When and how did you learn to read?

Blackpool_Saver

I can remember being asked at 5 to read the Telegraph to family members because they didn't believe I could !!

barbiedoll

Apparently, I read early, as did my son. Possibly because my dad used to read me a bedtime story from a very early age and I can remember being around 3-4 yrs old and reading along with him to one of my books. He used to read a word "wrong" and I would correct him. Looking back now, I probably just memorised the words in the story book but I think that most children learn to read using both the phonics and the sight method.

We read stories to our son from very early on and he picked up reading skills very quickly. But then again, he also knew all of his colours, shapes, letters and numbers from 1-9 long before he started nursery school. I don't think that parents realise how quickly small children can be taught these things. My son knew his colours before he could actually say the words for them. And I only realised that he could do that because he went mad one day when he saw that I had bright red nail polish on. (It was the first time I had painted my nails since his birth!!) We went round the house picking out all of the red things and every day, we would do the same with a different colour. Reading is just a skill that most kids pick up as they go along, especially if they are encouraged to do so. As with numbers, some are better than others although it does seem that early reading leaves you with a life-long love of books. And yes, meritaten, 10 books is about right! (I spend a lot of time reading on the train to work:D)

lizziebabe

I was born and lived in Kenya unitl I was 12. I was reading from the age of 3, and was reading a newspaper at 4. My Aunt was a teacher and lived near us so I think she saw I wanted to learn and helped me.

When I started school I was in the Kindergarten for 1 day as they realised I could read and so I was put up a class. I had a lovely time at school there and am still in touch with some of my first schoolfriends

sarah*a

meritaten wrote: »

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

I can - I often take upwards of 30 books a month out of the library and OH and I have a library of over 3000 between us (expanding weekly )

barbiedoll wrote: »

Apparently, I read early, as did my son. Possibly because my dad used to read me a bedtime story from a very early age and I can remember being around 3-4 yrs old and reading along with him to one of my books. He used to read a word "wrong" and I would correct him. Looking back now, I probably just memorised the words in the story book but I think that most children learn to read using both the phonics and the sight method.

My mum often tells a story of me at approx 24 months sat in the corner of the library merrily reading a story to the other kids word for word and the amazement of the other parents She didn't have the heart to tell them it was mostly memorised and I just knew words were matched with which picture

I don't remember learning to read but I was way ahead of my peers when I started school and skipped the first year of primary. Everyone caught upto me though within a year or so.

:cool:

onlyroz

When I was at school I remember having an orange folder full of words on little bits of card. I had to string the words together into sentences and then copy down the sentence. When we got better we were given a second blue folder full of letters. We could then start to assemble new words (that weren't in the orange folder). I think I also had flash cards to take home.

My son is 5, and in year one at school - he is learning to read with the phonic system, which seems to be more intuitive than the way I learned. They start by learning all the "sounds", starting with the more common ones like "eh", "a", "ssssss", "ih", "tuh", "buh" etc. Then they start to put the sounds together into words, like "cuh" "a" "tuh".

Vaila

I remember the nurse coming round to do all those little tests like seeing if you could make tower blocks etc, when i was three

I started to read properly when I went to nursery which was at the age of three,but thats as far back as i can remember

Savvy_Sue

I remember being bored out of my skull by Janet and John books at school and the way we read them in class - each word given the same 'weight'. "Look Janet look! See the dog run!" "Yes John I can see the dog run!"

little bro sadly hit a fad at school for teaching phonetic spelling - Monday was written Mundae etc - and the 'real' spelling was introduced later. really helpful if you're dyslexic ...

DS2 taught himself to read from the cereal packets on the breakfast table, because I was too dozy to realise how desperate he was to learn.

bluenoseam

i don't remember learning to read, i know i learned before i went to school though, not quite War & Peace standard, but enough to get me by. That said it hasn't helped a damn bit now i'm 20+ years down the line & couldn't spell if my life depended on it!! A lot of it i believe comes through being spoken to as an adult as opposed to "baby language" - my parents never really spoke to us as kids any different than they did to the adults which in turn helped us develop language skills too, that being said it got me into more trouble than either of my two sisters as i learned quicker how to be a smart alec.

purplerose

I really have no idea when I learned to read but I know I could read before I went to school. I lived in America aged 3/4 and I know I watched a lot of Sesame Street and had lots of Sesame Street books that were all about learning letters and numbers so maybe that's where I learned lol. I've just always had loads of books around me growing up. I had finished all of the children and young adult section of my local library by the time I was 11 and was always being chased out of the adult horror section by the librarian who though such books would rot my mind!

brighthair

very early, age 2 or so. I never did early books, went straight to Enid Blyton! Read at about 800 words a min so get through a massive amount of books, and have always read this fast