Can 2 year olds read?

[spritesoright]

A friend told me today that her DD, age 2.3, is beginning to recognise letters and read. Apparently she managed to read "pasta dishes" from a menu.
My DD is the same age but doesn't recognise any letters, let alone read words! Is this normal? Can other 2 year olds read?

Goldmandra, I wasn't going to bother to reply to Ferguson, but neither you or I were lying. were we?
DD could read Dr Seuss when she was 2.3 and equivalent texts, was onto Roald Dahl by 5. Tested at 6, had a reading and comprehension of 16+

The difficulty was her comprehension matched her reading, but her emotional maturity was of a much younger child. So sometimes she read stuff she couldn't handle.
Hyperlexia is not the norm though.
Ferguson has probably not encountered it.

Some people only believe what they have experienced first-hand, and they might see hyperlexia as a form of boasting by the parent, MN is often quite competitive on the parenting front.
But combined with AS or HFA, it's a very tough issue sometimes. Not something to be smug about.

Some can in a fashion, but I think its rare, there was a thread on the G&T board about this sort of thing a while back & seems it can be a sign of avert bright DC.

I do think that its probably more a good visual memory though, than real reading per se, mine certainly recognised words at that age, even to the extent of appearing to read one of her story books, much to the amazement of our friends that she read to - but she had memorised the story & the words & knew the sounds that went with the picture in the same way she would know a picture of a cow went moo, IYSWIM - she couldn't string letters together to form words until later.

I read very young too, but I do have a photographic memory, well I did once upon a time

Should have read - Read one of her books to friend, she memorised all her favourites even younger than 2

RockingAround - I have a photographic memory too, which I expect helped get me started with reading. But I certainly could read properly before I was 3 (we're still friends with my Montessori teacher from when I was that age and she likes to tell how amazed she was at how fast I picked it up).

I also remember getting in trouble the day of my first communion (so, just turning 7) for reading The BFG in one sitting and not talking to any guests at the party. There has never been any indication that I am on the spectrum but I am highly introverted and I think reading gave me a great escape from a very young age .

My DD, who I knew could recognise and write her own name, stunned us by spelling out and writing her friend's name 'Oliver' (without the e) when she was 2.6. She was reading Enid Blyton independently on starting school at 4.8. I didn't push her, just guided her. Couldn't have stopped her if I'd tried.

Now 7, she is still top of the class, but a lot of her peers are catching up fast. So - early phonic understanding/reading definitely does happen, but at least in our case may not mean anything for ability later on.

She had never, to my knowledge, seen 'Oliver' written down.

My mum joined a book club when I was two and my uncle taught me to read. I think it does depend on the child, the difference between my three girls is amazing, it wouldn't have surprised me with the first but the second was still a baby, and the third is too busy being a toddler. I taught the second one to spell mummy with bath letters by telling a story about the shape of the letters (I'm on crutches so we say the m looks like me, u is asking for a cuddle, y is having a cuddle and swinging legs).

I do think its more than possible vvv but at 2 I could see with my own DD that her amazing memory helped a lot & fooled many early on, but by 3 she was definitely understanding & linking letters too & reading properly - though her maths skills were even more amazing, counting, adding & subtracting multi numbers before a lot of kids could even talk properly, a lot of people wouldn't believe that either, but she just loved maths & bar some teaching problems of late, she still does :)

I was similar to how you describe yourself as a DC - hid in books from a very early age, rather than interact with others - DD does have a lot of AS type traits, but we've realised a lot are down to a health problem & also normal for very bright kids, doesn't get small mindedness etc (Debrowskis Sensitivities) but as she's always been very sociable & gregarious AS has never been considered - like you I was was very shy as a kid & obsessed with art & science & even though I'm not AS - as an adult not at all shy, I have wondered how they would have seen me as a kid if I was in school today

Some children can read at the age of two. This is reading properly, not Ina fashion and not using their visual memory to recognise word shapes any more than any reader does that. There are two year olds that can read and write properly and effectively in the same way as would be expected in YR or Y1.

My DD was one of them. Because she had all the associated understanding and her AS wasn't spotted until she was 12, it was not identified as hyperlexia at the time but this was suggested by her psychologist later on.

It really isn't that difficult to tell the difference between a child who is remembering word shapes and spelling by rote and a child who can genuinely read and understand unfamiliar text. Some of the comments on this thread are very condescending.

