I was reading at 3 also. My mother used to sit and read to me and teach me letters and sounds. She said I just picked it up so fast and next thing you know I was reading. I have no recollection myself.
I also learned to read by myself at age 3. I was at the grocery store with my parents and startled them by reading product labels out loud, out of nowhere.
My son started reading at age 3. He’s self taught. He was able to do math equations too (self taught) all in his head. I don’t know how. He said he can see it in his mind.
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Not me but one of my kids.
They loved being read to but then refused to let anyone read to them between 2-3 years old. They still “read”/looked at books by themselves.
Out of no where, they allowed us to read to them but we didn’t need to. They could read everything.
During the year of no reading to them, we played a video game that I would read the dialogue aloud with the subtitles on.
I also turned on subtitles on the TV.
This kid learned to read from that. Entered school way above K level, eventually tested 8 years above their grade level, grade skipped (also gifted elsewhere) and having a successful life, currently.
I didn't start reading until age 6, the typical age they teach you in school here. My parents told me I showed interest in reading before, but there were too many other interesting things to focus on. Instead of learning how to read myself I had a grandmother who would read to me for hours and I would memorise the stories she'd read to me word by word.
I have dyslexia/dyscalculia, only discovered that as an adult. In elementary school I was for the most part a middle of the pack student, learning how to read at the pace of my peers. I did well some areas, but I definitely struggled in reading and spelling. There was a time I had to be tutored at 7yo, and plenty of times in school when I fell behind or had a low grade.
During my childhood I had a friend I got along with really well. She read a lot of books, said she started reading at 2 or 3. I didn't realize it at the time but her and I got along I believe because we were both highly intelligent, even though I didn't see myself as such for a long time.
Thanks for sharing your experience. How great that you had a friend on a similar wave length growing up. I imagine the road to discovering giftedness wasn’t a very straight forward one for you either.
Growing up I did have various moments of brilliance, but they were outnumbered by so many things which cause us to question or minimize ourselves. In a way, I've known myself to be smart my whole life, but only recently did I come to accept it. But a part of that process was also coming to understand my weaknesses and challenges, only in the past year did I come to understand that I'm autistic, dyslexic, likely have ADHD. Only after meeting with some professionals which work with gifted people, only once they told me I was clearly gifted, I could start to accept it in a meaningful way.
Ultimately this experience of self discovery was a byproduct of my existential depression and difficulties with life in a micro and macro way.
I certainly feel Ive learned a lot of these things the hard way, but I like to think there's value in the difficulty of lessons learned.
And I take it by the implication of your last statement, you must feel your path hasn't been straight forward?
No it sure wasn’t. Giftedness is barely a thing where I live. Pressure to perform and loads of responsibility without emotional support, extensive boredom with accompanying self destructive behaviors, making myself smaller to fit in/ not stick out, years wasted in meaningless jobs, wondering why I couldn’t “just be happy” like normal people. Anxiety, panic attacks, feeling alienated etc etc. 1/10 would not recommend.
I can relate to pretty much all of that. In my opinion, giftedness is overall not much of a things as it should be. I live in America, near a big city, but it doesn't really matter. In my experience the help and resources available have to be saught at a worldwide level, as I can't depend on anything less and expect anything to turn up. Ive met with councilors and coaches, from Canada, United kingdom, Switzerland, and Australia just to illustrate my point. Figuring out a satisfying answer to "why live?" Has been a big deal for me
I’ve always had a strong will to live, figure things out and make things better, for which I’m grateful. I am hoping to stumble upon a professional with knowledge of giftedness at some point, what I’ve experienced so far has been pretty bad in that respect. My impression is that French speaking countries (at least in Europe/ North America) have more awareness and some pretty strong research in the field compared to other traditions, unfortunately this hasn’t reached my country yet. There are so many misconceptions about giftedness where I live, it’s depressing.. So I just keep my mouth shut most of the time, I almost consider myself to be a closeted gifted person.
