Age for reading

[Desert Strawberry]

I'm trying to get a little perspective. 

 

Beginning reading=sounding out words with or without prompting. 

 

Reading fluently= chapter books or early readers for pleasure or with minimal assistance. 

 

Please choose the appropriate option for each of your reading children.

 

ETA: You may choose more than one.

[Gil]

I have two kids and both were young-readers but one of them went through the beginning reader phase and the other didn't read until he was reading fluently--he deferred to me or his brother to read for him until he had it 'down' then he just started reading whole pages of text.

[Crimson Wife]

It may seem like most HSers are early readers, but nationwide only 3% of entering K students can sound out simple words and only 1% are fluent readers.

 

Early reading seems to be a driver of HSing rather than the other way 'round. My oldest taught herself to read at 3 and by the time she was old enough to enter K she was reading Narnia books. I knew I couldn't put her into PS where kids are learning their letter sounds and maybe reading BOB books by the end of the year.

 

My 2nd learned to read at 4 and was reading Magic Treehouse books by the time he was old enough for K.

 

My 3rd turned 5 in January and while she knows her letter sounds, she's not yet reading. She may wind up needing more intensive reading instruction like Barton or Wilson because of her LD's but as those are expensive and she's still young, I'm not ready to start that yet. If she's not yet reading by the time she enters 1st in fall 2015, then I'd look at starting Barton or Wilson.

[JustEm]

My 5.5 year old started reading at 3.5 and is now fluent. My almost 4 year old started reading about a month ago. I think she will not pick it up as easily as her brother but only time will tell.

[Dmmetler]

I'm another who is HSing because my child was early developing academically (she tested at the level a local private school expected their exiting K kids to be at at age 2-and that was without her completing the test and one memory I have was her being very frustrated at age 3 because the kids wouldn't play Magic Treehouse or Magic School. Bus with her (her wonderful preschool teacher started showing the kids who stayed for extended day MSB videos so they'd have a clue what DD was talking about-at the time, you never saw her without a book from one series or the other in her hands). At age 5 we gave up-it just wasn't reasonable/possible for the teacher to teach 3rd-4th grade or even higher content at a K motor skills level while also teaching 23 other 6 yr olds (and by that point, a lot of her pleasure reading was books like "Archaeopteryx:the evolution of feathered flight"-definitely not typical kindergarten content, even in a private school!).

 

If she hadn't been so far ahead, it's unlikely we ever would have even considered homeschooling.

[strange_girl]

Oldest started reading before 4, and was fluent by 5.

 

Middle is beginning to read adequately at 4.5. Has not achieved fluency yet.

[lexi]

Oldest dd - started at 4. Fluent before age 6. She's a great reader and it happened almost overnight.

 

Ds - still beginning reader at age 6. Very slow process for him.

 

Dd 2 - beginning reader at 4.5. Might pass up big bro.

 

Wow! My kids have all been very different in the reading dept. but teaching my son is agony for me because it is so slow. He's great at math though! 😊

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I could only vote once, but here's how it is going for us:

 

ds- started at 3.5, fluent at 6 (reading 3rd+ grade level) - very easy to teach, very linear progression

 

dd- Knew her letter sounds at 2.5, began reading at 4, stagnating now...  she's 5 and reading at a slow 1st grade level.  - short attention span, hard to teach, leaps then stagnates, leaps then stagnates.

 

Amazing how different two children can be!  I actually think my dd would do better with a sight reading program, but I want to finish out the year with PP.  After that, we may just do pure McGuffey readers, which mix phonics and sight reading.  We'll see!

 

 

[Trilliums]

Older child:  Beginning reading around age 5 and stayed at that stage until age 9 when fluency (above the lvl for his age) developed within a short time frame.

 

Younger child: Seemingly knew how to read from birth.  My kids are close in age, so for a few years, younger child was a stronger reader than older child.

 

Now they are teenagers and both have strong critical reading skills.  Older child has opted in enroll in honors LA classes and probably AP LA next year.  Younger child (early reader) has opted to enroll in regular LA classes b/c honors LA resulted in stress.  Age they learned to read doesn't seem to relate to their reading and writing skills as teens.

