Reading 'n' writing and...

David, I think you mentioned you taught/teach your kids to write/read. I was a bit flabbergasted, but now it seems inappropriately so as my husband expects Ophelia to be able to read before she enters elementary school. This was also expected of him. By the time he was five, he would apparently sit on his father's lap and try to read words from the newspaper. WTF. (Then again I taught myself English by the time I was nine/ten so there. hah On my own and from - gasp- TELLY. heheh).

So here's my question: how do you go about doing this? Not that I don't know how, I do know how I will go about it, but I am just curious how you encourage your kids (if you do, that is). Ophelia has expressed a desire to learn. Her teacher was perplexed and kind of disapproved when I put our plan forward.

This was not something we set out to do at all. Ben is super-into reading and writing. He has been into every form of letters (refrigerator magnets, Word Wold games, etc.) since we can remember. My theory (that may not be totally crackpot) is that his brain is different due to the (now-removed) tumor that he had. Owen (who is his identical twin) doesn't show nearly the same level of interest. We didn't discourage Ben's obsession, but we definitely did not try and make it happen.

OTOH, both my wife and I were early readers. I was reading a word here and there by the time I was 5, and so was my wife. But I imagine Ben will be WAY ahead of that by then, since he is already at that point, and he is only 2 and a half. It's almost worrying, except that his doctors and neurologists don't seem the least bit concerned, so I guess some kids are just like this.

As for what we do for Ben... We read to him a lot. We got some of those Word World toys (the ones with the cards or magnets that teach kids simple words). They can be very irritating, but he LOVES them. We have played the Word World TV show for him, but he doesn't really enjoy it.

On the encouragement side, he definitely has learned that he gets positive attention from grown-ups when he spells stuff, so the whole behavior has sort-of snowballed. I'm not sure how much else you can do to get her into reading.

Why would it be worrying that a kid started reading early? Isn't that a good thing? I wouldn't dispute that some kids need longer than others, but shouldn't early (beginnings of) reading be encouraged?

i think there's some evidence that formal reading lessons for kids as young as 4, as proposed in the uk, are a bad idea and that countries where they start at 6 or 7 probably have the right idea, the risk being that kids who aren't ready for it react badly to the pressure and start to see themselves as "bad at reading". (can't find an academic ref at the moment but: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7107798.stm)

otoh quite a few kids seem to learn to read at home without their parents even trying very much, by just following along as they're read to or whatever. i don't think anyone believes there's a problem with that.

There is a school of thought that teaching kids to read/write too early could actually slow their development, IIRC in some Scandinavian countries they don't teach reading til 6 or 7 and they have much higher rates of adult literacy. (Not saying that I believe this myself - I could read at two and it hasn't done me too much harm.)

I do know that a problem can be when parents teach pre-schoolers letters in the 'wrong' way, eg in the UK schools teach reading through phonics, so if a parent has taught them the letter 'names' instead (Ay, Bee, Cee etc) then they will have to 'unlearn' that when they start school.

Howie can recognise most letters of the alphabet and spell a couple of basic words (cat, dog etc) but we haven't tried to teach him the alphabet in order as it just sounds odd if you try to recite it using the phonic sounds!

Like Ben, Ava has always been interested in letters, words, etc. She's chooses to watch stuff like the Leapfrog/Sesame Street/Electric Company DVDs rather than us trying to foist edutainment on her and we've always read to her.

Her reading seemed to be a feat of memory at first - around 2 years 9 months she'd startle us by "reading" words off signs, buses, shop fronts, etc. I guess she was just remembering the shape of certain short words. If you showed her an unfamiliar word she couldn't even guess at how it sounded. By about three and a half though, she could do the phonetic piecing together thing.

I guess it's genetic though - I could read at two and a half but, like her Dad, she's a bit lazy and not at all keen to show off that she can read (it took months for anyone to notice at nursery school).

I don't know if Tallulah will be the same. Due to their sleeping arrangements, it's kinda difficult to do the same one-on-one bedtime reading with Lulu that I did every night with Ava from just past her 2nd birthday onwards (opposite sides of the room - there'd be ructions!), but I don't know how much influence that had anyway. Lulu is showing encouraging signs though - she knows her letters and recognises words like "home".

But, y'know, no matter how far ahead I seemed of my peers at the start of primary school in this one area, it's not like I was one of the ones who went to Oxbridge or published a novel or became a journalist. I'm not sure it means that much in the long run - just another skill kids acquire at different rates.

Meg: yeah, I am a bit worried about the unlearning the alphabet, relearning it phonically thing, but Ava's school have been very reassuring about that. I think I went through the same thing - being very upset as a five-year-old when suddenly confronted with the international teaching alphabet. WTF?!

In the Steiner education system (of which I am a partial product) they definitely wait until 6 or 7 before focusing on reading and writing. I would say that in general it is very successful (concentrating first on creative play, social and physical development etc) except that I learned to read at home when I was 3 or 4 so found it incredibly frustrating joining a Steiner school aged 9 and being way ahead. Kids do just develop at different rates though so this sort of thing is inevitable wherever I guess.

