Okay, so tell me about "teaching himself to read"

[Holiztic]

So when a 3 year old (3y10m) teaches himself to read, so to speak, is it sight words or phonics or both, at first I mean?

DS has just started sounding words out, on occasion, or trying to spell them, with limited success.

Lately:

Saw PULL on a handle and said "Pell" (not so clear on vowel sounds)

Heard DH say mess and said "mess has two s's at the end"

Heard me spell "S-I-C-K" and said "Did you spell 'sock' Mommy?"

Tried to spell his friend, Alex's name with wood letters, tried E first, then I emphasized the short A sound saying "A-A-Alex" and he grabbed the A, got the L and E and then tried to grab the K until I said it's aleX like EXcited, and he grabbed the X.

He hasn't yet sight read a single word--which is fine with me, for now.

But I always assumed when a young kid taught himself to read it was heavily sight words.  Am I wrong?

*I am not sure this is at all important to this discussion, but I should disclose that we are (or were, or sort of still are) Waldorfy, and DS has been exposed to very little in terms of learning letters/ reading (I include letter toys, alphabet books, simple books with few large words and corresponding picture on each page, educational--or any--TV shows, computer games/sites, electronic games, etc.)  He of course sees words in books, on signs, when I write a list, etc. and we did buy him a chunky wood alphabet puzzle at 3.5 when he was asking a lot about letters.  He learned all upper, lower, and sounds in 10 days from asking me questions and then playing.

[Roar]

I'm sure there are lots of ways this can evolve and it is different for different kids. My guess it that for few very early readers is learning to read all about phonics or memorized site words. Fluent readers most likely figure out both methods along the way.  At our house there was not sounding out or asking about spelling as you are describing. We simply noticed one day that the child could read pretty fluently. Parts of the environment are similar to what you describe - no TV, computer, educational learn the alphabet type of toys. We did however have a wide variety of reading material and I'm guessing at some point that included a book on alphabet theme but I can't say it was ever a favorite or that the child ever really wanted to talk about letters or sounds.

[no5no5]

DD learned to read by sight at first, but was sounding out words around the time she turned 3.  But I've also heard it going very much the other way.  I think kids just have individual learning styles, especially gifted kids who teach themselves, which is why, IMO, they're better off teaching themselves.  For instance, my DD has just turned 5 and reads very, very, very well, but spelling (figuring out how to spell words or figuring out what a word is upon hearing the spelling) is still mostly a mystery to her.  She still doesn't even know all the names of the letters, and I guess that makes her officially "behind," as knowing the names of letters is a skill her pediatrician asked about at her 5-year well-child checkup.   

[Lollybrat]

DS started as a sight reader. We realized he could read soon after he turned two and used his ABC blocks to spell out words like "ambulance", "helicopter", "motorcycle", and " emergency". DS was still non-verbal at that age, so we are really not sure at what point he started reading. By the time he was three he had figured out phonics and could sound out just about anything he saw.

DS has hyperlexia, so he is a natural decoder and a natural code-cracker.

[excitedtobeamom]

My son "taught" himself to read right when he turned 3 years old.  That being said he has always loved letters and would yell them out if we drove by them starting at 1.  He knew all his sounds by 18months because we borrowed a Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD from the library for his 3.5 year old sister and he listened to it while playing.  He loved/loves anything to do with letters.  We read to him a lot and we still do.  At 2 and 3 he also loved the computer so we let him play www.starfall.com and www.headsprout.com .  It just came easy for him.  He started Kindergarten right before he turned 5 and he had a few phonics rules to learn which really helped and he just keeps reading.  He still prefers us read to him and he is just starting to read to himself more.  He can read really well but he would rather run around usually.  He also enjoys books on tape/CD in the car.  It is so fun to watch them learn.  People accused me of sitting him down and drilling him but it is just something he "got".  I say just keep reading and give him an outlet for his interests.  Spell words with him, writing in the sand, rhyme and make up funny poems, discuss the letters and the "rules" they have such as when two vowels go a walking the first one does the talking.  Fun times! 

[KCMichigan]

My DDs used a combo of sight and phonics (they read simple sentences at three and a half).

Some words became sight words ( Elmo, the, and, pony, school, exit, enter, etc)--- but others they would sound out Caaaahhhhtt and fairy was f-ay-ree, beeee ay-r was bear,  so I knew  DDs sounded it out.

They both taught themselves- we read to them, but they also memorized favorite books and were able to also use that to scaffold to 'new' books. It was amazing and fun to watch.

