Can a young child really teach him/herself to read?

[Anonymous]

Without any instruction beyond teaching basic phonetics? My MIL is a “I don’t believe in teaching reading” type as I know a lot of DCUMers are. DH and his siblings were reading around six.

But my oldest knows phonetics, blends, a few sight words, and does all the “phonological awareness” list I could find on the Internet. Since school doesn’t start for him until September and it’s all playbased, I feel like I should keep going and start teaching him. He’s three-years-old.

[Anonymous]

A few kids do. It's not something that you can teach them, obviously.

If they know their upper case and lower case letters and the sounds of the letters, then I'd let it go for a while. In another year or two, consider working on handwriting and letter formation, to supplement what the school teachers or to teach it if the school doesn't.

[Anonymous]

I also think some parents are exaggerating. I had an early reader at barely 4. She knew all her letters and then just needed us to correct her as she started reading (because English sucks and doesn’t follow nice rules- like read, read, red, reed). So we helped her a bit. But not the same as sitting with my son every night and helping him learn phonics painfully.

[Anonymous]

I had zero instruction and taught myself to read before I was three. Sometimes it happens that way.

[Anonymous]

^PP above. My kid is an above-average reader at age six, but isn’t to that level. It’s just a weird outlier thing.

[Anonymous]

OP again. None of what we’ve done has been “painful”. It’s all been in the course of play.

He’s never asked me to teach him to read but is always eager to play word games and is very proud of himself when he recognizes a sight word.

[Anonymous]

I learned to read at age three from watching Sesame Street and Electric Company, and without any other formal or informal instruction. My kid learned to read at three without formal instruction. I wouldn't do formal instruction for a three-year-old, though -- if a kid is going to learn to read really early, it tends to happen without a ton of interference. Just keep reading to and with him, and keep it fun. If he's going to pick it up early, he will.

[Anonymous]

Mine really taught herself around 3. There was a videos at the time (Leap Frog) that was based on the alphabet. There was a song. I still remember it. The B says Buh, The B says Buh Every letter makes a sound the B says Buh. She also was very good at rhymes. We randomly had the book The Fat Cat Sat on a Mat home from the library. She just put it together and started reading it and slowly expanded. She also had a very good memory so once she learned a word she would remember it.

I do not think it was anything we did as her older sister was a late reader. I would only follow the interest of a 3 year old...not push flashcards or workbooks.

[Anonymous]

I didn't "teach" my DC to read, but did "play" a lot with letters and sounds (puzzles, songs, foam bath letters, a little alphabet train) when DC was 2, 3, 4. And we read books aloud to DC every night before bed and I would track the words with my finger as I read.
It was actually a surprise to me that DC was reading before I got to the "let's point to these words and sound them out" phase, nearly a year before entering kindergarten. But in hindsight it shouldn't have been a shock because all the building blocks were there and DC was exceedingly curious.
My other child was not interested in those "games" at all, so didn't start reading until middle of kindergarten. And we did not push it because we had read that making it a chore will only delay or make the child hate reading. At 9, DC #2 is an avid reader now.

[Anonymous]

Sort of. My oldest was at your son’s stage and we moved on to playing with CVC words with his magnetic letters (bat, cat, hat, sat) and then it just clicked for him at around three with the Bob books.

[Anonymous]

I never taught my child much past "You blend these sounds to make a word." He took over from there. He learned his letters and sounds early (by age 2). He was reading simple learn to read books around 3.5 yrs old.

[jsmith123]

Every time you teach something to a child, you deprive them of ability to figure it out for themselves.

The point isn't the knowledge itself. The point is the discovery of the knowledge.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to teach a three year old to read. If he knows everything you say he does, then you can teach him before he starts kindergarten and he'll pick it up very easily. At three, you let them do what they're doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without any instruction beyond teaching basic phonetics? My MIL is a “I don’t believe in teaching reading” type as I know a lot of DCUMers are. DH and his siblings were reading around six.

But my oldest knows phonetics, blends, a few sight words, and does all the “phonological awareness” list I could find on the Internet. Since school doesn’t start for him until September and it’s all playbased, I feel like I should keep going and start teaching him. He’s three-years-old.

Why do you want to? What's the rush?

[Anonymous]

jsmith123 wrote:Every time you teach something to a child, you deprive them of ability to figure it out for themselves.

The point isn't the knowledge itself. The point is the discovery of the knowledge.

So why ever send a child to school?