Memory and Reading [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

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Sorry I've been so quiet lately. It's not just here. I'll start writing more again soon, when I start feeling better for longer periods of time. In the meantime, something I'm suddenly curious about because of something I just read...

Thanks. I'll explain why I'm asking later.

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There are 24 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I'm sure you've got to be wondering "but how can they let you get all the way to the fifth grade without being able to read??"

Well... that's the Melrose School System for you. My uncle graduated from MHS, and is only capable of reading at a 3rd grade level.

To be fair, I could read signs and menus and those really silly baby books with like, a sentence on each page and no more longer than 4 letters per word.. But compared to the stuff I've read since then, I'm very grateful to my teacher in fifth grade, because my life really would be meaningless without my books.

I'm not sure exactly when I learned to read, I do vividly remember I'd go to the newsagents with my dad on a Sunday morning and one time when I was 4 or 5 I just picked up a kids book, the Elves and The Shoemaker and asked for it, and brought it home and read it cover to cover. Mum asked how long i'd been able to read and apparently I was enjoying being *read to* so much I'd not mentioned that I could do it myself.
In my own head at least it feels like I went from not being able to read to being able to read fluently and well beyond what was expected for my age - there was a range of Ladybird brand books in school and the other kids were struggling on 2b and 2c and I went straight to reading 11b no problem (no clue what level they were, but the 2s were of the "see spot run" variety and the 11 story was a bunch of kids at a youth hostel in the alps solving a mystery or something! :) ) Once I did learn I was voracious - all the Enid Blytons, 10 books or more a week from the library as well as the ones we bought, I moved onto carefully vetted adult books aged 10 because I'd read most of the kids books and needed more variety!

I was enjoying being *read to* so much I'd not mentioned that I could do it myself.

Lots of kids resist reading on their own for that reason. I've suggested to several sets of parents that they institute a reading exchange; you read me a book and I'll read you a book. That way there's an advantage to admitting you can do it yourself instead of a loss :).

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I did much better once i clued in ot the fact that if i read myself I could get lots and lots more books read without having to wait for mum to be available; the exchange idea sounds nicely sneaky though :)

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That's what my parents tell me they did. Or at least at some point they told me we'd still have reading time if I read to them.

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I'm not exactly sure the age I learned to read. I remember looking at Richard Scarry books by myself at age 3 or 4, and I think I could read them. I remember taking a test to get into kindergarten early (their cut-off was kids who turn 5 in September, and my birthday is in October). I don't think I had to read for the test, though. It was more along the lines of the tester asking me stuff like, "How many circles are there on this page?" I also remember being given a 3rd grade reading textbook in 1st grade, after I finished the assignment from the 1st grade text in no time flat.

I answered 5 to the question about when I learned to read, but what I actually remember was offering to teach kids my own age to read, and being answered that they'd be learning soon enough in school. I might have been 4.

I picked up the idea of reading at the same time my sister was learning to read. She is three years my senior, and she was reading by the time she went to first grade. Thus, at four years of age, I was reading.

I don't remember being completely unable to read. We had a wonderful encyclopaedia for children: it had three portions of text for each entry, targeted at different reading levels. I do remember how I was reading the first portion of the entries, and snippets of the next more challenging ones. Gradually I was reading only the third-level entries.

It was very interesting to go to Israel. I can, sort of, read the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, even though I don't understand the languages. But when I was confronted with the abugida, it was a wonderful feeling of being again in the position of not knowing how to read. There were those lines and blocks of symbols, but they just simply didn't speak to me.

I'm not sure how much I was actively taught to read. I know that my parents will have read aloud to me from "see spot run" level of books, and pointed out the words. Gradually I picked it up.

While ortography in Finnish is not a problem, syllablisation is. The Finnish words are long, and it is important to be able to be able to insert the hyphen and the line break at the appropriate spot -- at the syllable border. Having picked up the skill of reading in an unstructured fashion, I had sort of skipped over the syllablisation stage. The first several months of reading classes at school were painful: I was wanting to breeze along, but had to keep going back to the hyphenated texts to build up that skill.

I remember transitional states (needing to ask my parents what some words meant), but I do not remember either being completely unable to read or the actual process of learning. I know that they read to me a lot and that I had access to books that were nominally for older kids.

Mom had a three-shelf boookcase in my room, full of children's books for all ages. I don't remember specifically feeling a difference between before and after, since Mom was always happy to sit and read with me or to me. She encouraged me to look at the pages at my own pace. Sometimes we would be reading different books, and I found that very comforting. We'd go to the library at least once a week. At some point when I was three, she realized I was reading along with her. She hadn't made an effort to teach me.