I do sort of see that early reading isn't automatically a good thing; how much of what Ava reads can she understand? Is it really painting a picture for her in her imagination or are they just sounds? Perhaps it's better to wait until the rest of the brain catches up in terms of comprehension? We can't stop her though, she's a readin' machine.

Every thread here should start with an answer of "Don't worry about it"...

Amber had one hell of a vocabulary and a way of expressing herself way beyond her years, to the extent that I did say to her "I still find it almost surprising that you can talk so well and yet can't read. But that's not to say you should do by now"

Some time later, she was still struggling with short words, spelling them out, when I said "Look, just remember what this word looks like, then you'll always be able to read it". After that, she was away.

Now she's 11, and reads like a demon.

Why would it be worrying that a kid started reading early?

By pushing a child (or not teaching the child properly), you can actually cause the child to become less confident and/or s/he could attach negative emotions to something. It's a nice thought to let a child blossom "naturally" (which is of course a bit rubbish cause we wouldn't be reading/posting to this board at all if we really did it that way haha).

David, I wasn't implying you pushed your kids to read! I was just surprised. Flabbergasted seems a bit negative in hindsight.

Ophelia's definitely very ambitious: she wants to read, write, count,... But I'm very afraid of pushing her beyond her own desire if you know what I mean. I guess I'll just ask if she'd like to do it and then just do it. She's been pointing at letters for a very long time. Language development is just amazing. They even said so at Kind&Gezin (the department that checks the children's development).

I guess I get this from my dad: I just want my kids to be happy. But I sense that in this I will not encourage my children to have academic success. I'm always banging on about happiness forgetting that you can be happy and go to uni. :-)

Oh yeah, I started reading/writing at 6 years old but lots of my classmates (in the posh school I went to) could already read 'n' write.

Our pediatrician told us that there are two ways that kids learn to read:

1. The "old" way through memorization of letters and words, etc.
2. The "new" way, using phonics.

He said that some kids do number 1 (which is what Ben is doing), and some do number 2, but that either way can work out fine. I don't think that if number 1 works, that those kids will have to "unlearn" anything. However, I guess if you try to force a kid to use one method when another one works better for them, it might be difficult for them...

with our 4-yr-old (who, as noted, has some kind of learning/cognitive issues, tho the exact nature is still murky), we're working on just spelling and word recognition. he can spell his name, CAT, MILK and BOOHBAH, and can recognize some other words. (my wife started labeling things in the apartment with little red and yellow cards: "door," "window," "refrigerator," etc.) it isn't so much that we think he's going to spontaneously start reading as that maybe it will serve as sort of a primer: the idea that letters make words, that the sounds of letters relate to the sounds of words, etc. he seems to get sort of the basics of this, which gives me some hope that he'll be able to make the leap to reading and writing maybe without a huge struggle, but who knows really. the computer is a big help, because the words that he knows, he can just type out. (i've yet to get him to try to write letters by hand.) he learned BOOHBAH so that he could navigate on his own to the boohbah website...

Howie, while playing with his magnetic letters the other day, called out: "I spelled bum!"

On closer inspection, he had actually spelled 'Pimp'.

hahaha

my brother and i could both read and write by the time we entered kindergarten (me 4, him 5). my mom taught us by writing in the sand at the beach.

also i remember getting one of those personalized birthday books (you know the 'katharine in birthdayland' type where they insert your name and the names of your friends into the story) when I turned 4 and throwing it repeatedly against the wall in anger while crying hysterically because there was a word in there I didnt understand. maybe you need that kind of A-type attitude.

Haha I distinctly remember being told by a teacher that if I came to a word I couldn't read I should mentally insert the word 'sugarplum' instead to avoid stalling completely. In retrospect this seems insane.

Ben actually read a whole Mercer Mayer book to us (word-for-word, minus a couple of hard ones that he needed help with) a few nights ago! Owen still remains bemused, and a little jealous by all the reading/writing

Wow!!!! I am just in awe of your son's skills. :-) My husband was apparently pretty good at reading as well but by the age of four I think. Owen's about three now, isn't he?

Ophelia can now recognize some but not all letters of the alphabet. The only problem is that she doesn't really identify them properly. She'll point to the O and say "That's Ophelia!"

OK, I guess this is getting into obnoxious territory, but check THIS out:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3498/3793446259_e9ea5b985d.jpg

Crazy stuff... I hope all this reading and writing doesn't have some sort of negative side-effects...

That's amazing!

The twins are more or less the same age as our Lulu (who is recognising a few words but certainly not reading and writing like her sis), so, yeah, that's prodigy-level stuff from little Owen! I can understand wanting to show him off!

Lulu, yesterday on one of those things - mad, intense scribble. "What is it?" "It's a wheel." OK...

(It's Ben that has this skill, but anyway...) Anyone know of a better version of that Magna-Doodle thing? The only things I've seen that are any cooler require a computer, and I'm not ready for him to start using computers (talk about a rat-hole)...

D'oh, sorry - I even checked upthread which twin it was and still got it wrong...