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How old were you when you learned to read?

Pinker85

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Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
914
Older. Dyslexia supposedly. It took three years in special education with flash cards to learn, it's entirely possible had I not gone through special education I'd be illiterate today. I still have moments I look at words and they don't make sense, also I will read things odd because of how I learned to read which is taking visual things and attaching sounds. Ex: pan (a frying pan image) and cake (something delicious to eat) so I read pan-cake as a frying pan and cake, or very literally as a cake shaped like a frying pan, then it becomes a pancake when I realize the two words go together, this especially happens when tired. So I will read a word and be like, this sentence doesn't make sense ... Then I'm like, oh yeah those two words go together to make another word. Also I'm a feeling thinker, I can go for a long while without having words in my thoughts, I think in feelings (physical sensations that also connect to a non-physical space, the non-physical space guides me in my life decisions) and impressions, like swirls then *ding* out pops a thought, and visuals. I don't really like reading, it's super linear ...
 

Raspberry_rain

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Apr 28, 2015
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84
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ENFP
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4w3
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I learned to read when I was three and nobody's ever been able to get me to put a book down since! I read the Lord of the Rings series when I was five. My parents were both teachers and I was an only child when my mom started teaching me so I was able to learn quickly. Writing was a disaster though. My handwriting was completely illegible until I was 11 no matter what my parents and teachers tried.
 

fetus

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Mar 22, 2015
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Four. Started in pre-kindergarten. I remember getting so frustrated and overwhelmed. My mom had to cover up every other word on the page just so I could get through one. It was just so much for me! One of my clearest memories of learning to read was having trouble with the word "knit." I just broke down into tears.

The summer before kindergarten is when I really took off. I was mostly proficient by then, and always scored very high on reading tests.
 

Andy

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Nov 16, 2009
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1,211
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why so late?

A combination of learning difficulties and poor early schooling. I might have suffered from dyslexia, but I was never tested. In any event, I didn't understand my first lessons in reading and writting, so when they moved on to more advanced stuff I couldn't follow that either. The teachers rolled on with their lesson plan and I got left behind. I really needed someone to go back to the begining with me and start again, but no one did.

Instead, my teachers had this stange and inexplicable idea that my problems related to a lack of time spent colouring in. As I recall, they thought maybe the problem was hand-eye coordination, so they put all the thick kids in a corner and gave them colouring books to fill in while everyone else was learning. Condescending bastards. Even in primary school I could see it for the bullshit it was. The experieence left me with a lasting distate for the act of "colouring in".

The headmistress seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with finding the next Alyd Jones and morning assessblies involved an awful lot of singing. Pitty she didn't put as much effort into making sure we all had the required basic life skills.

Anyway, by the time I reach high school I was functionally illiterate. I could spell my own name and also the word "look" because I had memorised what order the letters came in, but that was about it. Fortunately, the teachers at that school knew what the fuck they were supposed to be doing and arranged for additional lessons for me. I gave up most of my launch breaks for about the first three years of high school while I caught up with what I should have learnt years ago. Of course, it's hard to say exactly when I became competant at reading, it's a gradual change really, but 14 is about right. I then spent the rest of high school trying to catch up with what I'd missed in the first two years because I couoldn't read any of the text books I was given at the time. I did alright in the end. I got seven decent GCSEs, then went on to A levels and university, so I got over my bad start in the end.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
and what methods were used?

I was thinking about this and how I was a late reader, despite not being dyslexic nor having any other reading disability. I didn't learn until I was around 7 and a half. And it's interesting because my brother who's 2 and half years older was the one who taught me, And he simply told me to sound it out and showed me how to. No one had ever told me to do that before, and I picked it up really fast. Maybe they did and I wasn't paying attention. But no wonder I didn't start reading til late no one had ever just simply said "sound it out" I had memorized books around 5 or 6 and would say I was reading but the thing is i'd stay on the first page and just recite. Of course once I learned cuz it took awhile compared to my peers, I would read every billboard we passed, because I was so proud

Older than that, I could read by the time I was eleven, although not very well, like I never really independently read a book or took any interest in reading.

It has a massively inhibiting effect on learning as a whole, I was not even the worst example of it that I remember at school, but I got interested in, possibly strangely, owning books and then reading when I was twelve or thirteen after seeing a friend who had a collection of books, like a small library, he didnt think much of having accumulated books over birthdays and occasions for years but I thought this was amazing.

Before that I had read some choose your own adventure or fighting fantasy books, the game book gimic really, really worked for me in terms of motivating me to read, also some of the illustrations in the books, which I remember to this day, in a way that the other sorts of reading did not appeal to me. In part that was because I thought pages and pages of script were off putting, now I love that kind of thing.

I've a real problem with books now, I own way, way, way too many and am constantly thinking about how to get rid of them or how to maximise my reading, ie instead of reading a few chapters from one, I'll read a few chapters from a couple different books, cut down on screen time to read etc.
 

prplchknz

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 11, 2007
Messages
34,397
MBTI Type
yupp
A combination of learning difficulties and poor early schooling. I might have suffered from dyslexia, but I was never tested. In any event, I didn't understand my first lessons in reading and writting, so when they moved on to more advanced stuff I couldn't follow that either. The teachers rolled on with their lesson plan and I got left behind. I really needed someone to go back to the begining with me and start again, but no one did.

Instead, my teachers had this stange and inexplicable idea that my problems related to a lack of time spent colouring in. As I recall, they thought maybe the problem was hand-eye coordination, so they put all the thick kids in a corner and gave them colouring books to fill in while everyone else was learning. Condescending bastards. Even in primary school I could see it for the bullshit it was. The experieence left me with a lasting distate for the act of "colouring in".

The headmistress seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with finding the next Alyd Jones and morning assessblies involved an awful lot of singing. Pitty she didn't put as much effort into making sure we all had the required basic life skills.

Anyway, by the time I reach high school I was functionally illiterate. I could spell my own name and also the word "look" because I had memorised what order the letters came in, but that was about it. Fortunately, the teachers at that school knew what the fuck they were supposed to be doing and arranged for additional lessons for me. I gave up most of my launch breaks for about the first three years of high school while I caught up with what I should have learnt years ago. Of course, it's hard to say exactly when I became competant at reading, it's a gradual change really, but 14 is about right. I then spent the rest of high school trying to catch up with what I'd missed in the first two years because I couoldn't read any of the text books I was given at the time. I did alright in the end. I got seven decent GCSEs, then went on to A levels and university, so I got over my bad start in the end.
Interesting i was in special ed from 1st to 4th grade then again in 7th and 8th and was diagnosed with a learning disability i wonder if i had never been tested if the same thing would've happened to me. Maybe there were trade offs for getting bullied for being in it though didn't seem like it at the time
 
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