Reading early got me noticed twice at school. In NY in the late 1960's, children were expected to read very little (if at all) before being taught in first grade (age 6). When I was in kindergarten, my teacher was pleased to mention to my Mom that I was very happy sitting in the corner during quiet time and looking at pictures in books; Mom said, "No, she's reading." I have a strong memory of taking an entrance exam to the local Catholic grade school. This was the first time I'd ever taken an exam, although I'd done "circle the letter" homework for kindergarten. The teacher started handing out booklets. As soon as I got the exam, I started reading the instructions, following the example. The instructions said "You may now begin", so I did. By time the teacher caught me, I'd finished two pages. Yes, I did get into the school! Shortly after getting in, they tested me and found I was reading at about a fifth grade level.

I learned to read around the same time or somewhat before I entered kindergarten (so somewhere between four and five)-- I remember vividly the process of following along what my parents were reading to me, and getting better about knowing what it was. Somehow or other my parents didn't realize it -- probably because they were enjoying reading to me, basically.

This led to my being asked to be the 'moderator' at my kindergarten graduation. Being as I was and am shy, and am nothing resembling a good public speaker, my mother rather hesitantly asked my teacher why.

"Because she's the only one who can read the script well enough."

"...Oh."

I can clearly remember sitting in first grade, the teacher (Mrs. Storm) had me at a table, opened a book to page 1, pointed to the word "Tom" which was under a illustration of a boy (Tom, who turned out to be the hero of the story) and told me to read it. I look ed at the word and was surprised to find that I could, in fact, read it. Later that same week I was at my great-grandparents' house and received a copy of "1 fish 2 Fish" I tried going through only reading the words I already recognized, which was not very satisfactory.

I was having some trouble advancing with reading in school until it was discovered I needed glasses really badly. By then I was behind the class, but my father made a set of flash cards and went through them with me every evening for a while. They were standard kid words, except for one that said "doo-doo dog" which I thought was the funniest thing ever. In short time I was a champion reader. By 5th grade I was reading stuff like Edgar R. Burroughs.

My 2 sons learned to read at about 3. I think they picked it up from hearing the same books read over and over, and I would run my finger along the words at the bottom of the page. I always read the text as written. My daughter, who got the same reading-to treatment, did not pick it up (I never made any attempt to "teach" my kids to read) and had to deliberately learn how in 1st grade. The teacher (all 3 had the same 1st grade teacher) sent home sheets with words on them to be learned each week. With the boys, I just had them read the words to me once, then threw the sheet away. It was kinda fun to cut out the words and take them out of the baggie every afternoon and go through them.

I remember *really* learning to read in first grade, because I was in a special reading program (with Miss Jackson, who was quite exotic in being the first African-American I'd ever known.) I was in the special program because I was already reading better than most kids my age, and I know I read some before that, sounding things out and going through Richard Scarry books and such, but I don't have strong memories of that.

Part of my problem with all early childhood stuff is that my mom started teaching nursery school when I was twelve or so, which meant that all the books and stuff that I had at that age were always around the house. So there are plenty of things that I think I would have remembered from then, but the memories have been 'refreshed', so I can't be sure.

i apparently learned to read on my own -- my parents say they just came into my bedroom one night and found me reading aloud to myself. evidently i'd made the leap between the words my parents were saying and the words on the page spontaneously, with no coaching from them. (they'd assumed i was too young to learn to read yet.)

but that kind of thing does run in our family. my cousins Eric and Chris had me beat by at least a few months -- Eric was discovered spelling out "E-V-E-N-F-L-O -- Evenflo!" on the side of his bottle -- and my brother wrote a 25-page "novel" about Earth's epic battle with an alien race called the Exorlinxes when he was seven. single-spaced on regular notebook paper, no pictures. both our parents are published writers, as are at least two of my cousins and an aunt or two. and me, of course.

we, uh, really like words.

I definitely learned to read before kindergarten, because I remember having to leave kindergarten for special reading classes (I think there were one or two others along with me) when everyone else was having a storybook read to them by the teacher. But I can't remember the transition between not being able to read and reading.

My school tried to accomodate students with advanced skills, but occaisonally there were teachers who didn't like the hassle. In 4th grade, I was assigned to a 6th grade English class, then demoted to 5th grade English, but somehow in the 5th grade they made me take it over again with the flimsy excuse "we have new textbooks." They continued to give me special advanced spelling lessons however.

Not really sure how old I was, though I know I could read well before Kindergarden, and have a clear memory of preK (age 4) writing class, where we'd learned that The was "thuh" (don't know how to do schwa) and TH was also "thuh." I remember not seeing the point of adding an extra letter in this case.

I started kindergarden at 5, not to be 6 until April. When they caught me reading the teacher text in the Weekly Reader they started letting me go over to the 1st grade for reading and math; I was in the highest of 4 reading groups (the yellow group) in that room. Note that I didn't stay for writing; it still shows.

