d"...but she does not understand how to start sounding out words. She is watches me demonstrate sounding out the words, but she does not want to try at all. Instead, it almost gives up and says "Mama, you read it to me."

Are there any tricks that will help me teach her? I really think she would be happy if she could sit down with a book and read on her own. As it is, she is great at memorizing them, but she knows she s not truly reading.

Thanks for any ideas. Happy New Year!

Well, sight words count as reading, too ... do you sound out every word you read? I certainly don't! Try telling her that you've memorized many words, and that's how you read so quickly, and see what she says.

DS6 was a big sight reader to start and had a *huge* sight word vocabulary. I didn't hear him sound out a word until he was definitely past 4 and he started reading real books around 3yo. So sounding out doesn't necessarily = reading!

We made ds a little "sight word" book when he was starting to read to build his confidence; he loved it. It had words like Mama, Daddy, stop, exit, etc ... and then we added phrases of familiar things, like "orange coat" and "green car". It was great for him to see that he could recognise, and thus read, real words.

Hi,

My DS4 started reading around the same age as your DD and he is the same. He still does not sound out words, much to his teachers frustration. I was taught to read by sight words - there was no phonics at all, so I don't think that there is a best way of doing it.
Is your DD visual? Memorizing is probably her way. DS had books memorized and then then suddenly he realised that where ever he saw the letters c-o-o-k together it always meant cook and then blam! reading.
I gave up trying to get DS to sound out words...it was frustrating to him. Now i only make him sound out the words that he knows but is to lazy to read properly...the most i make him do is 1 or 2 words a page, i tell him the rest because he just remembers it forever.

I second the making her some books that she can read. My DS still loves this though they are getting harder for me to write!

I love the idea of making books she can read. I also encourage you to sit at the computer and have her dictate to you what the books should say.

In my son's Kindergarden class, one of their methods of teaching kids to read was to take a familiar book with repetitive words, and change the words themselves a little bit.

Of course she may not really have the 'visual maturity' to actually read a whole paragraph. It's is frustrating in general to have part of your mind read to do a skill and perhaps other parts of your development not ready. We call is 'Asynchrounous Development' (spelling uncertian) and it's a pain.

So, at this age, try to encourage her as she seems to want, figure out how to help her deal with frustration, use humor whenever possible, but most importantly 'keep the joy' in whatever activities you can.

There is a Suess book called 'I can read with my eye's shut.' Your family might get a chuckle out of that. You can encourage her to write 'tiny' books for 'tiny' kids.

Also - read 'Many Moons' by James Thurber. Even though they are 'our children' there is a limit to how much one can 'get inside another person's mind and understand everything about them' so after you read it, ask her what she thinks 'reading' and 'tiny' mean.

Start planning financially for her school years. You may not end up homeschooling her, but your do want to be in a position to use all of possible ways of schooling if you can. I wish there was a book I could refer you to called: 'financial planning for parents of gifted toddlers' (LOL)

Best Wishes,
Grinity

One trick that might work is to purchase 2 sets of inexpensive magnetic letters (98 cents at WalMart). Use a cookie sheet and encourage her to make and sound out words. You can replace a letter and show her how easy it is to change "pan" to "man" to "fan" etc. I would start with 2 letter words/sounds unless she is already beyond it... (an, it, ot, etc). Also, check out the easy readers and BOB books at your library. Sometimes, the picture books/easy readers with words and a picture thrown in work nicely (I can't remember what they are called; there is a specific term for it; one of these types of books is called The Big Snowball). That way, she can "read" the picture embedded in the middle of text. HTH & Good luck!

Hi - Our DS4, very soon to be 5, has never wanted to sound out words. I am pretty sure he just memorized words from being read to. For his first bday, he got a leapfrog magnetic fridge letter thing, that he pushed incessently, so he was familiar with all the "b says buh" stuff, but when we tried to sound out words with him, he'd have none of it. Now, when he's reading something unfamiliar, I can cover up parts of the word until he recognizes that, then he can figure out the rest. So it's more like adding words together than phonics. I figure if he needs to know phonics at some point in school, we'll tackle it then.

So I'm in the camp that says even if you don't know phonics, you can still be a reader.

Me, too. I was nodding right along with Mia when I read her "Do you sound out every word that you come across?"

I think the best readers don't read phonetically except on rare occasions. I'm an EXTREMELY fast and accurate reader, and I tend to read whole lines at one time. The idea of reading letter-by-letter sounds like torture to me!

I suspect many GT kids are like this. I'd bet it's part of that "seeing the whole before the parts" thing that lots of visual learners have. And while it is important to understand phonics eventually, I don't think it's the only (or even best) way to learn for all kids. I know it wasn't for me!

You might try the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Engelmann. I can't remember the theory behind it but we used it for my then 3 1/2 year old because he wanted to read but couldn't quite get there by himself. He'd be in tears because he wanted to read so badly. He got it within about the first 1/4 of the book and wanted to do 4-5 lessons a day. Very easy to use - about 15 minutes once a day. Seems like there was a writing part as well but we didn't do it. Yours might be too young, I'm not sure. I do like that it includes all the letters in a word (unlike the phonics programs I've seen) but has the ones you actually hear in a different size print. Might be worth a look.

I love this idea!

These are called rebus books... I knew it would finally come to me.
ITA with Kriston. We didn't waste time on phonics. Both kids read one day when they were around 4 yrs of age and quickly progressed to reading chapter books, etc. I am still amazed at whatever decoding process "clicked" in their brains and enabled them to read. I know 4 yo is "late" for this board but the point is that they were fluent, confident readers without any guidance or coaching on my part. That said, your child is doing great and it is terrific that you are seeking ways to enhance her skill base. I also love the make your book idea and wish I'd thought of it when they were younger. Happy Holidays!