[RootAnn]

Except for dd#3, all of my readers were 'late.' And my exception is an average age reader. I'm glad we homeschooled because my two older ones would probably have been labeled, shunted into remedial classes, and would consider themselves dumb with regard to reading. (One does think she's dumb with regard to math, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.)

 

DD#1 didn't gain fluency until just-turned-8. DD#2 was 9 before she was fluent. Both are now avid readers.

DD#2 "average" - started at 5 & gained 'fluency' around 7. While she reads well, she isn't super-interested like her older sisters.

DS#1 is just starting to learn to read at 6.

DS#2 is not interested in learning to read at all at 4.

[Lori D.]

Two DSs here; one average in reading, one with mild (stealth) dyslexia which manifests mostly in spelling and writing, but a little bit with reading. We read aloud for hours a day all through their growing up, and reading of good books/classics (both aloud and readers), a large part of their homeschooling.

 

DS#1

~ 5-6yo = started reading

~ 7-8yo = fluent (at grade level)

~ 9-10yo = reading became enjoyable / found books he liked to read

• reading was NOT an early strength; rather, his early strengths were in the areas of verbal language, math, and logic

• as an adult, he reads some for pleasure, but not a lot

 

 

DS#2

~ 7yo = started reading

~ 8-9yo = fluent (at grade level)

~10-11yo = reading became enjoyable / found books he liked to read

• the "3Rs" were NOT an early strength; rather, his early strengths were in the areas of visual-spatial learner strengths -- creativity, imagination, outside-the box thinking, strong sense of 3-D, puzzles and problem-solving

• as an adult, he reads some for pleasure, but not a lot

[Random]

My boys seemed to follow the pattern of sounding out words around age 5, then not reading fluently until age 9 or 10.

 

My girl was sounding out words at 4 and is now 5, and is almost a better reader than her 8 yo brother.

 

I only voted according to my boys, since my 5 yo is not yet fluent.

 

Like RootAnn, I'm glad we homeschooled just so my boys avoided thinking they were dumb/behind. 

[a27mom]

I made a leap and assumed my 6 y/o will be fluent in the next 5 months since she is nearly, but not quite there.

 

My 6 y/o started sounding out words around 4 and made great progress until it came to actually reading more than one big line of print. We discovered she had a vision issue which was only just resolved a few months ago. She is making great progress again, but her confidence took a big hit when she was struggling, so she won't pick a book and just read it though I think she could. I am hoping that with the summer reading program, when she will be required to read her own books, will motivate her and show her how well she can actually read.

 

My 4 y/o started sounding out words when she was 3. She started reading easy readers with fluency in the last 2 weeks. She does pick up books now and read them for pleasure, though she has not started full chapter books.

[8filltheheart]

I didn't bother voting since you can only vote once. I do not teach pre-school. So my kids start K learning letters and sounds.

 

Starting w/my oldest, down to my current 2nd grader, all started learning to read in K except for #2 (my Aspie who was way too ADHD to sit still for K and we did zero K and started school when he was actually in 1st grade.) So, below is when they were fluent readers:

 

#1=end of 2nd

#2=end of 1st (even though he started 1st learning his sounds, by the end of 1st, he could read Charlotte's Webb)

#3=end of 1st

#4=end of 4th-beginning of 5th (severely dyslexic)

#5=end of 1st

#6=end of 1st

#7=end of 2nd (she is currently reading me Charlotte's Webb)

 

Eta: I am defining fluent as on a solid 3rd-4th grade reading level. A pt when they could pick up books at lower reading than Charlotte's Webb (which has a lexile of 680/ reading grade 4) and read independently with comprehension.

[MistyMountain]

It may seem like most HSers are early readers, but nationwide only 3% of entering K students can sound out simple words and only 1% are fluent readers.

Forums like this always skew my perspective and make me worried. I have seen a stat like that before but it is hard to believe it when so many people talk about their kids doing things so much earlier like it was nothing.

