Can anyone's 2 year old read?

[Jimjams]

I have a horrible suspicion that ds2 (2 years and 1 month) is reading a number of words. I've tested him a few times and he keeps getting them right. I am NOT happy about this- and I have NOT taught him aything- the last thing I need is him showing signs of hyperlexia. (linked to autism blah blah- elder autistic brother could read odd things at 2 as well- although ds2 seems to be able to recognise more than him).

So please someone tell me your totally normal, completely normal with no social or language problems was abe to read at 2 years and one month (or younger - I've been trying to ignore ds2's "ability" for a while).

He shows no other signs of autism btw- speech is very unclearbut he's talking in sentences and his language is fine. Very sociable, copies. I just panic occasionally that he's going to regress.

So go on reassure me- someone else must have a young child with excellent pattern recognition skills who isn't autistic.

I could read words at two. My parents are still ridiculously proud of me. I could read things off menus, like sausages. I'm not autistic, honest! But I stil read obsessively. I do not have good pattern recognition skills at all - I test very 'female' in that department. But I could definitely read words at two and books (eg Oscar Wilde fairy tales and even encyclopaedias at four).

Like CD though, it all evened out. Actually, from my parent's recollection, I was 'reading' odd words long before two. My A level results were only average though.

I don't think you're being fair on Mumsnetters, Singingmum, plenty of mums would have been proud to have Jimjam's apparent 'problem'. But I know what you mean about the paranoid anti-learners. I accidentally went to a "Steiner" toddler group a few weeks ago. I read their leaflets and completely didn't get it. They seem obsessed with preventing the terrible harm that they perceive can arise out of a structured learning environment, or something like that. I didn't get it, anyway.

There's a school of thought that says it can suppress other skills and/or put them off structure for life if you introduce it too early. That's Steiner philosophy, not mine - I don't know. I didn't want to start ds at schoool at just turned 4, because he's a boy and should be running around, learning through play and being creative at that age and he just wasn't ready. Some are ready, some are not.

Zebra not being harsh just pointing out that I have read a lot of posts along those lines.
As for the fear of an unstructured education I'm a home educator and structure is not a word I would use for my monsters ed.My son often won't do a damn thing in certain subjects and other times won't stop can become increassingly harrasing this is why I believe in encouraging any talent etc that is shown.
Maybe I have just looked at the wrong posts.

I love Steiner schools Their view is one that you do things in a certain order- so there's no point trying to write until you have mastered certain fine motor skills for example.

Zebra you are right about not getting het up- its just hard becuase I don't know what normal is. I see very few normal kids iyswim. I think the reading thing gets to me as it was something that ds1 did. Ds2 also lines stuff up, but that doesn't bother me at all as ds1 have never lined up, so despite the autisticness of it- its not a bad memory. I'm not making much sense. I think dinosaur described it better earlier. It's a fleeting moment of panic.

Anyway nice to know its normal for some kids. Recently I supervised my son on a reception trip to the farm. I was stunned to find out that none of the kids could out their coats on entirely by themseleves. I'd always thought that ds1's inability to do it was a dyspraxic thing. It was very nice to discover he was almost age appropriate.

And yet again I'm in complete agreement with Droile

Also, studies show a reverse effect with very early teaching - children who are very early achievers often do worse in the end than children who start later. Remember all those child prodigies who don't amount to anything? That's not so unusual. It's not an argument for supressing learning, but for being very relaxed about it I think.

I found this:

"Children suffer' if singled out as gifted

By Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent

07 September 2001

Children who are labelled as gifted by their ambitious parents are more likely to grow into unhappy adults than equally bright pupils who are not singled out, a study over 27 years has concluded.
Many gifted children who were fast-tracked through the exam system were not allowed to develop "in a balanced way" and some endured "real suffering" while growing up, Professor Joan Freeman of Middlesex University found.
Parents who identified their children as gifted were often trying to use them to pursue their own dreams, her research concluded, and gifted children often adopted a posture of "defensive boredom" that could "eat into their happiness and achievements" in later life.
When reinterviewed earlier this year, many so-called "gifted" adults, now in their early 30s, said their greatest regret was that their parents had ever labelled them child prodigies. The experience had a lasting impact on their social skills and career choices. Boys tended to choose scientific or computing careers that required little social contact, while gifted girls were more likely than their equally able classmates to give up their careers and devote themselves to their children.
The study, which began in 1974, compared the lives of pupils whose parents joined a society for gifted children with equally talented students whose parents were not members, and with pupils of average ability.
Professor Freeman selected 70 children aged between five and 14 whose parents had joined the National Association for Gifted Children. Each child was matched with two pupils who were in the same class at school and were the same age, sex and came from similar homes. One had the same IQ as the gifted child, while the other was selected at random. The children were re-interviewed in 1984 and again this year.
"Gifted" children were less likely to fit in at school and had fewer friends, Professor Freeman found in the study, being presented today at the British Psychological Society's education conference. They were more likely to suffer from "nervous" problems such as insomnia and poor co-ordination..
But while parents believed their offsprings' problems were due to their talents, Professor Freeman found this was not the case - the children with identical IQs had few difficulties fitting in. She found that children labelled as gifted tended to have "unusual family circumstances" and that their parents were more likely to have separated or moved house often.
"The mantle of giftedness laid on these young shoulders was seen to have had repercussions," Professor Freeman said. "Sometimes their parents tried to live vicariously through them, which was a hard act for the child to live up to every day. For any children, emotional problems could follow from such circumstances ... But for them [the gifted], their difficulties were often mistaken for the anticipated 'symptoms' of giftedness."
The idea that the gifted were bound to be "odd" was common among parents. Well-behaved children who simply did well at their lessons were far less likely to be identified asgifted. Boys were twice as likely to be thought of as gifted than girls.
Professor Freeman also found that the parents of gifted children were different from those of other pupils. Although the mothers of each trio had been educated to the same level, far more of the gifted children's mothers had high-level jobs, and yet they remained more dissatisfied with their own achievements. Mothers and fathers of gifted pupils said they put more educational pressure on their children.

I remember reading that Aloha. I think your previous post summed it up. There's nothing wrong with early learning (which after all is what play is) - just something wrong with early pressure to learn. (That's why I personally hate all those baby flash cards- what on earth is all that about? One of my best friiends has sets of them- I find it completely bizarre I'm afraid)

agree about the flash cards - it just makes me think of that little girl in the film Parenthood - being taught advanced maths and japanese.

not guilty of baby flashcards! From my own experience the "gifted" thing, causing problems rings true. My problems were exacerbated by my "giftedness" not leading to me being a great all-rounder, so I was encouraged not to bother with things i didn't immediately do well in from a very young age. I rebelled at 17 by turning down a place at Oxford and then dropping out for a year. I went back to uni and had DD in my final year and now do a not very well paid, status free job. my dad is still gutted. I'm quite happy though :0

It's the aspect of hurrying that I think bothers me. I am proud as punch if ds learns something new, so I'm not being holier than thou (I hope), but some people (not aimed at anyone here BTW) who believe that teaching things at age two will give a huge advantage to a child, when actually, they could learn them at age four, or six, and be on exactly the same level by that stage. Earlier is not necessarily better, and very young children often educate themselves best by just the stuff most parents do - ie sing, read books, take them to the park, have a chat. I am 'guilty' of teaching my son stuff like his letters because I really enjoy it. I do have to tell myself that it's really not important yet though

Aw, thanks jimjams!

I agree, aloha, that earlier is not necessarily better. One aspect of this was the stuff I said on the 'walking home from Beavers' (or something) thread. My mum let me roam the west end of london at a ridiculously early age, but it gave me no advantage over my friends who didn't. I suppose that once you've learned a skill, you can't always 'super-learn' it. There are limits.

I think the absence of pressure is one of the most important things of all and my ds seems to be very sensitive to that. If he suspects I'm 'teaching' him something, he shuts off. It's really hard to show him things - I have to creep them up on him in cunning disguises.

This thread has an interesting debate, but I'm going to lower the tone to amusing anecdote, because it reminds me of something my cousin did.

The three of us were out at a restaurant, me, my cousin & her 21 month old son. We finished our main course and moved onto a whole discussion about pudding. She and I discussed the fact that he likes ice cream, and she would probably ask them to make up an ice cream for him. A waiter came over and handed all three of us a desert menu, saying to each of us "would you like desert?" So I wasn't surprised when the child started saying "ice cream, ice cream." However, my cousin got overheated, "wow, he can read! He has actually read that it says ice cream." And this story got retold over and over whenever we bumped into other people.

This story just makes me laugh - it is not intended to snub anyone (although it does go along beautifully with that article of aloha's) - I just think it's funny!

But Jimjams that steiner thing seems crazy. Surely different kids develop different skills at different ages.