We did no formal lessons, buy age 4 they could read almost anything phonetically and/or after having a new sight word introduced (the names of all the states, dinosaur names, etc). At 5 they are very fluent readers.

[whatsnextmom]

Sight words don't neccessarily come first. My eldest didn't actually read until after turning 5 but she was writing phonetically from her 3rd birthday (and long sentances with complicated words.) I don't know why the writing didn't translate into reading at that point but it didn't. At 5, she did ask me to teach her to read. I did a quick run down of basic phonics rules and within weeks she was downing 5th grade level novels. DS started picking out sight words at 2 and certainly was a site reader exclusively until 4. He knew his letters and sounds but he didn't use those skills to read new words until 4.

[MJB]

My little guy taught himself to read at 3. He was spelling things out around 2.5. I pointed out a few sight words (that don't follow the "rules" of phonics) along the way but that was never a main strategy for him. He was reading fluently (around a 2nd-3rd grade level) shortly before his 4th birthday. 

[loraxc]

DD had a bunch of early sight words and had all the prereading "basics" before her 2s. She could sort of sound out/spell in her threes, but found it cumbersome. Then all of a sudden she figured it all out very fast as a late 4/early 5. I remember almost no direct instruction, though I'm sure we helped with words she stumbled on. It's weird to me that I don't remember--I think it's because there isn't much to remember. She was reading first chapter books before K. I think she learned largely by sight, and still prefers to skip/guess at unknowns, but CAN sound out if reminded to.

DS, who just turned 3. has many fewer sight words but shows a stronger ability to blend (kuh--ah--tuh...CAT!) than DD had at his age. Like DD, he's known letters and phonics since before 2. Blending was something she just couldn't seem to get all that well in the brief period we tried the Bob books, and it might be why reading didn't happen till later. He does watch Super Why, which I think it actually building some of his skills. DD watched no TV at this age.

[RiverTam]

Huh. Interesting.

When DS taught himself to read, it was almost 100% phonics based.  His preschool taught letters and letter sounds as part of the 3-4-5 class lessons. I worked on letter recognition and letter sound recognition with him a little bit, and he watched a ton of Between the Lions. He was around 3.

I'm pretty sure that he mostly learned to read because Between the Lions showed him how to sound things out.  Things became sight words after he had seen them a few times.

He completely freaked out his 4 year old classroom teachers by writing grocery lists for me. His lists usually included "oranges," "juice boxes," "cheese," "chocolate," and "meat."

[A-time-to-live]

My daughter hasn't started to read yet but I was an early reader (age 2).  IT was definitely phonics based and I can even remember the "ah-hah" moment when I got it.  I was at my grandmother's house playing with magnet letters.  My mom was explaining how if you add different letters to "at" you would get different words and it suddenly clicked.  That's allI I remember but I apparently took off with the whole reading thing after that.  From your examples it sounds like your DS is using a combination of the two approaches. 

[ellemenope]

I remember teaching myself to read using a huge early reader book I found at my grandma's house.  Apparently it was my dad's.  Think Dick and Jane.  I remember being smitten with the size of it, and that it had chapters.   Ah, and the smell... I remember using the pictures to figure out the words.  For example, if a picture of a cat was on three pages, I would find the word that was on all three of those pages, and assume that was "cat" and go from there.  Then, I started figuring out how similar sounding words were spelled using the same letters.  That made guessing the words a lot easier. 

I can do this almost effortlessly and without knowing it.  I have since learned Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish very similarly.  In fact, When I took the Defense Department's test which measures aptitude for learning languages, I aced it.  I was immediately rushed through training and put in the field.

I feel like DD is much the same with language decoding.  But, there is no way she can ever truly teach herself how to read.  I have already given her too much information.  After, she learned her letters, I read some Montessori literature about teaching letter sounds first, and that made a lot of sense to me.  I made sure to re-teach her the sounds right away to make up for my mistake.   After having her letter sounds down pat, and then not talking about them all that much, it took 6 months for her to be interested in reading.  But, so far, it has come pretty fast and furious.  

[LynnS6]

I think it's related to how we process language. Ds was very much a bottom-up kind of language learner. He learned the parts, then he strung the parts together. He had an insanely large vocabulary before he started to string words together. (The literature says that kids usually string words together starting anywhere from 50 to 200 words; he had 600.) He then slowly built up his sentences. When he learned to read, he focused on sounds and blending. Again, he started from the little bits and worked his way up to words and sentences. He didn't become an 'advanced' reader until something clicked in 2nd grade and he just took off. He's always been an excellent speller.