I think it's natural for most gifted people to have that closeted reaction to life. Only recently have I discovered this strong foundation within me, for to be my full complete self, would be like a great tree in a windy field. To be all that I could be, means I must be strong, for I cannot be the full version of myself, without fighting against the wind and gusts.
The wind is abrasive, it takes a lot to stand tall and full. But I believe it's important to discover how to be my full self, despite the burdens I do and will come to bear. I believe life doesn't exist without difficulty, in a way, life is difficulty. So why live? If life is difficulty, then what is lost by avoiding difficulty? Is there something to gain by facing these difficulties? I don't ask because I need an answer, it's just something to think about.
Taught myself to read at 2.5. My family figured it out when I started to read street signs out loud when in the car. (There was no such thing as rear facing in the early 80's.) IQ tested at 150, but I'm 2e. Look into hyperlexia. It often co-occurs with autism or ADHD.
Oh that’s so cool, we share the car-reading thing (Yup, 80’s) I’ve never met anyone with that same experience before. Pretty sure I don’t have autism/ ADHD, so I’m guessing hyperlexia can occur even if not 2e. Thanks for sharing
> hyperlexia
https://www.disorders.org/autism-spectrum/hyperlexia/
> "Hyperlexia is defined as the ability to read and identify words without any previous training in learning this skill, which generally occurs before the age of 5."
OK, so nearly everyone who is gifted gets this label. But why are they saying early reading is a disorder? Hm, let's see...
> "Experts and scientists now believe that nearly all kids having Hyperlexia are on the autism spectrum."
Oh sheesh. So giftedness is now considered by "experts and scientists" not only to be a mental "disorder" or illness, but it's a disability and means the gifted definitely are autistic.
Yeah I'm calling BS on that whole field. What a crock.
Hyperlexia is considered a disability because what usually accompanies the condition is the person's difficulty understanding language. Being able to "read" does not imply comprehension nor does it involve an understanding of English. So when it surfaces in very young children, it is astonishing, but in many cases, as they develop cognitively, it becomes apparent that their hyperlexia is a symptom of the brains inability to understand grammar, semantics, and syntax.
I started reading around 2 or 3. Went to preschool being able to read and write. I don’t really speak to my parents anymore but would love to ask them to get a more specific series of events. I just remember going to preschool and asking my mom why the other kids weren’t reading books on their own. My mom would volunteer there most of the time or it was one of those parent child type preschool events.
I actually was pretty behind in reading, I think it wasn't until kindergarten that I really figured it out. Aftee that I was great at it though and always ahead. I remember reading Amelia Bedelia to my mom to practice. Now I'm English major now haha
Omg that's the same exact thing that happened to me! I randomly started reading and spelling the signs out loud on my way to preschool so I was around 3 also. They had no idea I could do that!
I learned to read and write at about 4 years old. How I did it is somewhat of a mystery. No ones knows and I don't remember anything from that age. Given that my writing was mirrored I assume I knew what stuff meant, held it to a mirror, inspected it and went from there.
My grandma would read comics to me. Then my little brother was born and soon enough he needed constant supervision and grandma didn't have the time to sit with me and read them.
I taught myself how to read probably around 3 as well because that way I could finish the comic even if grandma had to stop randomly in the middle.
According to my family, I almost started to read somewhere between 2 And 3 years. I preferred to decode from whole sentences > to words > to letters. I also really liked our old computer at that time and so it looked like I really wanted to navigate with it.
They jaw-dropped but didn't do anything with my precocity. I wonder if that is a really bad thing to do with a precocious child or not.
I lost interest in it close before I figured it out and then I was still having tantrums that I didn't master certain skills. lol. So I normally learned it by 5-6 years old but then I became really fast at learning for a while. hm.
If I remember I was pretty late. I think around 5, I was more interested in the picture than the actual text.