[rebbyribs]

Early reading seems to be a driver of HSing rather than the other way 'round. My oldest taught herself to read at 3 and by the time she was old enough to enter K she was reading Narnia books. I knew I couldn't put her into PS where kids are learning their letter sounds and maybe reading BOB books by the end of the year.

 

Well, I guess we're the opposite - late(-ish) reading was a major reason we started homeschooling.  DD's school was using a "whole language" approach for reading, which was not working for her.  I found out when DD's teacher mentioned that I really needed to be practicing her sight words with her.  As we'd been faithfully doing so 2x per week without any problems, I was taken aback.  It turned out that DD wasn't able to recognize the words in books during class time.  When I asked her about it, she explained that she knew what the words on the cards were, but the words in the book "could be anything".  I ditched the sight word cards and started doing phonics instruction with her after school (using Reading Eggs and BOB books at first, and later Progressive Phonics and OPGTR).  By the end of the summer she was reading at a late 1st grade level, so we decided to pull her out of school and keep going for this year.  Last week, she started reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon on her own for fun.  :-D  (<---- So happy and relieved!)

[Momof3]

Both ds5 & dd4 started reading when 3.5. Both were fluent before 5. Ds is an auditory learner, and he preferred for me to read to him until almost 5yo. Dd is very visual, and has been a very independent reader for a while (she just turned 4 in January). My toddler likes to sing the alphabet...and he *begs* to learn his letters. There're plenty of other things to learn for now, though. :) I plan to start him going through Alphaphonics when he's 3.5. 

[poiema]

Ds#1 started reading at 2, reading grade level 1-2 at 3, reading grade level 3 at 4 years old. Reading for pleasure almost immediately.

 

Ds#2 started reading at 3, reading grade level 1-2 at 4, grade level 2-3 at 5. Reading for pleasure maybe not until about 4 or 5 years old.

 

Both are quite capable of reading chapter books, but would rather read picture books or nonfiction, so I generally need to assign any chapter books. Unless you count books like Geranimo Stilton. They will happily read those kinds of books. They are currently 6 and 8.

[Sherry in OH]

Ds1 – starting to read at age 4, fluent by age 6

Ds2 – reading at age 3, one day he announced that he could read and thoroughly irritated his brother by reading aloud a page of one of his books

 

[HS Mom in NC]

My oldest started learning to read (single letter sounds) at 4.  She could read fluently like an adult at 5. 

 

My middle started learning to read (single letter sounds) just before her 8th birthday.  She could read fluentlly like an adult at 11ish.

 

My youngest started learning to read (single letter sounds) at 6.  She is 8 and is a very solid reader, but not fluent yet.

[poiema]

"Early reading seems to be a driver of HSing rather than the other way 'round. My oldest taught herself to read at 3 and by the time she was old enough to enter K she was reading Narnia books. I knew I couldn't put her into PS where kids are learning their letter sounds and maybe reading BOB books by the end of the year."

 

I don't know how to quote on my phone, but I just wanted to say that we decided to homeschool for same (and more) reasons as Crimson.

[Butter]

Kid #1 - Learned to read at 4, reading fluently at 5.  She got really into reading at 7.

Kid #2 (has a language based learning disorder similar to dylexia) - Learned to read, well, starting at 5, but it took 6 months for him to be able to remember the word "the" so I can't say he actually learned to read at 5.  He reads fluently now at 12, or at least as fluently as he ever will.  I'd say he was reading fluently about 10ish.

Kid #3 - Learned to read at 5.  Reading fluently at 7.  He went from not wanting to read much at all to reading all the time and went up in reading level by a couple grade levels in a matter of a couple months.

Kid #4 - Learned to read at 5.  He is 5 now.  He can read without sounding out, but he's still on little stories, no chapter books yet.

[Wabi Sabi]

My oldest was 5 when he started sounding words out, but was closer to 8 before I would've considered him a fluent reader.

 

My youngest also started sounding things out at 5. She just turned 6 and isn't quite fluent yet, but well on her way. I imagine she'll be reading first chapter books before the end of summer.

