Can a two year old begin to read?

[ladyofshallots]

My two year old (three in October) has surprised me by reading some simple cvc words such as cat, mat etc. She has known her letter sounds for a while and has a 4 year old sister who can read well and has watched her do jolly phonics games and songs etc. Is this something I should encourage?

Don't agree with hot housing children so young, my other dd is an early reader but just followed her own interests really. I have never really thought it possible for children to read this early, so not sure how to handle it? Has anyone any experiences of this?

My ds could read fluently at 3 and basically taught himself. There are lots of early readers in my family in fact my Dad was featured in the Leicester Mercury after becoming the youngest member of Leicester Central library at just 3. To become a member he read some of the newspaper to the librarian having taught himself as well.

I do remember a friend's child who, by the age of 2 1/2 had taught himself to read and write, could tell the time and he even made up songs which rhymed. He definitely was not hot housed, learnt most from children's telly. Interestingly, he 'dumbed down' around other children, though not mine , as he had already worked out that it wasn't what most kids did.

Both parents were exceptionally bright but, interestingly, mum remembers being very switched off at school and only really getting interested at degree level. She never really 'got' playing and nor did her DS. Would love to know how he's doing now but we lost contact when we moved.

Oh yes, the dreaded age-inappropriate scenario. We had this when DS was in Y2. Despite being phenomenally clever academically, he's probably below his age for emotional understanding - and the stuff he was bringing home was way above his head emotionally/psychologically. The teacher did take swift action when I mentioned it, though, and said he could choose books from the school library with her instead.

Hi everyone,

Just a quick line to say that the flash cards method works! You ca teach your baby to read by flashing him/her some cards with his/her most favorite words. You don't need to spend lots of money! I've started by doing my own flash cards from home and my baby, now 2 years old recognizes his most familiar words and loves reading.

My mother used the Doman's method on myself when I was three years old and at the age of 4 I could read and write! It definitely gave me great confidence in life and I highly recommend to all mums who have 5 minutes a day with the children to show some flash cards!

I'm a big fan of this method! If you want to get large flashcards at a reasonable price, you can google brainyflashcards and start giving your baby an amazing opportunity in life.

Only SOME graffitti superdragon... I can't read a lot of it!!

I learned to read when I was two. The early side of 2.5. My parents videotaped it and make us all watch videos of me reading when they've run out of fun things to talk about. (it happens about once every 4-5 years-- when we finally go to tx to visit).

It didn't make much of difference to my life, I just read a lot when I was bored and I was bored often.

hthxx

although my own 25 month old son isn't really talking. i feel miserable. i'm going to go find some guts and post my own thread sometime soon. watch for it.

Interesting thread. DD3 is 2.7 and whilst certainly not reading is recognising the first sounds of words, and, blow me, blending sounds together when I say them eg "shop", "can", "dog". But she couldn't read these words independently from a book IYKWIM. However, she is growing up in a book-filled house so will probably get the whole reading shebang quite quickly. Will keep you posted...

Yes dd was recognising words at this age, she taught herself to read and could read pretty much any word by 5.

Oh eandz, please please post that thread. After my dd, who was an early and good speaker, bright as a button etc. I had ds1, he was a very late speaker and was around your son's age before he really started saying proper words. We had appointments with speach and language etc. He was diagnosed with mild/moderate receptive/expressive speech delay.

Honestly shortly after his first appointment (he was saying a few words then) his speech really exploded. He is 4 (just) now, and probably no where near as fluent as advanced girls his age (for eg my dd). But he is doing great, and don't take it as a sign that he isn't bright.

My ds1 asks very intelligent questions, taught himself numbers etc. Despite my Dp writing him off "as the thick one" grrrrrr. Early development is good, but doesn't tell you everything.

My DD1 2.3 knows her letters phoneticially and can spell and recognise a few words, like cat, dog, bag, ball.

We too dont force this, she seems to have a lust for learning.