How did you learn to read?

[thejester]

I remember memorizing a book and then reciting it much to my parents amazement, and that was how I started reading...I think I was 4 or 5 at the time. My family's extremely literate so I soon got quite the appetite - I had to be given books from Grade 4 when I was in Grade 2 for my readers, was reading Citizen Soldier in Grade 5; but it was always more a question of appetite then skill, I remember trying to read Master and Commander in Year 7 was a disaster.

You know what I hate? Idiots who can't read being asked to read in university- it's like someone scratching a blackboard to my ears. You know, they're so stupid they can't tell how to end the sentence, so they'll finish off where there's a period as if there's a question mark at the end, or vice versa?

I remember in Year 10 we had to do book reports, I did The Scar by China Mieville - and two other guys did Aussie Bites books and one a Goosebumps. Seriously, I nearly screamed.

[Chardok]

Well, I've read as long as I can remember. To hear my mom tell it, I was taught the alphabet and letter recognition, then phonics. She says that I woke up one day, and somehow everything she taught me seemed to fall into place because I just began reading everything. My Mom's best friend says that one day, she was driving me to daycare when I pointed at a sign that was an Ad for HBO or something, and asked her if she wanted me to read it. She says that she wasn't really paying attention to me when she told me "Sure, go ahead." and when I read perfectly whatever the sign was, she nearly spit out her coffee. I was two at the time.

I feel I should restress, that these are all recountings of stories told to me of times that I do not remember, and time tends to fog memories; I'm told I was two years old when I was reading proficiently (I suppose I must believe it since I do not remember a time when I could not read everything I looked at..I may not have understood context or definition, but I can always read the word... like I can remember reading ingredients off the back of hairspray bottles and the like while sitting on the toilet in kindergarten...for some reason I read the word "Incinerate" as "Incarcerate" until I was about 7 or 8 ) and I can say that I have never had a problem reading in my whole life.


You know how something just seems to...click...for some people?

Reading's my thing.

[Alferd Packer]

I must've taught myself, because I definitely remember being able to read by kindergarten. Beyond that, I couldn't hazard a guess when. Maybe in preschool.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I learned how the read in preschool with 5 years.
However I only read comics(mostly Asterix) outside of school in my free time until I was seven years old.
There was a sience fiction book with a cool cover at the house of my uncle and I picked it up and started reading it. That's when I started to love books.

[Mr. T]

I'm not completely sure. I was sometimes read to as a kid, I'd assume I learned mostly in school. I also had a relatively advanced vocabulary and reading level compared to my peers (not a brag, just fact ).

[2000AD]

Um... school is the best answer i can give. Probably learned the basics in Nursery and infant school. By the time i hit high school i was more adavanced than most of the other kids, I was reading stuff like LotR and Jurrassic Park when i was around 13-14.

I guess i got the boost because we didn't have SKy TV or a proper video gaming system (we had an Amiga 500 though) so i had free time to kill.

[Col. Crackpot]

My mother's degree in Early Childhood Education made for an interesting childhood. There were plenty of books to read: sesame street, little golden books and even science books. My wife's degree is in the same field so our children will be well prepared for school.

[Faqa]

I can't ever really remember myself not reading. I must have not been at some point, but, let's face it - two literary parents and being read to all the time means it was probably not for very long.

I, BTW, have met people who proudly state they have not read a non-school-required book in years. Years. Is the eugenics program ready yet?

[Kuja]

I started reading those simple 2-word per page books most kids get when they're 2 or 3, then moved up to Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go! which I read over and over until the binding fell apart. By the time I hit 1st grade I was reading pretty damn good.

[Simplicius]

I started reading those simple 2-word per page books most kids get when they're 2 or 3, then moved up to Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go! which I read over and over until the binding fell apart.

Did anyone else think it was awesome that Cars and Trucks featured an amphibious assault scene? I definitely loved those two pages.

[LadyTevar]

I can't recall how I learned, it was just something that I'd always done. I think it helped that Dad would set me on his lap and read the comicspage to me.

He did the same with my little brother, who was sick a lot when he was young. He was in the hospital so much the nurses knew him by name, and he them. There is a family story about the doctors carrying Dean around the hospital and the 3yr old reading the words on the doors, like X-Ray and Emergency.

[Ford Prefect]

Dr. Suess possessed me and caused me to learn to read through a mysterious process known only as "Listen closely when Mummy reads to you".

[SAMAS]

The only reason I know this is because my parents have told me.

I taught myself. I apparently never liked being read to, so I somehow figured it out on my own over time. I apparently had a decent amount of skill in reading by the time I reached kindergarten.

Same here.

[Lord Revan]

I don't know how, but I was one of the first in my class to learn how to read (it was so long ago that can really remember any details).

[ImpishAngel]

I learned when I was about 3 or 4....
repition...lots and lots of repition.

I learned to say my ABC's backwards before i could read...

[jegs2]

My father was a teacher, who taught me to read phonetically. I distinctly remember struggling with the word, "know." I pronounced it over and over again as "kanow" with the "k" at the front. It was a tough lesson to learn that some words were not pronounced as they appeared, and some letters were altogether silent.

[The_Nice_Guy]

There are children who manage to learn on their own. For many, the environment counted for a lot. I would hazard a guess that most of you, except for Edi, grew up in english speaking environments; I did not.

My parents, being chinese speakers, did not speak a single word of english, yet I learnt the language through watching Sesame Street and reading. I have no idea how I learnt phonics, but I think Sesame Street had something to do with it.

My first week in school, my teacher complained to my mum about her coaching me in english(I was reading the words out before my teacher did), but I actually learnt it all on my own. I remember vaguely the "Mr Men" series, where there was Mr Fat, Mr Happy, etc. It was a great time to be a learner.

When I got to primary two, I started reading whatever my sister(3 yrs older) was reading. I somehow managed to pick it up all on my own. And then I got interested in science, and that sealed my fate.

Chinese was another matter. I was, by most standards, a fluent speaker, yet an atrocious reader and writer of the language, because I simply could not memorise the pictograms well enough. It didn't help that my dad taught chinese; my second major was actually in the english language!

TWG

[Ryushikaze]

I learned to read before kingergarden- and I was rather proud of the fact that I learned beforehand- and I recall the time I actually made that last jump between illiterate and literate. I wasin the car, and I realized that I had just been making up a story (twas a collection of Garfield comics I was looking at) and that it was not what I was actually reading. I recall mentioning it to my mother and having her mention something like 'really now?' and needing to prove it thereafter.

Of course, after that, the books of the house became my personal domain. My mother had to make sure to tell me to go to sleep and not just to bed, so that I wouldn't stay up all night and read books (which I got in trouble for a couple of times) and I was often reading things way above my level (Including at age six a book on human reproduction which led to an amusing incident since I read it to my little brother (age 3 at the time) and the girl down the street as well).

So, I'd suggest that making sure your kid learns before school is a good idea.

[Surlethe]

I'm fairly certain I learned to read at four or five; I read Arnold Lobel(?)'s Frog and Toad books, and accelerated from there, to reading the Chronicles of Narnia before first grade. The rest is history.

[Glocksman]

My mother and older sister taught me how to read before I entered kindergarten.
The problem I had was a speech issue where I kept saying 'free' instead of 'three'.
Speech therapy in the 2nd grade fixed that problem.

As an interesting aside, I learned to tell time by the position of the clock hands when Superfriends came on Saturday mornings back in the early 70's.