When did you first learn to read?

[Neopeius]

My 4 year old just finished the Basic Reading Pre-Primer and is very excited to go on to the Primer. I'd occasionally nudged her to try reading when she was 2 and 3, but she never really caught the knack--though she could spell her name and some basic words.

When she turned 4, I stared playing lots of word games with her, both written and verbal. Last month, I turned her onto the Basic Reading series I started with as a kid and she's really liked them.

I'm wondering when everyone started to read and what they learned from. Both my brothers were taught my mom and dad, but they say I self-taught from Sesame Street. I do remember reading simple books at Age 4.

So what are your experiences?

 

[kitkat]

My mom said I was really interested in books very early so she jumped right on it. She says that I was reading simple stuff at 2 and/or around the time I was turning 3. I was way ahead throughout most of my school years (as far as reading and literature in general). I was on a 6th grade reading, spelling and vocabulary level in 1st grade (I never really got the whole math thing though). Even as an adult, I still love to read. I usually have at least 3 books going at once. My husband thinks I'm insane. I think he's just jealous. He's extremely smart (must smarter than I am) but he's just a slow reader. He said his parents never really read to him.

 

[Hermiod]

I think my mother taught me before I started school.

 

[auntiehill]

I could read somewhat before I got to kindergarten, but not very well. I probably picked it up before four and five.

 

[Gepard]

My mom reportedly spent hours reading to me daily when I was two or three, so I got plenty of early exposure to books. Probably explains how I was able to pretty much teach myself to read using Garfield comic books sometime around preschool. I recall being the only kid in kindergarten who could read, and being bored out of my skull as the teachers ran us through letters I already freaking knew.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

My mum has often told me that I started reading things when I was 2. I think much of my reading skills came from watching TV and from our Speak & Spell, which for me at the time was absolutely the best toy ever made, ever. Myself, I was never a good reader, and I remember struggling a lot throughout school. It wasn't really until my last 2 years of school and also when I hit University that I was able to really enjoy reading the books that were there. I personally put that down to having two excellent English teachers at the time.

I think my very first book was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", a book which I'm sure everyone has read by now, and which has had a major impact on my life. Sadly, my ascendancy to Butterfly status has yet to materialise.

 

[trekkerguy]

My mom says I started reading before 5. I was Homeschooled.

 

[Amaris]

Sometime just before 3 years of age. I started out reading the backs of record albums, then moved on to booklets, magazines and then novels.

I'll tell you something that annoyed me, since we're on the subject of reading.
When I was a Sophomore in high school, we were reading "Lord of the Flies" in my AP English class. Well, I started and finished the book while we were in class (90 minute block classes). My teacher asked me why I wasn't reading. I told her I was finished. She didn't believe me. I insisted, so right there on the spot she starts asking me questions about the book. I answered them all correctly, since the book was still very fresh in my memory, and even after all that she still didn't think I had read the book.

J.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I don't remember. 4, maybe 5?

 

[trekkiedane]

I'm wondering when everyone started to read and what they learned from.

I had a horrible time learning to tell time (back in the days when time was only analogue) -it was just so weird to me. It was a lot easier to just learn to read the actual words (I must've caught the letters and words while being read stories to I suppose) from the pages of the 'time-learning' book…
I did know the letters and how to read when they tried to teach me in school (at six I suppose), which is what my mum thought I needed to know how to tell time for.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I remember i had a bear of a time learning how to count money if we're talking about school now ...

 

[Emher]

I think I was pretty early, around 2 or 3. But I'm also pretty sure that no one found out for a while since I was way more autistic back then and kept it to myself for a while most likely. Like when I learnt to speak I said one word when about 1½ years old or so, I said "lamp" very clearly and correct and pointed to it. And then I didn't say anything else for like a month or so

I read lots of comcis from like the age of 4 or so, and when I was nine I read my first real big fiction book. It was Jurassic park by Michael Chricton, I was hooked and after that I've always had a something to read.

More fun for me is the fact that I started learning a second language before I even started regular school at age seven, started learning English via TV at about six or so. So when we came around to English lessons in like third grade I was quite bored since they where so easy. Which has led to me having little patience with fellow Swedes that have crap English

 

[Jim Steele]

LAST WEEK AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

No but seriously, I think I learned to read pretty early (definitely if I was anything like my daughter when I was her age), but I don't remember getting into "proper" books (ie not graphic novels) until much much later than everyone else, I think the first time I finished a novel I was 15. God that's embarrassing to admit. It was a Red Dwarf book as well, "Last Human" if I remember rightly.

Another horrible thing to admit is that reading can often make my eyes sore and give me headaches so I don't do anywhere near as much of it as any of you do. Audiobooks are my savior.

 

[captcalhoun]

sometime prior to primary school. my older sisters were big readers so i picked up reading from them and the 'rents encouraged it.

 

[Kestra]

I learned at an early age, probably 3 or so. I have clear memories of reading on my own at preschool. Reading is something that I've loved as far back as my memory goes.

However when I got to kindergarten, I failed at tying my shoes. I was also awful at learning how to tell time. I suppose some things come easier than others!

 

[Jadzia]

I don't remember what age I was but the book I vividly remember learning to read with was chicken licken and turkey lurky and foxy loxy. And it made me cry I would keep returning to it and re-reading it and hoping it would have a happy ending next time. But it never did, it was always the same and it always made me cry. I didn't enjoy reading these nasty books.

 

[Jim Steele]

I was also awful at learning how to tell time.

Same here, I couldn't deal with analog clocks at all. Digital clocks were no problem but it took me until I was about 13 before I'd figured out the big hand/little hand shite.

 

[Lindley]

I remember reading "In A Dark, Dark Wood" in kindergarten.

 

[Man Afraid of his Shoes]

I don't know when I first learned to read, but I do remember having the basics down and picking up my first actual novel. Some fantasy, sword and magic, type thing. I don't exactly remember the title, but it was something about a cauldron? I was hooked on books after that. I couldn't stop reading.

...at any rate, that must have been 1st or 2nd grade...because around the third or fourth grade, I was having so much trouble with math, they sent me to the special ed teacher to see if I needed to be moved to the trailer classrooms behind the school. They were right about the math. I mined it out. I tested at around zygote level....but I actually maxed out the reading comprehension tests. I was reading at college level....so they figured the two cancelled each other out and sent me back to regular classes.

I still can't do long division.

 

[Lindley]

I think the first really big book I read was My Side of the Mountain in 2nd grade. I may have read some decent-sized ones before that, but I can't recall any specifics.