How were you taught to read?

[KrissiK]

I taught myself to read before I was in kinder. But the schools used a phonics program. I still remember sitting there "blending" thinking it was a total waste of my time and why wouldn't they just let me get at the books.

[jelbe5]

I went to Catholic school where phonics was taught. I was a bit of a late reader and struggled. My parents purchased a portable cassette player/recorder (they were new for the times) and my mom made books on tape for me to help me. I still remember the day where everything just clicked and the letters formed words I could read. It was a very happy day.

[momofsbandeg]

I began learning to read 35 years ago in kindergarten using sight words.

I didn't learn spelling rules or phonics rules until I was in college working on my teaching degree.....sad, but true. No wonder I struggled with spelling as a student. ;)

[violingirl]

I don't remember learning to read, but I do remember feeling like the adults around me were holding back this great secret when it came to this "reading" thing.

 

Apparently I begged to learn to read when I was 3 and my mom told me to go be a little kid and play. I started figuring it out for myself when I was 4 so my mom decided that if I was going to do it I might as well do it "right". So she started using the Victory Drill Book with me and says I was reading with fluency within about 6 weeks. I've used the same copy of the book I learned to read with with both of my boys. :)

 

This was back in the mid-80s and my mom had planned to homeschool me anyway. We just started a bit earlier than she had intended.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

I learned in kindergarten IN California in the early 90's. All sight words and no phonics. I am a fast reader but a TERRIBLE speller. And I can't pronounce words I've only read. I am learning phonics alongside my kids (yeah for homeschooling!) I do not want them to be handicapped like I was.

[radiobrain]

I taught myself to read when I was 2. Real books. I just did it. I was reading at probably a college level by the time I went to pre-K. I was not taught a thing. I don't remember what other kids were taught as I was probably reading Watership Down under the piano (my favorite spot in PK). I think it was a combination of my family surroundings, genetics, a great photographic memory (although I hear that doesn't exist), and the fact that I just figured out the code naturally. I have no memory of even thinking about it. Ever. Let's just say, my school didn't know WTH to do with me.

 

I was also a good speller. I could always tell when something was wrong because of how it looked. I only recently learned anything about spelling and phonics as I have one slow reader who is also a horrid speller. All of a sudden at 41, I'm like..."Oh. That makes sense! I never knew that!" I live in a bizzaro world. ;)

 

I also never had a problem pronouncing things, or figuring out meaning. The context always helped my with the puzzle. Sad that I peaked at the ripe old age of 4-5.

Edited March 17, 2012 by radiobrain

[JustGin]

I taught myself at age 4 and was reading well by K, so I don't remember how they taught in K, but I do remember in 1st grade being incredibly bored because we had to read the Dick and Jane type readers and I was not allowed to opt out even though I was by then reading chapter books. :glare: Oh and I do remember leveled reading groups in 3rd or 4th grade, but I don't remember which one I was in. I'm guessing whatever one was for kid's who read waaaay above grade level. My mom used to tell a funny story on me. Apparently when they did school readiness testing at the beginning of K they held up a picture of an orange and asked me what color it was. I came back with "It's round, it's orange, it IS an orange and it's spelled o-r-a-n-g-e. " :lol: Guess I wanted to make sure all the bases were covered.

[ssavings]

"Whole language", circa the late '80s. Heavy on sight words, no real phonics at all.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

don't really remember---I remember there was some kind of phonics program in either grade 1-2 that you listened to things through headphones and there were little card like things to go with each story/lesson.....that's all I remember....

[Lovin Learnin]

I know I used Dick and Jane in first grade. I also remember having lesson in phonics in third grade, but I remember that being something new at the time. So I'm going to say I was initially taught sight reading but they followed up with phonics.

[6packofun]

Doing Bill Cosby's Picture Pages with my mom and, after she taught me the letter sounds, being told to, "Just sound it out!" ad nauseum. LOL So after the letter sounds I was kinda on my own and I did just fine. I was held back (wrongly, IMO) from K because of my age and so when I started it was SO boring. The teacher made me her little helper because I already knew how to read. :(

[Remudamom]

I don't really remember, but I bet my grandma taught me using phonics. She taught kindergarten for probably 50 years, public school and then she started a private kindergarten (this was when Alabama did not have K.)

