Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Reading question

Okay, so DD 2.5 has been asking to learn to read. She quickly learned all the sounds the letters make in a week. She already has been recognizing Capital and Lowercase letters.

So I was going to start teacing phonics since she desperatly wants to know what everything says and read books herself......however

I just got Dr. Ruf's book yesterday and read halfway through it. She says that phonics instruction can actually interfer with a gifted child learning to read.....so what should I do. Should I not and just see if in a year or two she picks it up on her own?

------- As far as I can tell after reading through the level of giftedness and the stories of the individual children, DD is no lower then a level 3....and she also fits fairly well in a level 4. ------

So aany advice would be helpful!

My son learned by being read to, once I saw an interest in the words I'd follow along my finger and he watched it closely. He also asked a lot of questions. There was a period where he'd interrupt me a lot every time he saw new punctuation then he stopped once he got it down.

i am no reading specialist, but my gut would be to see how she naturally tries to read. Does she find it natural to "sound things out" or to easily memorize whole words. I would try to see if she has a preferred style and go with that. If you go the "whole reading" approach, i'd try to find short poems and songs that you can copy and make into a book, then read them/sing them as she points to the words. She can also color them, illustrate, etc.
irene

Does she have any of the Leapfrog videos? That's how my son learned to read.

There is a book called "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons". It uses some phonics but also does alot of word association by using rhymes ie: cat, bat, fat, hat. I've had some success with it for 6-7 yo's that just don't get it. With a GT, it should be a piece of cake!

My daughter did a pretend reading when she started. I went right along with her calling it reading and enjoyed her imagination. She would make up a story to go along with the pictures. This is a way to have her challenge herself without pushing the reading. You could try it as an example to show her how it's done. I don't think every child will do this. It's a personality thing. My son didn't want anything to do with making up stories like this at the prereading stage. So I didn't push the story telling. I try to follow the childs lead.

I agree with Ruf on this one. I would not undertake any kind of lessons or systematic teaching with a child that young. Instead, you can explain that learning to read takes a long time and a lot of work, but you would be happy to answer any questions she has. If she asks you what a word is, you can tell her. If she asks why a word says something, you can explain what sound each letter makes. If she wants you to point at words as you read, you can do that. In other words, I'd let her be in charge of her own learning and just think of yourself as her assistant. Then she can learn in her own way and her own time.

Thanks everybody....so much to think about. I have the 100 easy lessons, and started it, but it didn't seem to hold her attention, I mean she got it, could do it, but hated sitting still for it, so we stopped after 7 lessons....I didn't want it to become something she didn't like. I run my finger under the words when we read and she constantly asks me what signs say as we drive.....and today she asked for us to take a walk to read signs so we walked through town for 40 mins pointing out every sign we saw and me reading them to her.

My mom just ordered hooked on phonics for her so I think we wil just kind of try it since she loves computer games and playing on the computer, if she likes it and sems to take to it then great if not then I wont push. She just wants to know so badly LOL.

I also think I will make a book of words for her that she likes and let her help me with it.

Thanks so much everyone!

My experience has been phonetics as much less confusing, but DCs and I all attended speech therapy before 2.5 and learned some phonetics...

I haven't read the book, do you have a sense for what the reasoning was on that?

Without any phonics I would think the mass of words to be memorized would seem overwhelming?

I think according to Ruf my DS2.4 would be a 3 or 4 also (not a 5 I'm guessing). Phonics didn't seem to turn him off in the least, he really likes to know that there are rules. If one can learn a few rules and read 100 words, rather than memorize 100 words, why not? He's learned the less than strictly phonetic common words by memory, but that was a little later.

We didnt' do formal teaching other than read starfall ad nauseum. But we did do, still do, a lot of fridge letter rearrangement (having multiple sets is nice). I think that counts as phonics, even if its a game and DS initiates. Sort of combining make believe with phonics -- making the rat sit on his hat, etc, then along comes P and pats him, etc.

Currently DS reads most phonetically simple words regardless of length, very short sentences, initiates reading signs and book covers, but prefers to have me read if there's a whole book involved.

The other day I finally had to tell him about silent Ps (pterosaur starts with a p and he had answered that for a dinosaur starting with T in our dinosaur game) and his eyes went so wide when I said I was not joking. I think he still doesn't quite believe me. English is such a crazy language.

Polly