Define 'reading' for me please

[1dilemma]

So we had the 'my child can read before he was 2' again today and it got me thinking. What do people mean when they say this. War and peace?. I would say it is able to say the letter sounds consistantly, sound out new words (simple ones) and string together both old and new in a simple story. Obv. don't have to be perfect. What does everyone else think? Any teachers out there, how many children can read before they start reception? Anyone aware of evidence that says that if you can read before 2 you are Einstein in waiting?
Thanks

lol christywhisty read that as ds didn't really get reading until he was age 2

both my boys have 'cracked' reading sometime in Y1 - before that they could read very simple books but it was a laborious, painful process. Once it clicked however, progress was rapid - e.g. ds1 turned 6 at the end of Jan when he was still struggling with books with one simple sentence per page. Less than three months later he could pick up the paper and read "US marines fifty miles from Baghdad" with no prompting or help at all. They're now both voracious readers.

DD (4) is interested in reading, and will often sit down turning the pages of a book and will recite her favourites word for word - but she's nowhere near decoding words and I'm not bothered as long as she's enjoying the process because I know that it will happen - and it'll happen faster if she's not pushed into doing it

I'm with those who don't see a close correlation between early reading and educational attainment.
My ds was well into yr 3 (7+ yrs) before he began to really get the hang of it. He liked being read to (the dh was useful here) but that was about it. He then started looking at computer magazines (7-8yrs), moved onto Jackson and Livingstone books(9yr), next onto Horrible Histories(10yr) and then he was away!
(Bragging alert) he went on to have an extremely high A in his A level and will read anything.
I reckon reading is developmental and children will (mostly) get there in the end.

Ds is very amusing. He is in year 6, loves being read to, doesnt especially like reading. But oh what a find I have had, not sure I should eally pubically admit this but here goes. Like a lot of parents/carers I spend loads of time hanging around waiting for Ds, so I normally have a copy of Ahlan (our local version of Hello) in the back of the car to pass the time with and DS reads it from cover to cover and spends all our car journeys enlightening me on why Paris is going to jail, why Robbie wants to make a rap album and so on. It absolutly creases me up, and we do have some very good conversations about how silly some of these celebs actually are, always good for that PSHE conv. lol.
Honestly reading will come, I never thought it would and I sure as anything didnt expect it to be this. And today he has just come home asking for a certain book from a series. Hooray!!!!.... so pleased the day finally came.
Good luck

Oooops should have read publically not pubically. Taht will be the large glass of vino talking and not my inept typing fingers.

I have met a 2.5-year-old who could read. And by read, I mean, read multi-syllable words in a book he hadn't seen before. He was sounding words out but quickly and well. The first few times, I thought he was just going from memory, but that clearly wasn't the case.

I could read by 3- by which I mean pretty much anything put in front of me, including, on one horribly memorable occasion, the front page of the Times as a party trick for my father's business associates. My mother says I just wanted to, she didn't really have to teach me.

I do agree that it is an infinitisimally small number of children who are able and willing to do it that young, and it certainly doesn't make us better people. In fact I really wish I'd spent less time reading and more time socialising and climbing trees- I might be able to keep up with my children in both mediums.

ps: still don't reliably know my alphabet beyond the letter N, as my mother insisted on keeping having babies and didn't have time to teach such crucial stuff once I started school. Obviously I must know the sounds though...

I do like Springbunny's definition, I must say.

DD is almost 6 and an excellent reader.

Before she started FS2 she could write her own name very badly and "read" ie recognise things like the car badge, Barbie McDs etc. ie not read at all.

Some of the children in her FS2 year could read ie yes genuinely read some words before they started. They are now really good readers. But I reckon they would have been anyway even if not taught it by their eager parents or themselves. Dd is doing fine tho. Don't worry about it.

I could read at 3. I'm certainly no Einstein.

I think einstein started reading very late, actually. And couldn't talk until he was 3. He had trouble in school and his parents were told he was an academic failure.

Katelyle, my daughter was like yours. She could speak in full sentences at 12 months and didn't walk until 19 mo. Unfortunately all her sentences involved commands and demands..."I want my milk now. Put it here!" She is now 4 and is clearly bright, but by no means more advanced than most of the other bright children at her school. And frankly I think that her academic ability is more a product of personality and hating to be wrong or last than pure genius. I was very much the same way as a child. I got straight A's in school and was taking math classes several years ahead of my age group, but not because I had a particularlay inate ability, but because I was diligent and did all the homework and then scoured the library for extra problems to practice on.