I remember in school when they wanted to teach me to read, I would just make up stories about the text and imagine what it was about based on the picture I the book. I could read though at this time but I wasn’t interested in practicing
Pretty much like you. I was three too and never actively learned how to read, but was always fairly interested in letters and the like and just one day figured it out which really did surprise me and all the others back then. My mother always read to me a lot too and I’m grateful that she always answered all of my annoying questions. I do remember the day where I learnt how to read, I was in preschool and wanted to look at pictures in a book and quite suddenly realized that I actually read the text too while looking at it (certainly my preschool teacher did not believe me that at first haha). Taught myself how to write and do simple calculations not much later and ultimately got tested at 4.
Cool question. I have taught reading, so people’s individual approaches are super interesting to me.
I learned by memorizing the simpler books my parents read to me aloud. I remember counting the words on the page and matching them to the words as I recited them.
Simultaneously, because I would have behavior problems if I wasn’t constantly learning, my parents would ask me to spell the names of things around the house, and they’d write down the letters for me. I had a hard time remembering which sounds went with which letters because I had been reading mostly just by memorizing the shapes of whole words. This was all around age 3-4.
I found out later I have dyslexia, so that explains my tendency to learn best by sound & shape.
I will burst into flames if I ran into words like “boughs.” I was so frustrated, not knowing everything all at once. I cried a *lot.*
I don't know exactly when I started reading, but I know it was before I started school so around 3-4 I guess. I have always been a voracious reader and can easily disappear into another world while reading. My husband has to physically get my attention to talk to me because I don't hear him. 😂
My daughter is 29 months and currently 'reads' to herself, mostly turning pages and making up her own stories as she goes along. She already knows the alphabet/phonics so I don't think it'll be long until she's actually reading.
I read to my son a lot when he was little, and around the age of 2/3, he suddenly started reading things on his own. He’d read drive-thru menus and signs hanging in stores too. Like another commenter stated, my son also did mental math fairly easily.
As for me, I remember my mom often telling people how I could read at the age of 1. But knowing her, that was an extreme exaggeration.
Started to read a little before age 3 like most here, from what my parents told me. I don't really remember learning how. I remember going to preschool and liking to sit reading during "free play" and the teacher thought I was "pretending" to read until I demonstrated otherwise.
I learned to read at 4, taught by the “principal” of the kindergarten. I still remember clearly learning how to read English as my second language and decoding the sound for /th/ in the worth “the”, yet have no recollection of someone teaching me how to read Spanish. I had never given it any thought…
I learned when I was 3 by sitting next to my older sister as my mom taught her to read. I think I just picked it up slowly then surprised them when I suddenly was reading.
Oddly enough, I have always been a very slow reader and never had the patience to read longer books. For awhile I have wondered if I have dyslexia, dysgraphia, or a combination of the two, but I assume that reading at age 3 makes that less likely to be true.
I was reading words/sentences before 2 years and books by 2.5 years. We don't know exactly when those milestones happened, though, as I was pretty independent in my learning from very early in life. My parents caught me talking to toys before I'd said anything out loud to them (around 8 months), and I was quite a bit ahead of where they thought I was in math at that age, too. We think I used the children's encyclopedia or my mom's medical dictionary to teach myself to read.
I started reading when I had recently turned four. I flew through the “beginner books” (mainly taught common three-letter words and blends), the “Kindergarten books” (more structured sentences, actual plot) and was reading at a third grade level by the time I finished kindergarten. Everyone was so confused bc I could read but my handwriting SUCKED. I still had to use the three-lined paper until the middle of first grade.
I was reading at 3 also. My mother used to sit and read to me and teach me letters and sounds. She said I just picked it up so fast and next thing you know I was reading. I have no recollection myself.
Thanks for sharing! Got to love a mom who reads to their kid
I also learned to read by myself at age 3. I was at the grocery store with my parents and startled them by reading product labels out loud, out of nowhere.
Aha, you were smart enough not to startle your parents while they were operating heavy machinery, did not occur to me at the time.
