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Anticipating Issues with a self-taught reader


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My daughter (4) decided to show me about 6 months ago that she could both read, and write letters. I made no attempt to teach her to read, beyond answering questions when asked. She is not blazing a trail as far as being ahead of the curve. In fact, in most other areas, she's always been a little on the later side in milestones and such. I have no idea how long it was going on. She tends toward the enigmatic.

 

I have asked her how she reads. I realize that's a ridiculous question I probably wouldn't even be able to answer well myself, but I thought she might give me some insight into how she understands and interprets what she sees. Her answer proved less than helpful. It went along the lines of "I look at the books, and then another, and another, and then I know what they say." And we're not talking memorization here. She reads every sign we pass on the road. I have seen her guess at words, and come up with a perfect anagram of the word she's looking at. So it seems to me she is seeing things in a 'whole word' sort of way.

 

My question is this: She is turning 5 in October, and I wasn't planning on doing anything much in the way of formal instruction until next fall, when she'll be nearly 6. But I'm curious if this will be a hindrance to her understanding of phonics. On one hand, I'm hesitant to butt in when whatever she does obviously works for her. But I've never gone through educating a child, and I'm sure there are more experienced parents out there that may see some possible repercussions I'm not able to anticipate. Anyone have experience with this, or advice as to how to approach a reader with reading instruction?

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I'm a self-taught reader (learned at age 3) and an excellent speller. I never had any phonics instruction and in fact, never understood phonics, until I began teaching my dyslexic dd how to read. So there may be no issues at all, unless someday she is homeschooling her own children!

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My first suggestion is not to "borrow trouble". It sounds like she's doing well, and you can address specific issues as they arise, rather than spending time imagining problems that *might* happen.

 

Now *if* I were you, *I* would choose to do some short phonics / reading lessons with my child. Brief, pleasant, but going over basic phonics concepts and taking turns reading fun books at her level together. But I have no qualms about a little bit of early academics as part of a well-balanced life (with lots of hands-on activities, lots of free and creative play, field trips, etc). Some of those times with my kids were great times of snuggling, bonding fun. (I'm talking about 15-20 minutes 4-5 times a week curled up together on the couch or playing with letter magnets on a cookie sheet on the floor, etc, not hours of academic instruction for pre-schoolers.)

 

If you choose not to take that route (and that's fine), I would simply look for a phonics-oriented spelling program in another year or two, and work from there. If she's decoding well, you can simply work on the phonics rules required for encoding. And if she's missed anything along the way, she'll likely figure it out at that time.

 

But don't assume there will be problems because she's picking this up quickly on her own. While I'm a strong proponent of phonics, the fact is that learning to read is a little messy, and most of us didn't learn with any single "pure" philosophy. We learned letter sounds and patterns, we picked up some sight words, we learned some chunks of words, we misread a few things here and there, and eventually we became fluent. If she learns to read well now, but you discover a few small holes as she's learning to spell, you can address them then.

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My second child taught himself to read at 3. He is now 6 and is an excellent reader. He figures out large words with no problems. He can figure out larger words before his older brother can. He is also a terrific speller. I have never offered him formal instruction. He just knew how to read and I've let him do his own thing.

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I read fluently before I started school, and recall it being similar to what your daughter describes (and, yes, I have trouble describing processes that I find natural, like reading). I was fortunate in 1970s public school to have teachers that permitted me to read or gave me a book during the class time spent on phonics.

 

My second daughter could read when we started kindergarten at home. She is now 8 and reads fluently, even aloud.

 

Neither of us has had any struggle with decoding unfamiliar words. (I sometimes have trouble with words my brain identifies as French when they're not, as far as pronunciation.) In fact, I did try to pursue phonics with her, early on, and it was disastrous. I think people who are self-taught probably just "intuitively" understand letter sounds, if that makes sense. It's difficult to articulate something that is intuitive for you, but the process is probably the same.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, just give her new books to read and help with odd words that pop up.

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I'm a self-taught reader and mom of a self-taught reader. We're both lousy spellers!

 

I don't know why I'm a lousy speller and I really don't know why I thought that coming to spelling through osmosis would work for my daughter but it didn't. I thought that b/c she's a voracious reader of excellent literature (and not) and b/c we study latin rather intensively it seems sometimes, somehow correct/accurate spelling would just creep into her head w/o effort.

 

It didn't.

 

Now in 5th grade we're going back, back, way back into some beginning spelling. She says she feel "somewhat ridiculous" reading adult books but doing "baby spelling." Still, she does like the spelling and sometimes says that knowing some of the rules, et c. is liberating.

 

So, my advice is not to assume that a precocious/voracious reader will naturally come to spelling.

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I have two self-taught readers. They were wizzes at phonics. They could do phonics worksheets in their sleep. So we didn't waste much time on it. I did, however, provide spelling instruction for many years.

 

One of them is a good speller, the other is not. I don't think their teaching themselves to read has any relationship to their abilities to spell.

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I agree - don't borrow trouble. My oldest taught himself to read. He seemed to just know how to read. He couldn't explain it. However, this did not translate into spelling, so we used a phonics-based spelling program to help him get that part. He has been reading at post-college level since before 7th grade.

 

I agree, exactly the same here with my eldest. She's an excellent speller now but we used phonics-based spelling through her elementary years to get her there.

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I was a self-taught reader and don't have much trouble spelling now. I definitely puzzled out phonics rules. I remember the day the word, "island," snapped into place for me. We were in the car, going past the Long Island Arena, and I shouted out, "OH! S CAN BE SILENT!" I used to think things like, "Sometimes et at the end of a word means ay, too," when I was forced to suffer through what I considered incomplete and dumb phonics lessons. From kindergarten through fourth grade one of my pet peeves was that no one had ever taught us that et at the end of a word can say ay. Okay, I guess I'm still a little annoyed. :lol:

 

If your daughter is giving you anagrams, she is guessing. But that doesn't mean that's all she's doing. She may be sounding out words that seem new, and "recognizing" (or thinking she does) words that she knows she will commonly encounter. All good readers get to a point where they do that, fast readers picking up a phrase at a time instead of a word. It's human nature to try to speed on to that point, and I wouldn't discourage it. Just say, "Oops, try again," and that will should cue her in that she needs to start at the beginning and sound it out.

 

I think your instincts are right. Don't butt in. Wait until she's older, then re-assess. She will no doubt continue to surprise you.

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Most self-taught readers pick up the phonics by noticing the pattern while they're reading. Phonics is always a good idea, but I wouldn't use a typical early phonics "learn to read" program. By next year, she may be advanced enough to be bored by such a program... and she may rebel and whatnot. (Our oldest did this.) However, there are good phonics and spelling rule-based spelling curricula out there. If you wait a few years and notice that she's not picking up the phonics and spelling rules the way she picked up reading, you could use one of those programs.

 

Our experience: ds pretty much taught himself to read, though I insisted on using all of HOP with him. He didn't learn anything from it that he hadn't already figured out on his own. He did rebel, though, and complained, refused to focus on the lesson, etc. We never did follow through with much of a spelling program (tried Spelling Power for months at a time two/three years, dabbled in Sequential Spelling for a few months...). He's a good speller, but I think it's because he just remembers how to spell the words he's seen. He *can* sound things out, so he's not functioning with a deficit due to lack of phonics and spelling instruction.

 

YMMV of course!

:)

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