Popped over here from silmaril's journal, hope you don't mind.
Fascinating subject! I'm trying to recall how it was for myself; I remember having trouble with specific words, but I can't ever recall all words just being gibberish.
I was definitely reading by age four, but I suspect I was at least recognizing words far earlier than that. I don't know if there is a correlation, but I also started talking ridiculously early - apparently on average kids don't start stringing words together until they're 1-2 years old, or something like that, but Mother tells me I was asking "Whazzat?" and correctly repeating the answers back to her at 6 months, and talking in complete sentences by the time I was a year old. I don't think she's making that up...
Anyway, I also remember I was always bored spitless by Reading lessons in school (not surprising since I was (covertly) reading Stephen King while most of my classmates were still struggling with Beverly Cleary) and was constantly getting in trouble for reading ahead in our readers. I had one teacher (I think it was first grade) who told me if I didn't stop skipping ahead she was going to tape the forward pages of my book shut.
(no subject)
Fascinating subject! I'm trying to recall how it was for myself; I remember having trouble with specific words, but I can't ever recall all words just being gibberish.
I was definitely reading by age four, but I suspect I was at least recognizing words far earlier than that. I don't know if there is a correlation, but I also started talking ridiculously early - apparently on average kids don't start stringing words together until they're 1-2 years old, or something like that, but Mother tells me I was asking "Whazzat?" and correctly repeating the answers back to her at 6 months, and talking in complete sentences by the time I was a year old. I don't think she's making that up...
Anyway, I also remember I was always bored spitless by Reading lessons in school (not surprising since I was (covertly) reading Stephen King while most of my classmates were still struggling with Beverly Cleary) and was constantly getting in trouble for reading ahead in our readers. I had one teacher (I think it was first grade) who told me if I didn't stop skipping ahead she was going to tape the forward pages of my book shut.
That still pisses me off when I think about it.
Aaaand now I'll shut up.