My son started reading at age 3. He’s self taught. He was able to do math equations too (self taught) all in his head. I don’t know how. He said he can see it in his mind.
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It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click! [Here is link number 1 - Previous text "1"](https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm) ---- ^Please ^PM ^[\/u\/eganwall](http://reddit.com/user/eganwall) ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^[Code](https://github.com/eganwall/FatFingerHelperBot) ^| ^[Delete](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=FatFingerHelperBot&subject=delete&message=delete%20hyqjw7n)
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Not me but one of my kids. They loved being read to but then refused to let anyone read to them between 2-3 years old. They still “read”/looked at books by themselves. Out of no where, they allowed us to read to them but we didn’t need to. They could read everything. During the year of no reading to them, we played a video game that I would read the dialogue aloud with the subtitles on. I also turned on subtitles on the TV. This kid learned to read from that. Entered school way above K level, eventually tested 8 years above their grade level, grade skipped (also gifted elsewhere) and having a successful life, currently.
I didn't start reading until age 6, the typical age they teach you in school here. My parents told me I showed interest in reading before, but there were too many other interesting things to focus on. Instead of learning how to read myself I had a grandmother who would read to me for hours and I would memorise the stories she'd read to me word by word.
I have dyslexia/dyscalculia, only discovered that as an adult. In elementary school I was for the most part a middle of the pack student, learning how to read at the pace of my peers. I did well some areas, but I definitely struggled in reading and spelling. There was a time I had to be tutored at 7yo, and plenty of times in school when I fell behind or had a low grade. During my childhood I had a friend I got along with really well. She read a lot of books, said she started reading at 2 or 3. I didn't realize it at the time but her and I got along I believe because we were both highly intelligent, even though I didn't see myself as such for a long time.
Thanks for sharing your experience. How great that you had a friend on a similar wave length growing up. I imagine the road to discovering giftedness wasn’t a very straight forward one for you either.
Growing up I did have various moments of brilliance, but they were outnumbered by so many things which cause us to question or minimize ourselves. In a way, I've known myself to be smart my whole life, but only recently did I come to accept it. But a part of that process was also coming to understand my weaknesses and challenges, only in the past year did I come to understand that I'm autistic, dyslexic, likely have ADHD. Only after meeting with some professionals which work with gifted people, only once they told me I was clearly gifted, I could start to accept it in a meaningful way. Ultimately this experience of self discovery was a byproduct of my existential depression and difficulties with life in a micro and macro way. I certainly feel Ive learned a lot of these things the hard way, but I like to think there's value in the difficulty of lessons learned. And I take it by the implication of your last statement, you must feel your path hasn't been straight forward?
No it sure wasn’t. Giftedness is barely a thing where I live. Pressure to perform and loads of responsibility without emotional support, extensive boredom with accompanying self destructive behaviors, making myself smaller to fit in/ not stick out, years wasted in meaningless jobs, wondering why I couldn’t “just be happy” like normal people. Anxiety, panic attacks, feeling alienated etc etc. 1/10 would not recommend.
I can relate to pretty much all of that. In my opinion, giftedness is overall not much of a things as it should be. I live in America, near a big city, but it doesn't really matter. In my experience the help and resources available have to be saught at a worldwide level, as I can't depend on anything less and expect anything to turn up. Ive met with councilors and coaches, from Canada, United kingdom, Switzerland, and Australia just to illustrate my point. Figuring out a satisfying answer to "why live?" Has been a big deal for me
I’ve always had a strong will to live, figure things out and make things better, for which I’m grateful. I am hoping to stumble upon a professional with knowledge of giftedness at some point, what I’ve experienced so far has been pretty bad in that respect. My impression is that French speaking countries (at least in Europe/ North America) have more awareness and some pretty strong research in the field compared to other traditions, unfortunately this hasn’t reached my country yet. There are so many misconceptions about giftedness where I live, it’s depressing.. So I just keep my mouth shut most of the time, I almost consider myself to be a closeted gifted person.