 

She says I came to her with a book when I was four and started reading it to her. She said "you just have it memorized" then I started reading the words on the page backwards to her and she was convinced.

 

I don't know if I believe that.....my grandma, bless her heart, was convinced I was perfect ( and she was a casual lier....) but it makes a good story.

[kubiac]

Gosh, I wish I knew how I learned to read!

 

My mom says I knew the alphabet before kindergarten (public school in southern California in 1982), and that they wanted to put ahead to first grade because of that, but my parents refused.

 

I remember asking the kindergarten teacher how to "spell the alphabet" and she looked at me like I was a nitwit, but I was sure that there was an underlying spelling to the letter names. I could picture what I thought the letters would be spelled like, and it was something like: "Ay, bee, see, dee, ee, eff, gee..."

 

I remember was in the red reading group in K--I have one memory of being with two other kids and Mr. Apple (?) at a table by the window on a rainy or very dark day. I guess there was a workbook involved, but don't remember a thing about it.

 

And then the next thing I remember, I'm in first grade, and I wrote a little book about a princess, and I was corrected by my teacher for improper formation of lower-case "d" (I didn't pick up my pencil properly between the stick and the ball).

 

The time between kindergarten and first grade when I must have learned to read and write is a complete blank! For what it's worth, I have absolutely no structural knowledge of the language, everything I know is based on memory, instinct and reading a billion books. I've worked as a professional writer, an editor and a copy editor, but I've always just understood the language without knowing who to articulate the "rules" of grammar, spelling, phonics, punctuation and so forth. Public school totally failed me in that respect and I hope to do better with my own kid.

Edited March 18, 2012 by kubiac

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I don't remember learning to read. I think I just picked it up from my mom reading to me. My mom did read to us a lot, and I remember reading easy books before kindergarten. When I was in 1st grade and my sister was in preschool, I taught her how to read using our Cat in the Hat dictionary.

[MidwesternMom]

I learned because my parents were teaching my older sibling when he was in kindergarten, and I was always hanging around. My mom used the "method" of covering up the pictures on the page with a dish towel so that we couldn't get clues, and having us sound things out.

[Pretty in Pink]

My mom taught me to read before I entered kindy. She just sat me down with random books -- Dr. Suess, Dick and Jane...and taught me to read. I guess it was a combination of sight words and phonics, but she focused heavily on having me sound out words.

[angela in ohio]

One of the two kindergarten teachers in our school was using a "new" (:lol::lol::lol:) method called Phonics, and my mom had me changed into that class. She had already taught me to read using picture books and the phonics she knew from school. I thank her all the time for that! :D I'm pretty sure the book we used in school was plaid phonics, too.

Edited March 18, 2012 by angela in ohio

[justamouse]

I have no idea? And, English would have been my second language at that point, too, so I'm surprised I can't remember. BUT I'm betting it was phonics, because I naturally taught it to my kids a they started learning to read.

[tntgoodwin]

Sight words as a preschooler. First book I memorized/read was Jog Frog Jog. Then in Kindergarten reading the letters my dad sent me when he was stationed away from us for a year.

[*Inna*]

I taught myself to read when I was 4 by following along with my mom when she read to me.

Same here.

[SweetandSimple]

My mom claims that she taught me to read using The Cat in the Hat!

[OnTheBrink]

My dad read to me all. the. time. He had a speech impediment and reading Dr. Suess aloud to me helped him overcome it. I picked up reading from following along and later, when he was studying for his Ph.D, he'd give me sections of text books to sound out. I had no idea what they meant, but I could read the words.

[PeacefulChaos]

Well, I could 'read' before I started school - at least, according to my grandma. :) I was 4. And it was sight words, most likely, based on her recollection of it - that I would/could read her the books that we read all the time. Started as memorization, obviously.

