When and how did you learn to read?

mrcow

meritaten wrote: »

I really thought that attitude was so out of date as to be consigned to the dark ages!!!!

I dont want to derail the thread but holding back brighter children so the others can catch up is not, I think, good teaching practice! Isnt that why they split them into little groups?

Any teacher worth their wage will ensure that doesn't happen.

If it does, they are not doing their job properly.

trufflebuggy

For those of you who can't remember when you learnt to read count yourselves lucky, as there are many dyslexics out there who can all too painfully remember how old they were.... and some are still struggling to master it in adulthood.

The vast majority of people will learn to read regardless of the reading scheme given to them, however if you want a dyslexic to learn to read you need to give them a phonics based (synthetic) scheme.

To those adding lots of 'uh' on to their 'k' and 't' sounds you're doing it wrong and if your children's teachers are teaching it like that then they're doing it wrong too!

Yes english is one of the most difficult to learn as a sound can be represented by a number of different spellings, but once this is learnt then it's not as difficult as it would first appear and all those 'exceptions' to the rule become clearer.

We've got something like 44 sounds in the english language represented by only 26 letters in our alphabet, which is why it is oh so important to learn the language phonically.

Once we become more efficient at reading then yes our brains will just know words etc..... but we certainly don't just know it from birth, it's not an innate human trait... it's something learnt and some of us are much better at it than others.

Similarly once the letter sounds are learnt and a child can read then yes the letter names are going to have to be learnt as no-one wants to goes through life sounding out their name and address and having to say which spelling of that sound you mean!!!

trufflebuggy

Just also wanted to add that phonics and writing something phonetically are two different things, which one or two people have managed to confuse in the thread.

32kickstart

I read at a very young age and can 'eat' books in a couple of hours. I no longer keep them but recycle to the charity shop as they were taking over the house! Also was as a primary teacher specialising in children who had fallen behind / struggling readers. My daughter is 5 and currently starting to learn to read, however she is non-verbal so its proving to be a big challenge. She's bright and can learn words by sight reading but alot of non-verbals become delayed as phonics is very hard when they can't say them. She has an electronic communication aid and laptop which she uses for programmes such as Starfall, and i'm getting her to write sentences that we dictate with magnetic words to test whether she knows them. Any other suggestions would be gratefully received!

meritaten

trufflebuggy - I was an early reader - mum says I could read by the time I was three (and didnt have any bedtime stories from the time I was barely toddling until I was nearly three as I was in hospital. when they took me home they started reading bedtime stories to me. my favourite was Daisy Ducks Birthday and mum thought I had it memorised - until I asked for a different book one night and then read it to HER! she thought that I was always there on the ward when the older kids were being taught to read by teachers and that I had learned along with them. but my god I struggled with numbers! all the way through school and then of course my first job had to be in retail! lmao - I was petrified - a saturday job in woolworths and my arithmetic was abysmal! I was given a little pad of paper and a pencil and told to add up the purchases and then ring the total into the till and make change. it took me a couple of hours to realise that I could add it up better in my head than on paper! then later I went into bar work - and if you can mentally add up a round of fifteen different drinks and get it right to the penny - you aint thick! that gave me the confidence to apply to college for a computer course when the kids had grown up - and that is where a tutor realised I had number dyslexia after watching me for ten minutes to find out why my 'basic' program didnt work! THANK YOU NEIL!
What he taught me has really helped me understand dyslexia a lot better - so I do understand why word dyslexia can affect people.............but it can be overcome!

trufflebuggy

kiskstart - I've read somewhere that it can be quiet hard, for hard of hearing and those children with poor speech to learn to read as they can't hear the sounds in words (both spoken to them and those they speak themselves) to be able to decode the words.

Is she having speech therapy?

wornoutmumoftwo

I learned to read at 4 when I started school (text book child me:))
My mum was an early reader and my son has hyperlexia which means he is able to 'just read'. He was reading fluently at 4 and is now 8 and reading three years+ ahead of himself at school. At home he reads higher level books.
At school he is encouraged to read at an appropiate level and not to wait for the rest of the class to catch up with him and gets extra help for being an advanced reader to encourage him.

Savvy_Sue

tiernsee wrote: »

I was reading before primary school but then when I started was taught ITA which was rather confusing and even more so when, at age of 7, I had to unlearn ITA and start again reading properly. Both of my children were reading by the time they started primary school, fortunately no ITA these days. My son reads when he has to but apart from Alex Rider books doesn't really enjoy it - my daughter reads everything and loves books, we try to get to the library every week and she collects their certificates and is looking forward to the new scheme when she turns 6.

Ah yes, that was the ridiculous system my dyslexic brother suffered under!

JC9297 wrote: »

I don't think many people will remember a time when they couldn't read unless they struggled with reading, it is a gradual process and some people improve very quickly whilst others take longer.

DH remembers struggling with reading, until one day he saw his mum sitting with the newspaper. "What are you doing Mum?" "I'm reading the paper, love." And then it dawned, you could read IN YOUR HEAD! you didn't have to read aloud! He's not stopped since.

Sorry have skipped a lot of intervening posts ...

meritaten

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Ah yes, that was the ridiculous system my dyslexic brother suffered under!

DH remembers struggling with reading, until one day he saw his mum sitting with the newspaper. "What are you doing Mum?" "I'm reading the paper, love." And then it dawned, you could read IN YOUR HEAD! you didn't have to read aloud! He's not stopped since.

Sorry have skipped a lot of intervening posts ...

just like it dawned on me...........numbers can be done IN YOUR HEAD! which means the darn things arent disappearing off pages, hiding or changing places with other numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just wish it hadnt taken me so long to realise it!

trufflebuggy

meritaten - Not sure why you singled me out, but I quite agree dyslexia can be overcome albeit with alot of hard work by the child and the parents.... as it still seems that our education system is very lacking when it comes to teaching all children how to read.

Many children don't have parents willing to spend the time teaching their children to read.... or god forbid spend money to get them privately tutored, which is why this country has a rising illiteracy.

In 5 months of hard work I have witnessed a childs reading ability leap by 1.5 years by following a well structured synthetic phonics scheme there is still along way to go but yes I would be the first to say that with the correct teaching dyslexia can be overcome.....

But until Britain starts teaching it's children properly to read then there are going to be large numbers of functionally illiterate people.