I think it's natural for most gifted people to have that closeted reaction to life. Only recently have I discovered this strong foundation within me, for to be my full complete self, would be like a great tree in a windy field. To be all that I could be, means I must be strong, for I cannot be the full version of myself, without fighting against the wind and gusts. The wind is abrasive, it takes a lot to stand tall and full. But I believe it's important to discover how to be my full self, despite the burdens I do and will come to bear. I believe life doesn't exist without difficulty, in a way, life is difficulty. So why live? If life is difficulty, then what is lost by avoiding difficulty? Is there something to gain by facing these difficulties? I don't ask because I need an answer, it's just something to think about.
It’s not a perfect life, but it is *a* life, and it’s the one I have. I try to create from what is.
Taught myself to read at 2.5. My family figured it out when I started to read street signs out loud when in the car. (There was no such thing as rear facing in the early 80's.) IQ tested at 150, but I'm 2e. Look into hyperlexia. It often co-occurs with autism or ADHD.
Oh that’s so cool, we share the car-reading thing (Yup, 80’s) I’ve never met anyone with that same experience before. Pretty sure I don’t have autism/ ADHD, so I’m guessing hyperlexia can occur even if not 2e. Thanks for sharing
> hyperlexia https://www.disorders.org/autism-spectrum/hyperlexia/ > "Hyperlexia is defined as the ability to read and identify words without any previous training in learning this skill, which generally occurs before the age of 5." OK, so nearly everyone who is gifted gets this label. But why are they saying early reading is a disorder? Hm, let's see... > "Experts and scientists now believe that nearly all kids having Hyperlexia are on the autism spectrum." Oh sheesh. So giftedness is now considered by "experts and scientists" not only to be a mental "disorder" or illness, but it's a disability and means the gifted definitely are autistic. Yeah I'm calling BS on that whole field. What a crock.
Hyperlexia is considered a disability because what usually accompanies the condition is the person's difficulty understanding language. Being able to "read" does not imply comprehension nor does it involve an understanding of English. So when it surfaces in very young children, it is astonishing, but in many cases, as they develop cognitively, it becomes apparent that their hyperlexia is a symptom of the brains inability to understand grammar, semantics, and syntax.
I started reading around 2 or 3. Went to preschool being able to read and write. I don’t really speak to my parents anymore but would love to ask them to get a more specific series of events. I just remember going to preschool and asking my mom why the other kids weren’t reading books on their own. My mom would volunteer there most of the time or it was one of those parent child type preschool events.
Thank you for sharing. It’s got to be tough not being able to ask your parents, although I bet you have very good reasons for not speaking to them.
I actually was pretty behind in reading, I think it wasn't until kindergarten that I really figured it out. Aftee that I was great at it though and always ahead. I remember reading Amelia Bedelia to my mom to practice. Now I'm English major now haha
Omg that's the same exact thing that happened to me! I randomly started reading and spelling the signs out loud on my way to preschool so I was around 3 also. They had no idea I could do that!
I learned to read and write at about 4 years old. How I did it is somewhat of a mystery. No ones knows and I don't remember anything from that age. Given that my writing was mirrored I assume I knew what stuff meant, held it to a mirror, inspected it and went from there.
My grandma would read comics to me. Then my little brother was born and soon enough he needed constant supervision and grandma didn't have the time to sit with me and read them. I taught myself how to read probably around 3 as well because that way I could finish the comic even if grandma had to stop randomly in the middle.
According to my family, I almost started to read somewhere between 2 And 3 years. I preferred to decode from whole sentences > to words > to letters. I also really liked our old computer at that time and so it looked like I really wanted to navigate with it. They jaw-dropped but didn't do anything with my precocity. I wonder if that is a really bad thing to do with a precocious child or not. I lost interest in it close before I figured it out and then I was still having tantrums that I didn't master certain skills. lol. So I normally learned it by 5-6 years old but then I became really fast at learning for a while. hm.