Sometime midway through the year they let me be in 1st grade the whole morning but I still had to go home on the Kindergarden bus. My first full day of 1st grade was midway through April, the monday after my birthday.

The next year I went into 2nd grade.

I weirded out my classmates by retreating to the crotch of a tree to read books during recess.

My mom started reading to me very early on and she says that I had been reading my books aloud to her but she thought I had them memorized. Then one day I picked up the newspaper and started reading from that, and she figured I couldn't have memorized the newspaper! *grin* I was all of 3 years old, and when I went into kindergarten at 5 the teacher was amazed at how well I could read.

Technically, I have memories from before I could (or so I'm told) read text, but those memories (from age 18mos) are not about reading or the lack of the ability to read. Family lore has it that my mother started parking me in front of Sesame Street when I was a year and a half old; at three, I was discovered to be reading, much to everyone's astonishment.

I remember, however, at 4 -- I'm very clear on when, because almost exactly coincident with the year I was 4, we lived in a particular place for a year -- trying to read the Sunday funny pages from the Boston Globe, and not being able to make heads or tails of it. It was quite disorienting, not being able to make sense of a text!

But I must have figured it out shortly thereafter.
¿

I didn't really read in kindergarten. I had the alphabet, my name,(damn that was a fine paisley pillow!) colours, subtraction, addition, under my belt. Reading, poetry, all sorts of aural verbality rained on me. I just didn't do it myself. But by 1st grade, (so I was 7) Mrs. Fox (the librarian) let me check out anything. I proved myself on a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. I could read it, and she let me have it out. I had access. No more under 3rd grade books. Ms. Gunderman, the one who succeeded her, needed reeducation and disliked me. Ha. I scared the witch. She disapproved of my selections. I bought some of them later.

But learning to read was an accidental, organic thing. Near as I know, it just happened. Like a wildflower. The goodnight book went from Mom to me reading it. (Yes, once I could read, she made me do it out loud. In 1st grade I had to do it for kindergarteners.) My friend Saralinda didn't read 'til 3rd grade. By 5th grade I'd hit a 9th grade speed/comprehension level. I don't know what that means, but yes, I read. How I learned I can't tell because I don't remember.

And there are two cats sitting in my window.

It is known that I was recognising letters +/- 18 mos. and reading fluently by +/- 2 years. Somewhere in there I probably had a transitional phase. How my parents discovered that I could read was, my dad was reading me a story, and he paused, and I picked right up and continued. They didn't think this was unusual at all, because according to them, even still, I had "memorised" all my books -- I am firmly of the opinion now that I hadn't, because as anyone who knows me knows, I can't memorise stuff like that for shit! Afterward, my dad commented to my mom that I had memorised the book really well, and she asked him which book it was, he told her, and she said, "She can't have it memorised; I just bought it this afternoon!" Heh. So who knows when I really started to read.

On edit: Apparently LJ doesn't like British spellings with "s" where Americans would put "z." Bite me.

I'm told that the first proof of my reading came from the bedtime story, when I took the book and read it instead of letting my parents do it. I don't remember it, though, and I honestly don't remember ever not reading. I always had plenty of reading material around, and my mother thinks I may have a touch of hyperlexia, the need to read everything -- which happily never turned into a crippling compulsion. I just can't avoid noticing pretty much everything that's written down, though, and as far as I remember always have.

After some meditation, I finally recalled being taught to read by my mother.
She would let me try to read each word, and correct me when I wwas wrong. She wasn't big then, which meant it was before I was 2, since she lost her figure when my sister was born (I was 2-1/2 then).

Interesting questions.

I have no memory of not being able to read.

And I never even knew the story of my parents discovering that I knew how to read until I heard it second-hand - as in, my mother told one of my boyfriends, but not me. When he finally mentioned what a cute story it was - that it was so very "me" - he got a completely puzzled look in response.

According to the redirect, I was around 3 and my mother was reading to me from one of my favorite storybooks [I recall that I had a favorite storybook that had been read so much it lost its cover] when she changed some of the words or skipped something. I immediately piped up with "That's not what it says!" So she told me to read it instead, and I did.

(My being both precocious and also oblivious to life-changing events like this is apparently very me. And her not ever telling me the story directly is very, *very* her. But I digress.)

By the time I got to 1st grade, I was naturally speed-reading. I had to keep fingers bookmarks in two places in any book during "reading-out-loud" time - where the class was (and where I had to return to) vs. where I was in the story (which was generally pages and pages ahead). In truth, I still have a lot of trouble reading out loud because I can't scan that slowly - my eyes always dart ahead.

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