Precocious Readers - Blog 5

www.parent.com

My daughter, now a junior in college, taught herself to read before she was 3 years old.  Born the month before I turned 35, she was a much longed-for and awaited child; I loved being a stay-at-home mom and seeing the world through her eyes.  I like to talk, as anyone who knows me will confirm, and she became my audience during the long hours her dad, a sergeant in the Army, was at work or deployed.  When grocery shopping I would ask her if she would rather have the green broccoli or the yellow corn; never mind that she was 3 months old and couldn't answer! 




Roger B. Francis branch library
 http://sjcpl.lib.in.us/rbf/
 

Reading is one of my greatest pleasures and I read to her from the time she was 5 months old and could sit on my lap, held steady between my arms.  We started going to the Roger B. Francis branch library in South Bend, Indiana, once a week for "Lapsit" story-time when she turned 15-months; the youngest age they would allow children to attend.  After story-time we would go over to the children's section, plant ourselves on the floor, and spend upwards of an hour looking at the books and making our choices as to which ones to check out; usually 20 at a time.  It was during one of these book "banquets", just before she turned 3 years old, that I discovered she could read. She was sitting on the floor next to me, looking through a book I knew for a fact she had never seen before, let alone looked through or that I had read to her, and she started reading it aloud.  It was a kindergarten-level storybook and she only stumbled over a couple of hard words like zucchini!  I was absolutely amazed. 

She hadn't spoken any earlier than any other child I knew, but once she started talking, her vocabulary had seemed to grow exponentially.  I had kept a list on the cupboard door of the new words she said every day so I could share it with her dad when he got home, but after a week or so I gave up, I was spending too much time running to the kitchen.  Needless to say, I was wondering how she had done it!  While I had been reading to her for several years, and she had been attending story-time, I had never attempted to "teach" her to read.  There was one instance, on one day, with one page of one book that I had pointed to the words as I was reading them, to show her the
correlation between the two, so that she would know that the book was "telling" me what to say.   However, as soon as the thought popped into my head I realized it might be too much; she was too little, she had plenty of time to learn to read, don't turn it into a lesson, don't make it "work", keep it fun, so I pulled my finger back.  After thinking for a few days about how it may have happened, I realized it was probably the "Wee Sing" books and tapes I kept in the car. 

http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com

From the day we brought her home from the hospital she hated her car seat.  I don't know why, it was brand-new, it had lots of soft padding, the fabric was warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  I tried various toys to distract her, but none of them worked for more than a few minutes.  Then I remembered the Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies book and tape I had gotten when she was just a couple of weeks old.  I only knew 2 or 3 lullabies at the time, but because I cannot read music, nor sing well for that matter, the lullaby books I had found were useless to me.  Until, that is, I found "Wee Sing", it had the book so I could learn the words and the tape so I could try and approximate how the song should sound - wonderful!  I liked it so much that several months later I picked up "Nursery Rhymes and FingerPlays"; I kept the tape in the car and we would sing along when we were out on our errands.  One day, when she was about 18-months old and being particularly crabby about her car seat, I turned the book to the page with the song we were listening to, handed her the book and pointed to that song on the page.  It was just to distract her, to give her something to keep her busy. I thought she'd turn the pages, and not finding very many pictures, within 5 minutes she'd either hand it back or throw it on the floor of the car.  She didn't - she loved it and she seemed to know when to turn the pages even though there was no sign given when it was time to do so.  We went on to get many more "Wee Sing" books and tapes; Silly Songs, America, Campfire Songs, and Dinosaurs, to name a few. 

I firmly believe that because she could see and hear the word at the same time the concept of reading "clicked" for her.  Add to that the fact that she listened to the songs over and over while in the car where there were no distractions.  But all I have is a mother's intuition, I wanted proof.  Therefore, in order to create this blog, I had to work backward.  I wanted to write about how a child for all intents and purposes taught herself to read; I started with the hypothesis and did research looking for my proof. I have spent hours looking for articles, hoping to find something scientific that would explain how it happened, what connections in the brain made it possible to happen?  I found several articles about hyperlexia, but my daughter does not have some of the other symptoms such as sensory integration dysfunction, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) , motor dyspraxia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and/or seizure disorder.  Additionally, I found a great many blogs by parents and teachers about precocious readers they know or have known and many, many sites where one can learn "how to create" a precocious reader.  However, I found only one that addresses the scientific aspect; Reading with Young Children, a report published by the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.  Authors, Drs. Nancy Jackson and Cathy Roller, state, "Literacy development begins very early as the 2- or 3-year-old child acquires a broad base of knowledge and skills in the context of a wide range of activities and experiences. Learning to identify and print letters and words are important parts of beginning to read and write, but early literacy development also encompasses learning about the nature of stories, the characteristics and functions of print, and the sound patterns of oral language.''  However, they conclude with, "The reasons why some children become precocious readers are not well understood."

So, even though I'm no further ahead in understanding how it happened I sure had fun doing the research!