I wish I had videoed my two year old DD1 reading my father's Sunday papers. Properly reading whole paragraphs. That would have silenced the the sceptics.

I could. I knew my alphabet by 18 months, started reading at just 2, began reading voraciously by age 3. Reading adult type chapter books at 5 (James Herriott style). It has not helped me much in life, apart from having a vast amount of useless info in my head.

Ferguson, I'm sure you're right...

I can still vividly remember my father standing me on a chair to read the Times aloud as a party piece for his business colleagues when I was 4.5- just to prove I could do it.

Interesting about the link between early reading and AS. I was aware that there was a link between early speaking and As, but not the early reading as well. I suspect I am on the spectrum but am undiagnosed.

All my children's language development has been very different. FWIW, DD1 began speaking at 7 mo, DD3 was saying very distinct words by 9 mo but I didn't really notice when exactly she started speaking. DD1 does not appear to be on the AS.

My mum was bored at home when she had me in the eighties, and taught me to read using the Doman / flash cards method before I was 3 - it was proper reading, not just picture recognition (though I did have a photographic memory which I lost around the age of 10-12 which probably helped). I was tested entering reception and the school didn't really know what to do with me because I was free reading. I now work in a very book-y job.

Am not on the spectrum though, so hyperlexia isn't always and only a feature of AS (I used to take part in a lot of research studies at university for extra cash, including lots of AS/autism studies, and was regularly used as a control as I'd been assessed as at the very opposite end of the spectrum to AS!)

That's very interesting train.

I guess, like any other aspect of Autism, it is possible to have just that one characteristic in isolation as Autism itself is a pervasive disorder comprising many different traits across all ares of development. Not all of the traits in isolation would be seen as disabilities as such. It's the holistic picture that characterises the disorder.

Dh and his sister both learned to read at 2. (Dmil taught them). Dm taught me (and sibs) to read early too so have grown up with as the norm. My sibs and i have grown up with a love of reading and I was hoping to pass it on. I taught dd just before she turned 3 - she's 4, almost 5 now. Ds is 2.8 and am just starting to teach him. It's all games so dd (and now ds) don't realise they're being taught anything.

I read very young, perhaps 2 but certainly able to read the newspaper at 4, and with no teaching, just people reading me books whilst I sat alongside.

I dismissed ideas that I'd had about my Dad and other family members being possibly Aspergers as we didn't fit so much of what was described a few decades ago. Recently a cousin on my Dad's side had an autistic child who has major problems and does not speak and I'm looking again at my family and now with the more modern nuanced descriptions about I can see some autistic/Asperger traits.

Which is a long-winded preamble to saying the fact my son read early and with no more teaching than I had had does not fill me with smug pride.

I could. I was reading fluently by 4 with a reading age of 16. Obviously didn't understand everything but I could say the words. I still love reading but am not a high flyer or gifted or exceptional in any way!

DS just turned two and loves books, but no, he can't read a word!

Some time between two and three (nearer three) my son knew quite a few letters, but he certainly can't read yet. He might be able to recognise his name. But I'm not exactly a tiger mother. I'm sure there are some children that due to innate ability or hothousing can read at least a bit at that age.

I'm told I could read quite a bit between three and four. Apparently I started nursery at four and they didn't realise that I could read.

I could. There's a photo of me aged 2.5 years moving letters around to make words (spelling rather than reading but I could read from basic books as well).

I was reading quite well by Nursery.

However I've read (lol) that many children don't end up achieving the potential shown in their earliest years, even if they are off the scale developmentally at 2. I had a more photographic memory (apparently) in my early years which massively would have helped reading & writing, but it's shot to pieces now. And while I was quite bright academically all through school & Uni, I stopped being off-the-scale clever at around 6 or so.

Agreed zzzzz, my DD is on the spectrum and had hyperlexia, DS is on the spectrum and couldn't read at 7.
He is now an enthusiastic reader, but that happened around 10 and was peer-equivalent.

If you have "just one trait of autism" you do not have autism. The difficulties experienced by by people with ASD are debilitating BECAUSE of the sum of the individual issues.

Is that aimed at me, zzzzz? If so that is what is was saying. Maybe I didn't word it clearly.

How would you define a trait as opposed to a characteristic recognised as being exhibited by people with the condition? There are many recognised traits of Autism but no one person exhibits all of them.