Dd, on the other hand, was a top-down language learner. She started language with phrases, and jargon where we could understand maybe 2 words (but it was clear she had intended a whole sentence). I don't remember her moving from a one-word stage to stringing words together because it kind of all happened at once. The same thing happened for reading. She's very much a sight word reader. She wanted to read as early as 3, but didn't like trying to sound things out. Sometime in the summer after she turned 5, reading clicked. She knew her letter names and the sounds they made, but it's not her preferred methods. She went from memorizing books to actually reading new ones. However, her sounding out skills are still iffy. She came across the name Thelma in reading last night and had no idea how to pronounce it. Her spelling is highly variable. "Aunt" might be "Aunt" or "Anut". It's clear to me that she's looking at the shape of the word, not the internal parts. She's an amazingly fluent reader, however, so it doesn't bother me. (And I'm exactly the same kind of reader, I don't sound things out unless I have to.  I ran across the word andragogy in someone's dissertation recently. I didn't even think about how to pronounce it until someone else used it at the dissertation defense!)

So, OP, it sounds like you've got a child who naturally builds out of smaller pieces.

[Marissamom]

I was taught to read using phonics, but never use them (for example, I just "got" ellemenope's username, after reading her posts for months), so I think there are kids who naturally read with phonics, and kids who naturally read with sight words, and kids who probably use a combination of both. 

[grumpybear]

DS, I think taught himself how to read using a combination of both. Phonics initially, but as he noticed words that didn't follow the phonics rules, I think he started seeing a pattern. I can really only surmise on how he taught himself because there really wasn't a conscious effort to teach him how to read. Like with PP's, just very little to no TV, lots of books. He liked looking at books and we read books a lot. There was a period there where I was unable to read to him because of a project that I had and that's when he taught himself how to read.

[Sleepymamaov2]

DS1 is now 2;4.  He started out reading words by sight and still does, although the other day he sounded out the word "am" for the first time. He learned his ABC's first, then the phonics. He's been spelling words out for a long time, started with stop signs and has continued to pick up new words everyday.  He also likes SuperWhy as well as Word World, where he picks up lots of words.  Today he read a whole sentence out of one of his books, and read as an emergent reader would, one word at a time. 

[runningmama80]

My son started with sight words at 2, and then moved to phonics by 3.  I think it depends on the kid. 

[quaz]

It depends on the child, and to some degree the age.

I think I have read in several places that often very early readers tend to be sight readers.

DD2 started reading about 3 years 10m, and it was all phonetic in the beginning. She rapidly picked up sight words, though, the more she read.

My current 4 year old.... he can sound out simple words, but has a few sight words.

Tammy

[peaceful_mama]

My now 6 year old has been reading since sometime after his 4th b-day.  What I remember really is him spending every day for about a week working through one book--Momma, Will You?  (it's really cute, illustrations are paintings of this mama, little boy, and little girl on their farm, we've always loved it)  It's a little bit repetitive "Momma will you (insert request here) Yes or no or maybe?  (followed by 'new part')  then the mama answers.  Answers are pretty not repetitive actually...and there's some harder words.

He asked and asked about this book until he could read it all perfectly....the next thing I knew, he was reading almost *everything* near perfect.

Now, in kindergarten...his teacher says he is probably the best reader in the class...but he's not in the highest group because he works at a slower pace.  (He's a perfectionist--his work comes home with very few "Fix-its"--that's what his school does, they simply mark the error and help the child fix-it---if they need help sometimes it is a case of working too fast.)

What's most important to me is that one, he seems happy--I don't think he would be if he was in the highest group but constantly feeling 'rushed' to keep up to their speed, and two--his teacher said he is really good with helping the other kids in his group out.  (NO I don't think at all that she has him there for that reason, I spent a half day a week up till the time the new baby came in the classroom, and I know my son works somewhat slowly and that he is a perfectionist.)

[St. Margaret]

Sophie definitely does both sight and sounding. She asked about letters when she was one and we told her the sounds. She knew upper and lower and names and sounds sometime before two I think. She did some early sight-reading like seeing the sign for the gap and saying grapes (we had a picture book about fruit) and names of family and favorite things she asked me to write out, probably a couple dozen words.

Sorry hit share too soon-- then she soaked up starfall for a while. Slooowly she added to her reading skills so she was always learning to read which was just her going through cycles of being really interested in trying and us helping her a bit. Lots of dr Seuss books helped her gain sight words. She could read so much by three and had been starting to write letters for a while. Over the past few months she just took off and keeps vetting better and better and now longer stamina. She can read easy readers on her own now. We have no idea how she learned so many crazy words as sight words-- just lots of reading to her I guess.