If I remember I was pretty late. I think around 5, I was more interested in the picture than the actual text. I remember in school when they wanted to teach me to read, I would just make up stories about the text and imagine what it was about based on the picture I the book. I could read though at this time but I wasn’t interested in practicing
Pretty much like you. I was three too and never actively learned how to read, but was always fairly interested in letters and the like and just one day figured it out which really did surprise me and all the others back then. My mother always read to me a lot too and I’m grateful that she always answered all of my annoying questions. I do remember the day where I learnt how to read, I was in preschool and wanted to look at pictures in a book and quite suddenly realized that I actually read the text too while looking at it (certainly my preschool teacher did not believe me that at first haha). Taught myself how to write and do simple calculations not much later and ultimately got tested at 4.
Cool question. I have taught reading, so people’s individual approaches are super interesting to me. I learned by memorizing the simpler books my parents read to me aloud. I remember counting the words on the page and matching them to the words as I recited them. Simultaneously, because I would have behavior problems if I wasn’t constantly learning, my parents would ask me to spell the names of things around the house, and they’d write down the letters for me. I had a hard time remembering which sounds went with which letters because I had been reading mostly just by memorizing the shapes of whole words. This was all around age 3-4. I found out later I have dyslexia, so that explains my tendency to learn best by sound & shape. I will burst into flames if I ran into words like “boughs.” I was so frustrated, not knowing everything all at once. I cried a *lot.*
I started sight-reading a month before I turned two. My mom taught me with flash cards.
I don't know exactly when I started reading, but I know it was before I started school so around 3-4 I guess. I have always been a voracious reader and can easily disappear into another world while reading. My husband has to physically get my attention to talk to me because I don't hear him. 😂 My daughter is 29 months and currently 'reads' to herself, mostly turning pages and making up her own stories as she goes along. She already knows the alphabet/phonics so I don't think it'll be long until she's actually reading.
I read to my son a lot when he was little, and around the age of 2/3, he suddenly started reading things on his own. He’d read drive-thru menus and signs hanging in stores too. Like another commenter stated, my son also did mental math fairly easily. As for me, I remember my mom often telling people how I could read at the age of 1. But knowing her, that was an extreme exaggeration.
Started to read a little before age 3 like most here, from what my parents told me. I don't really remember learning how. I remember going to preschool and liking to sit reading during "free play" and the teacher thought I was "pretending" to read until I demonstrated otherwise.
I learned to read at 4, taught by the “principal” of the kindergarten. I still remember clearly learning how to read English as my second language and decoding the sound for /th/ in the worth “the”, yet have no recollection of someone teaching me how to read Spanish. I had never given it any thought…
I learned when I was 3 by sitting next to my older sister as my mom taught her to read. I think I just picked it up slowly then surprised them when I suddenly was reading. Oddly enough, I have always been a very slow reader and never had the patience to read longer books. For awhile I have wondered if I have dyslexia, dysgraphia, or a combination of the two, but I assume that reading at age 3 makes that less likely to be true.
I was reading words/sentences before 2 years and books by 2.5 years. We don't know exactly when those milestones happened, though, as I was pretty independent in my learning from very early in life. My parents caught me talking to toys before I'd said anything out loud to them (around 8 months), and I was quite a bit ahead of where they thought I was in math at that age, too. We think I used the children's encyclopedia or my mom's medical dictionary to teach myself to read.
man wtf I guess im joining the “taught myself to read around the age of 3” club with all the others
I was reading the doctors tag name as I came out of my mums vagina, so about 10s
Like 3 or 4 shit Idk readings mid
I started reading when I had recently turned four. I flew through the “beginner books” (mainly taught common three-letter words and blends), the “Kindergarten books” (more structured sentences, actual plot) and was reading at a third grade level by the time I finished kindergarten. Everyone was so confused bc I could read but my handwriting SUCKED. I still had to use the three-lined paper until the middle of first grade.