[Papillon Mom]

My daughter started learning her letters and sounds at 6. She had a terrible speech delay that made learning letter sounds very difficult. I didn't fill out for fluency because I don't feel my 8yo is there yet... She doesn't read for fun. She has read Little House in the Big Woods, Charlotte's Web, The Courage of Sarah Nobel and some others but she reads them aloud to me and needs encouragement to keep going and help with some words. She reads slow but mostly because she doesn't enjoy it and is slow about all things she doesn't like. She tested at the beginning-ish of 3rd grade level on the Stanford Test a few weeks ago. So, is that fluent? It's a matter of opinion.

[SierraNevada]

Ds began reading at 2.5 and was fluent just before he turned three. It was all completely self taught. (Defining fluent as-- handed him a brand new book we'd never read before, The Lorax, and he read the whole thing without stumbling on words, and reading each sentence with emotion.) He has been an avid reader since. Now at six he reads easily on a middle school level. And yes, it was one of the reasons we homeschool.

[MinivanMom]

#1: Sounding out words at 5, fluent at 5, could read anything at 6.

#2: Sounding out words at 5, fluent at 6, could read anything at 8.

#3: Sounding out words at 5, fluent around her 6th birthday, is reading at a Magic Treehouse level now at 6 and 1/2.

[boscopup]

#1: skipped the sounding out CVC words stage and suddenly started reading mid-first grade level at 4.5. Was comfortably reading at a mid-2nd grade level 6 months later.

#2: could sound out CVC words at just turned 4, but just started reading at a first grade level at 7.5. Is not quite fluent. I suspect he might be 8 when he becomes more fluent. It's been a long, slow road from sounding out to reading.

#3: sounded out CVC words at a young 3, started reading at a mid-first grade level at 4.5. He'll be 5 in a couple months, and he's fluently reading Magic School Bus books and such with emotion and fairly quick reading.

 

Oldest didn't start chapter books until first grade, due to stamina. He was reading at a 4th grade level at that point. Youngest is not yet doing chapter books, though I could see him doing Magic Tree House during his K year next year. He handles picture books with bigger words and long sentences just fine.

[srs]

My oldest was reading simple words at age 5, but then got stuck with her visual developmental delays for awhile. Then she figured out how to compensate for it (she moves her head to read when her eye muscles start getting tired), and she jumped several grade levels and I consider her a fluent reader. She turned 7 this week.

 

My middle just surprised me by starting to read the first BOB books at 4.

[ElizabethB]

My daughter, 3.5 and 5.

My son, 5 and 9.

 

Both learned their letter sounds at 2, the start age was when they were successfully blending. Learning the letter sounds improved my son's speech, my daughter was speaking clearly already at 2.

 

I have 20 years of practice teaching phonics and did nothing different with the two of them, my son just needed much more phonics repetition. But, he is ahead of where my daughter was at his age in math and physics and chemistry. He also knows more about gears and 3D instructions than both my daughter and I, but not quite as much as Dad yet.

[Melissa B]

All four of my kids were/are average aged readers. None of them learned to read until 6 or 7. None of them were fluent readers until 8-9. One of the many reasons we decided to homeschool was the fact that I did not like my eldest dd's kindergarten teacher trying to force her to learn to read before dd was ready. :) 

[alisoncooks]

Hmmm.  My oldest started sounding things out at late-5 or 6.  Was still sounding things out at a beginning level at 7.  Who knows when we will hit fluent...

 

Youngest, sounding things out at as a  young-5.  I anticipate a quicker progression with this child...but we're still in the midst of it.

[bluemongoose]

DD: Sounding out 2.5yo. This was the age she asked me to teach her to read. She somehow learned nearly all the letter sounds on her own before this and wanted me to assist her in putting them together.  I had not worked at all on this with her as I had a very difficult newborn at this time...needless to say, I was shocked.  I then spent a few short months with her and she was reading chapter books independently by 3.5yo. Well before she turned 5 she could read anything you threw at her...aloud and with emotion. She reads constantly. She is the reason we started this homeschooling journey.  

