When and how did you learn to read?

faithcecilia

I have been pondering this all day after a conversation this morning and just wondered how other people learnt.

I cannot remember learning to read, and I cannot remember not being able to read. According to my parents, I could read music (full scores) a just turned 2, and was reading 'Peter and Jane' books at just turned 3. I had read the entire school syllabus of reading books by age 6 and was working through my parents books. My dad and his 2 sisters had been very similar.

This mornings conversation was about phonetics and learning to read that way. To me it seems extremely confusing and just 'strange' to not give letters their names, and I cannot get my head around breaking a 1 syllabl word into 3 sounds!!

Has anyone (parent/teacher maybe) had similar problems when trying to help a child learn to read with the phonetics system?

Thanks

andrealm

I can't remember learning to read either but I know we used letter names and not phonics. Now, they don't use the letter names at all, just the sounds. Although dd knew the letter names before she started school as she had an alphabet jigsaw, but it doesn't seem to have confused her. They learn rhymes that teach all the different letter sounds and she's just starting to try to put them together.

I do remember the first reading book we had at school, it had the word "look" on every page.

meritaten

I dont remember learning to read either - I could read before I went to school. and I too had read every book in the Primary school and my teacher had to go to the Junior school to get my reading books - and that was in my first year! maths however I sucked at! just didnt get it! apparently my scores for English were high enough to get me into grammar school but my arithmetic was so abysmal they thought I was !!!!!!! (I am number dyslexic). I must have learned to read by my mum reading to me and pointing to the words - but I dont remember this.
my grandaughters finished summer term last year way behind in class in reading - so I bought a couple of workbooks for their age and did an alphabet chart - the one was clearly dyslexic and the other confused because she couldnt relate the names of the letters to the way they sounded on the word.
at their xmas parents evening the teacher was amazed at how both girls had performed - my son told them it was down to his mum working with the girls over the summer holiday, and that in his view after two years the teachers hadnt identified the problems which his mum had done in a couple of hours, and worked with the girls for two hours a week over 4 weeks and overcame them. and now one of the girls is falling behind again! sigh...............I see more tutoring on the horizon!

KiKi

I don't remember learning to read, but my parents say (very proudly) that I taught myself when I was 2, by using books that I knew the words to by heart, and learning what they looked like on the page. They still (30 years later) have a tape recording of me reading aloud to myself for the first time! As it turns out, I was always ahead with reading, studied English Lit at uni - and am now a writer. So my parents are very sure - and tell me regularly - that they can take all the credit for any academic or career success I have.

We used phonics at school, I do remember that. I had a long, thin phonics book where we had to write down sounds and letters.

I also remember watching the "Look & Read" series at school in the mid-80s. "SMagic E" and "Dog Detective is catching T H, what a wonderful THing" songs spring to mind!!

KiKi

faithcecilia

meritaten wrote: »

I dont remember learning to read either - I could read before I went to school. and I too had read every book in the Primary school and my teacher had to go to the Junior school to get my reading books - and that was in my first year! maths however I sucked at! just didnt get it! apparently my scores for English were high enough to get me into grammar school but my arithmetic was so abysmal they thought I was !!!!!!! (I am number dyslexic). I must have learned to read by my mum reading to me and pointing to the words - but I dont remember this.
my grandaughters finished summer term last year way behind in class in reading - so I bought a couple of workbooks for their age and did an alphabet chart - the one was clearly dyslexic and the other confused because she couldnt relate the names of the letters to the way they sounded on the word.
at their xmas parents evening the teacher was amazed at how both girls had performed - my son told them it was down to his mum working with the girls over the summer holiday, and that in his view after two years the teachers hadnt identified the problems which his mum had done in a couple of hours, and worked with the girls for two hours a week over 4 weeks and overcame them. and now one of the girls is falling behind again! sigh...............I see more tutoring on the horizon!

Well done for helping your grandchildren, they must feel so much more confident. Lets hope the school doesn't let them slip too far again...

faithcecilia

Ah Kiki, you're right of course, its phonics not phonetics - see, even the name confuses me:o

Sublime_2

I read from a very young age. Was a good reader even before starting school, and this was before all this phonetics stuff. The love of the written word has stayed with me.

meritaten

amazing how this thread has attracted early readers! are you all like me and read at LEAST ten books a week?

milliebear00001

A teacher's perspective...

Don't be fooled by the word 'phonics' - this is simply how children have always learned (and been taught) to read.

It rests on the principle (as I'm sure you know) that to 'decode' a word, you need to break it into the sounds the letters make - that's largely it! So, cuh, ah, tuh means cat. C, A, T (said as the letter name) means !!!!!! all to a child learning to read, which is why the sounds are more important than the names.

I was taught to read phonetically, as were/are most of the country's children throughout history. There was a brief 'blip' in the 70s/80s when it was thought that learning to 'sight' read (similar to the 'flashcards' beloved of some parents) was a better option. My younger brother was taught using this single method, and failed to learn to read reliably until he was about 10 after much (phonetic) intervention.

Signt reading is a red-herring and a spectacular, historically documented failure. Early reading (decoding) children have just picked up the 'code' of letters much earlier than most. No mystery, just a great memory and possibly a 'different' brain function. Nobody learns to read new words properly without knowing how to decode sounds by learning the rules of the letter code.

Sublime_2

meritaten wrote: »

amazing how this thread has attracted early readers! are you all like me and read at LEAST ten books a week?

No, because I'm stuck on this forum a lot nowadays. :rotfl:

nuttybabe

i cant remember learning to read. i know i read the peter and jane books and i was always better at reading than my older sister. and i remember reading book all the time!! My eldest is 6 and he has done the phonics learning at school. He couldnt read before he went but he could memorise his favourite bedtime stories.

Anyway, the first few months of him learning to read he just didnt seem to get it then overnight it just clicked. by the end of reception he was well into year 1 books. now he is in year 1 he can read pretty much everything!!! His teacher keeps putting him on higher books which he reads easily!