But I switched over to phonics at some point, because that's what I did automatically as I got older and things became harder. I really don't remember 'learning how to read'. I just remember always reading. :D

[misidawnrn]

I learned how to read at age 4. I vividly remember the grocery store having Seasame Street books if you bought so much groceries you got the book for that week for 99 cents. We were dirt poor but obviously had to buy groceries. I remember going every week and getting a different book. I can't remember how many in all but probably 20+. I also watched Seasame Street. I turned 6 in Novemeber of K year and knew how to read before K. I don't know if it was phonics based or not. In 3rd grade I got to go to the 5th grade class to read during reading time. In fact I got to go to Mrs. Schlect's class and she is my neighbor across the street now. This summer we went to a neighborhood picnic at her house and she remembered me from 30 years ago!

[littlebug42]

I could read at age 4 on my own. I have no memory of being taught to read in school. I remember the first book I could read on my own was "Yogi Bear and the Colorado River".

[Heather in Neverland]

I remember Dick and Jane and that's it. I don't even remember what grade it was that I learned. I have exactly 3 memories from kindy and about 6 from first grade and that's all. Maybe I have memory issues?

[Isabella]

I don't really remember how, but the first I remember reading words is looking over my older brother's shoulder when he was learning to read. He used to sound each word out slowly, and I would just call out the word. He would get so mad, and my mum would tell me to go away! I'm sure I was very annoying! :tongue_smilie:I guess I was about 4 or 5, because my brother would have been in 1st grade.

[Photo Ninja]

I don't remember the actual learning process, but I learned to read very quickly in first grade, probably because I had been asking for someone to teach me since I was 4 yo, but no one would. My teacher used phonics. I remember because she said she was supposed to teach with the sight reading method, but she refused. She was almost ready to retire and refused to change from phonics because she said that she knew phonics works. So the other first grade classes learned sight reading, but my class used phonics. We still read Dick and Jane, though. I remember that, and thought it was way too easy because I could read it all in one sitting, but I wasn't allowed to. We sounded out words.

 

I remember being in my second grade class and realizing that all the kids in the highest level reading group were from my first grade class. The kids from the other first grade classes were in lower level reading groups.

[LizzyBee]

We didn't have kindergarten yet when I was 5, so we learned to read in 1st grade. We learned a combination of phonics and sight words. We read Dick and Jane books, but we were also taught how to sound words out, the blends, etc. My younger sister's teacher got mad because her class wasn't catching on to phonics and stopped teaching it, so my sister didn't learn phonics. She complains about that still, because she has trouble even figuring out enough of a new word to look it up in a dictionary.

[fraidycat]

I'm pretty sure I was taught with phonics of some sort. I don't remember all of the reading lessons, but I do remember learning short vowels first, and I still know the "rules" that I've now learned are only partial rules such as the silent "e" jumps over the consonant and bumps the vowel on its' head and makes it say it's own name or "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking and says its' own name".

 

We also didn't learn to read in Kindergarten. Academics started in first grade. Kindergarten was for learning count (for those who didn't know), learning to tie laces, playing at the sand table, fingerpainting, learning the alphabet, and NAP TIME (full day, every second day because we rode the bus from the farm).

[AuntieM]

I remember the Dick & Jane books, and I remember having a phonics workbook even as late as the first half of third grade, but.... I don't remember ever *not* knowing how to read. I don't remember learning - I remember being presented with sight words in first grade but as far as I can remember, I could always read.

 

Hmm, I have two kids that were very early natural readers. Maybe it runs in the family? I'll have to ask my mom, now I am curious!

[LucyStoner]

Hooked on Phonics worked for me!

 

I was not reading after 2nd grade (age almost 8- I am a July baby) and my mother ordered HOP and taught me over the summer. By 5th grade I was accelerated in reading.

 

I don't think I was not learning because of the type of instruction. Many people on my family tree on my dad's side just up and start reading at 7 and 8. My schools did phonics and whole word instruction. Nothing clicked till that summer.