 

DS: Sounding out at 5 able to read (doesnt like to) now at 7yo. He still says he cannot read, usually because he thinks reading is poison. He can read books at the Magic Tree House level. This is also my kid who is very smart, but struggles with focus. He can pull out some crazy hard words, but he struggles to get through a whole story.

 

DS2: Sounding out at 3 able to read early readers independently now at 5yo. This kid is ambitious and competitive, I see him catching up to his brother quickly and reading for fun soon.  

 

Baby DS: is now 2 and is interested in reading, but is not yet making letter sounds in connection to letters independently.  He understands that we are reading from the words on the pages. He likes to use his finger on the words. He likes to do letter flash cards where we tell him the letter name and sound it makes and he says it back. He has seen the leap frog videos a couple of times. We shall see.

 

Honestly mine are all very different!

[Soror]

Ds didn't start reading any until close to 7- fluent around 3-4th grade level around 8

Dd has started reading at 5ish and now nearing her 7th b-day is starting to become fluent. I expect that within the next year she will be reading well. I'm really expecting it this summer.

[happypamama]

DD -- started sounding out words before 4, was fluent by 4, was able to read chapter books at 5

DS1 -- started sounding out words at about 6, wasn't fluently reading until 7 but progressed very quickly and is more willing to push himself to read harder things than DD was

DS2 -- he's 5.5 and is starting to sound out words, though the sight word method is actually more successful with him right now.

 

ETA: We had planned to homeschool long before we even had children, but for both of our older children, we're really glad we kept them home. DD would have been bored out of her mind in a public school classroom, and DS1 was really not ready to do any academics until 7. He really just needed some extra time to be young, but when he was ready -- BAM, he was ready. DS2 is the first child of mine that I could see doing okay in a classroom setting, but we are glad to keep our little bundle of sunshine home with us (and being the middle child, he gets the biggest range of social interactions here at home -- he alternates between being one of the big kids and one of the littles as he needs).

[freeindeed]

My kids cover a wide range. My oldest read at 4, fluently at 5. My older daughter read at 5, fluently at 6. My younger son read at 7, fluently at 8. My special needs daughter is unable to read at this time.

[Jackie]

Early reading seems to be a driver of HSing rather than the other way 'round. My oldest taught herself to read at 3 and by the time she was old enough to enter K she was reading Narnia books. I knew I couldn't put her into PS where kids are learning their letter sounds and maybe reading BOB books by the end of the year.

 

 

This is us. My about-to-turn-4 year old hasn't gotten to Narnia yet, but is comfortable with early chapter books and Magic School Bus. I realized a while ago that even if we could persuade the school district to begin kindy a year early for her, it would probably be a very good fit socially and a very poor fit academically, so we decided to homeschool.

[hepatica]

While super early readers get talked about a lot around here, the more votes you get in the poll the more homeschoolers look pretty much like the general populous when it comes to reading.

 

Will be interesting to see if that trend holds.

[Roadrunner]

I have no recollection when they started reading, but my older son was reading fluently in K (Narnia type books) and my younger was reading Magic Schoolhousr type books by 4. I attribute early reading to Leapfrog videos that we received as a gift. From where I come from nobody exposes kids to the alphabet before the age of six.

[Mergath]

My dd started sounding out words before four, was doing easy reader and simple chapter books at four, and can read Harry Potter type books at five.

 

We had decided to homeschool before she began reading, but knowing that she's quite a bit ahead of where a normal K class would be definitely helped solidify our decision.

 

 

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

My kids were fairly early readers, I think.  My older son started reading at 3 and was reading small chapter books in Kindergarten.  My younger son was reading by late 4 and was reading first readers in Kindergarten and small chapter books in 1st grade.  Reading is so individual, though.  There are factors which help, like being read to at an early age, and exposure to books, but some kids just aren't ready until they are older.