I agree with Springbunny
I also feel that being able to read means being able to decode a word you have never seen before. Memorising a list of 100 commonly used words or asking how many words a child knows is not reading IMHO.
In New Zealand the whole pre-school thing is based on play with absolutely NO teaching or learning of letters. The deputy head of his school told me that they like children to be able to use a pair of scissors, hold a pencil and get dressed independently when they start school - not all at the same time obviously - - and that being able to read at the start of school is not that important.
DS started school on his 5th birthday being able to write his name. He is one of those 'lucky' children that cracked the code as soon as it was explained to him. By 5 and a half he could read pretty fluently. By 6 he could read any word put in front of him because he knew how to use phonics to crack the code.
He is 7 now and has a reading age of 10-11 but although he is pretty bright I don't think his reading ability makes him brighter than others IYSWIM?

On a further note, I started school in the UK at 6 and a half. I couldn't read. I had been in kindergarten in Holland. Didn't have a clue. By 7 I could read. I have degree and was a primary school teacher for 10 years, I now run my own business.

When a child learns to read has no bearing on intelligence ... IMHumbleO ... If a child teaches himself to read at 3 or whether a child is taught at 7 (like in many European countries) is irrelevant as by the time they are 11 it all matches up anyway - for those who don't have any sn issues that is ....

DH didn't learn to read to read until he was 12because they insisted on teaching him "Look and Say" which is based on word recognition and no phonics. He ended up with top marks in the country for an engineering management diploma.

My DS could read a few words before he was 2, and read quite well (phonetically) before he was 3, but like gess' DS, his speech is behind. His brain is wired to learn spoken languages like an adult would learn Japanese, slowly and laboriously, not quickly and intuitively like a noraml child. He usually learns new words by seeing them written down first.

I could 'read' at two apparently. Although what my mum meant by reading I couldn't say as her method involved Peter and Jane books and flashcards. All I remember was starting school and having to do the same boring Peter and Jane books all over again even though I already knew them backwards.
DD1 was an early reader and is still ahead of her peers - she is 9 and has a reading age of 13.
DD2 is 7 and still moves her lips reading simple chapter books. She asks MUCH more interesting questions than DD1 - found myself explaining all about X and Y chromosomes to her yesterday.
Reading ain't everything.

I could read before I went to school - I went at 4.3 and had been reading a good while before then and was learning to write when I went - I can clearly remember sitting on the floor and trying to make the shapes from words I could read and getting very frustrated when I couldn't.

DS1 learnt the alphabet (in capitals) from Countdown in the weeks after DS2 was born - he was 21mo then.

By the time he was 2.2, he was recognising logos reliably - Homebase, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Argos, Fifi Flowertot(!), B&Q, PC World, Boots - if we'd been in the shop, he knew the logo. When he was 2.4, we went on a 2.5 hour car journey and DH laminated him a sheet with shop logos and makes of car on to entertain him on the journey spotting the different places - he loved it!

He's 3.1 now and knows the lowercase letters as well as capitals and can recognise his name. He loves "touching the letters" at the end of TV programmes - will go and stand and watch the letters scroll between his fingers.

He has access to books all day, he likes reading them, we read to him (not as often as we ought, probably, but fairly regularly).

But he can't read - as others have said, to read you need to be able to work out a novel word, not one you've memorised. He just likes words, logos in particular. I'm sure if I'd spent hours teaching him, he'd be able to read by now, but I can't be arsed and he'll learn soon enough!

I went to school during the look and say method being popular and it was a fine way to teach me, because I didn't need teaching. I could spell words I'd never heard or seen before - I've almost never made a spelling mistake in my life, just because I "know" when a word looks right. It means I've always done proof-readery jobs because I find them very easy - I can scan a page of text and the spelling mistakes are almost circled in red as I skim it.

Just don't ask me to do long division I think I got too many language genes and NO number ones!

I think that there are several components to reading. Its more than just decoding or memorising words.

A child who can read will be able to read an unseen piece of text without help from pictures or parents. They will be able to understand it. If a child comes across a word they have never seen before they will have some strageries like decoding for working out what the word says.

However writing varies a lot in difficulty. A child with a reading age of five or six might be able to read a simple sentence without out help, but they would not be able to cope with a newspaper article.

I think the main thing is that a child has the reading skills to cope with secondary school, by the time they are eleven years old. A child with a reading age of less than nine years old is going to struggle with the demands of secondary education or even adult life.

Thanks everyone I feel a little more secure that we have made the right decision not to push it prior to school

'If you ask a child what 'to read' means he will not have a bit of the trouble that 'experts' like Goodman and Smith have with the definition. He will answer you very simply. To him, to read means to be able to say the words on the page in front of him. If he cannot say the words, he KNOWS he cannot read!' G E Rodgers. Why Jacques, Johann and Jan CAN read.