Do you mean that they hold children who for eg may be naturally good at/interested in reading or writing until they have mastered something else which may not be their strong point? That seems restrictive and not allowing children to do what comes naturally to me.

Eg I am total butterfingers with most things. My brother could build meccano towers aged 2 but could hardly say a word, whereas I could talk and read fluently at that age. So what would happen to us under the Steiner philosophy?

Dd could recognise all her letters well before she was 2, at about 20 months. She would pont out letters as we went past them. She had memoriesed several books and was word perfect in them (and I do mean perfect) at the age of two. She would 'recite' them as I read them. She could also recognise her name and point out other common words. She began to realy read before she was 3.5. She is NT!

Remember that memorisetion and pattern regognition kick in a lot earlier than true reading. She has a vast vocabulary and now at 7 she has a reading age of 10.4. It is just what she is good at. And she is NT, so try not to worry. If anyone would have spotted the signs by now, it would be you.

dd 2.9yrs will read a book thing is i realised she memorises the words as we read them that ofeten maybe thats what yours is doing jimjams????

memorisation! Sorry! And having read the thread I didn't push her, honest! It is just the way she is. Some kids walk early, she spoke and read early. To balance it out, she is rubbish at sums!

My son shocked us both at about 13 months when he casually read out the names of some capitalised letters on his toy box. We couldn't believe our ears, as neither of us had done anything to promote the display. We suspected my regular viewing of Countdown may have had something to do with this. My son is now almost three, reads phonetically easy words and shows no discernibly worrying traits (other than a mild attraction to Carol Vorderman lookalikes).
My younger son, at 16 months, has yet to bring forth his first word, let alone read.

I can relate to the patten recognising at two thing - both my sons aged around 2 could pick out a Mcdonald's 'M' in the very far distance - tesco, sainsburys, action man, hotwheels - any logo that interested them got imprinted on their brains.

Well my ds twins (26 months) read books, or rather they pretend to. God love 'em but they sometimes hold the book upside down while "reading" to each other.

Although their speech isn't great (still doing that twin secret language thing!) I have noticed they do recognise letters and numbers but whether that is more memory...? I certainly wouldn't push them as I think they are children for such a short time, enjoy it!

By the by, I could read by the age of 3 - don't know what I was reading but according to my mum I could read quite well. I was an only child, I was bored!

Aloha and all.... I am reassured now
DS - 4yo and 3 months can NOT count to 10 (well at pre-school they say he can count to 12), he can't recognise any number or letter except his initial.... he has JUST started writing his name.... but I am not worried - he is good verbally, speaks some French too and does many other things.... but sometimes I wonder...

But DS did say to a friend of his... "let's go read this book"... friend replied "I can't read", DS: "I can..." and did some pretend reading... DS loves pretend play
He pretends he is me..... interesting!

Jimjams.... no my kids could not read at 2

I honestly think it all evens out by six or seven. Some kids will read more/enjoy it more than others, but I don't think there is any evidence at all that the 'head start' persists throughout life. My friend's enormously bright little girl couldn't read or write anything except a few letters and the odd little word like her name and cat and dog when she started school in January but she's learned so fast she's racing ahead of her age set for words learned.

CountessDracula- I think (but I haven't read the philosophy behind it in detail) that Steiner studied child development and noticed that it went in stages. He talks about things like it moving from the concrete to the abstract- and felt that children shouldn't learn to read until they could understand the abstract. This apparently happens when their milk teeth fall out (!!- ok it gets a bit crazy here).

Personally I like Steiner early years as I think its a no pressure childhood. It consists of fairy stories (which have to come before stories of things like vikings!), making soup, acting out plays- in class not to audiences, and gardening. When more academic work is introduced at around 7 movement is still used in teaching.

Children can be children. As Droile said "I didn't want to start ds at schoool at just turned 4, because he's a boy and should be running around, learning through play and being creative at that age and he just wasn't ready." A Steiner school would allow that. Having said that I think maybe they do get a bit OTT about reading (for example we looked around our local one and the children aren't allowed to wear clothes with writing on the front). And it does tend to be terribly wholemeal. If it was an option I would probably still send ds2 as I think the benefits outweigh the negatives (no education system will be perfect). Unfortunately for us logistics rules it out.

Pupuce ds2 does that a lot. Actually ds1 used to do that as well- it must of been one of his few instances of pretend play.

This thread has been very reassuring. So thank you for your responses. Luckily he's completely cack handed at puzzles so I don't need to worry about that