[My3girls]

Dd12- beginning at 5, fluent by 7

Dd9- beginning at 5, still working on fluent at 9 but getting close

Dd7- beginning at 5, fluent by 7

[lewelma]

I, personally, had a much longer time period between emergent reading and fluent reading. 

 

Emergent reading: age 5

Fluent reading: age 12

 

Both of my kids were 5 and 6 respectively.

 

 

[Desert Strawberry]

While super early readers get talked about a lot around here, the more votes you get in the poll the more homeschoolers look pretty much like the general populous when it comes to reading.

 

Will be interesting to see if that trend holds.

 It looks like we have a very nice bell curve for fluency.  Enlightening and reassuring.

[Guest]

I don't think my sons were very far apart in age and ability for decoding.

 

One didn't start reading for pleasure (although he did read at grade level for school and loved read alouds into his early teens) until he was twenty-one and had already joined the military, bought his own alcohol, and paid for his own car with his own paychecks. The other has laughed with delight since the first time he could read a word, even though he's quite aways from being able to pick up a chapter book to read it independently in the same spirit as clicking on the thumbnail of a .avi or playing Minecraft.

 

My daughter learned the alphabet in kindy, words and then easy readers from the library in first grade, and I spent more money keeping her in Babysitter's Club books than I did on my car when she was in second and third grades, if I remember correctly. She's my Journalism major now.

 

I'm not sure if I fall within the realm of normal, but I have never been diagnosed on the ASD or shown any other symptoms than hyperlexia, and I can't remember not knowing how to read but do remember having chapter books taken away from me in kindy because I was reading them (fluently and for pleasure) when I was supposed to have been learning my ABCs with the other children my age.

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

I started reading early.  Maybe 3 1/2?  Not sure.  Definitely before 4.  I cannot consciously remember a time when I wasn't reading.  But my husband and both of my kids are dyslexic.  DD13 started emergent reading at about 2nd grade.  She didn't actually get fluent with reading at grade level until this year.  But her reading is really improving daily now and she reads books several hundred pages long.  Even a year ago that seemed an impossible task.  DS10 is finally reading fluently at near grade level this year as well.  Still not caught up with big sis, but definitely there.  However, when listening to audio books or reading books that have the audio, too, comprehension has been way, way above average for DS since he was very little.  So we do a lot of Kindle Fire Immersion Reading here.

[Mama Geek]

I only voted for the top one.  Dd turns 4 in June and sounding things out pretty well.  We are slowly working our way through phonics.  She is making great progress in my opinion.  I voted age 3 for starting to read.  I don't know when she will be fluent.

[kiwik]

Ds7 couldn't read when he started school April at 5 and could read magic treehouse etc by November. Ds4 started to read at 3.5 but hasn't really got much further. He starts school in a few weeks and it is my guess he will take off then.

[Seeking Squirrels]

Dd started reading at 3 and now at 5 is reading magic treehouse easily. She reads pretty much everything that crosses her path.

[fdrinca]

My oldest wasn't interested in learning until he was 5.75 years old. Within a few months (6 - 9) he realized he was reading fluently. It was surprise for him when he realized he could "read anything except those foreign words." 

 

My next reader wanted to read earlier and is teaching herself through some brute force. It's not as elegant as her brother, who was ready, but she's not discouraged yet. She's not fluent. She makes a lot of guesses and forgets some basic phonics rules at times, but she's happy in her mistakes. 

[Tanikit]

Both my girls began reading before they were 3 and had started trying to sound out words shortly before 3. My eldest took off between 3 and 4 and was reading Sonlight's grade 2 reader's by the beginning of kindergarten moving through the grade 3 readers (early chapter books) throughout kindergarten. By the end of kindergarten she could read Harry Potter, but she still prefers to read to me. My youngest turned 3 in February and is an early reader (can read very early readers with help and sound out basic cvc words and blends. She also has a large sight word vocabulary).

 

I still am not sure what I call a fluent reader however. My 6 year old does still need some help with some words - usually vocabulary issues. She is certainly more than fluent at the grade level she would be in at school, but fluent at a 6th grade level of reading - less so.