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Three year old reading help

923 views 10 replies 10 participants last post by  KSLaura 
#1 ·
I'm hesitant to call my kid gifted, I don't like labeling small kids and early acquisition isn't always linked with high performance. Maybe not gifted, but I would say advanced for her age. She is 3.25, she was an early talker, she seemed to develop an understanding of social cues early. She is able to do pretty high count puzzles independently (60-80 pieces). Wicked attention span and comprehension.

For about the past six months, there are daily tears over her inability to read. She has some sight words. She is able to spell some basic words (her name, our animals, a lot of common nouns), but she is better at putting words together than decoding them. We read a lot, I use my finger to guide. I point out words when we are out and about and talk about them. Still...daily she asks me why I won't just show her how to read. I've explained it is a process, that she is where she needs to be, but she disagrees. Are there any programs or techniques that I'm not doing for a very young child who really wants to read? I never thought I would be worrying about my three year old reading, but it is the cause of so much stress and anxiety for her. She asks her teachers, my friends, her grandparents to just help her figure it out. I've just always been of the opinion that literacy will happen naturally with exposure. And I'm sure it will with her, but if I can lower her stress and have another tool for when she asks? That would be great.
 
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#2 ·
Personally I would de-emphasize it. No matter how badly she wants to learn to read, her brain may not be ready to do so at age 3, and trying to teach her will just reinforce her expectations for herself. Perhaps make a word-wall where you write all the sight-words she can read, letting her appreciate that the list is growing, but otherwise just express confidence that she'll be able to read easily when her brain is ready, when she's older. Focusing on teaching her is probably just feeding her belief that she should be able to learn. She may be able to; it's possible. But if she's not ready, the cost in frustration and tears will be high. I have very tenacious children who tend to get very focused -- to the point of counter-productive frustration -- on achieving certain things. I found that the more I adopt an attitude of easy-breezy confidence that it would come in time (and I'd usually say something clear but fairly conservative and remote, like, in this case, "I'm sure you'll be reading well by the time you're 5") the more they tend to relax their own expectations for themselves and just enjoy where they're at and the things they can do.

Miranda
 
#3 ·
There's no pressing need to start teaching her reading right now, but if she really wants to learn, I don't see why you shouldn't go ahead and show her the beginning steps. Why not show her how to sound out a word? Is she already familiar with the idea that each letter has a sound as well as a name? If not, you could start there. Once she knows some letter sounds, you can show her a simple 3-letter word like BAT and explain that to read the word you need to remember the sound each letter makes and put the sounds together. Then you demonstrate how to do it. Make each letter sound, then show how you can make the sounds closer and closer together until they blend into a word. If she's like my kids, she'll have to listen to you sounding out words a bunch of times before she'll be able to hear 3 separate sounds and blend them in her head to make a word. It was a much less obvious concept to them than I thought it would be. But mine could both do it as 3 year olds (when there was no way they could have done 60-piece puzzles), and maybe yours will be able to also. If she can't and she's just getting frustrated, you can reassure her that most kids don't learn to read until they're older and that when she is older it will seem a lot easier.
 
#4 ·
I should say that I based my advice above on the assumption that you've done the obvious stuff and she hasn't learned to read. In other words, you answer her questions like "what sound does D make?" and "how do you spell 'pretend'?" and that you've given her the basic clues to decoding -- that letters make certain sounds, and the sounds go together to make words -- and that this knowledge hasn't led to her making inferences and gradually cracking the code. If you have not explained about stringing together letter-sounds and have been putting off her questions, then certainly, I would start doing that much. In my experience if kids are really ready to read, that's sufficient for them to really move forward with the process.

Miranda
 
#5 ·
It is really odd that she has developed this anxiety about reading. Clearly you have not given her the message that it is something she should be doing at three, as a rule preschools, other kids and parents do not give that message either, so is there something else going on?
As to what else you could be doing: if she has a number of sight words, is better at writing than at decoding, knows the theory about decoding the way the PPs have described them, asks about print she sees, wants you to follow the words you are reading with your finger....she's right on track as an emerging reader. It might take six months, or another year...but there isn't really anything to speed up that process.

If you do not object to the screen time and need the occasional "quick fix" to get her off your back, as it were, you can of course turn her on to starfall.com...
 
#7 ·
I am pretty against doing things too early because the need to push but I don't see the harm if she really wants to! :) We use BOB books. If she knows the letters and their sounds then she can start putting them together. That is all I do for teaching my children to read. I start doing BOB books with them and they get it. We have also put on Leapfrog DVD's. No harm in going at her pace. :)
 
#8 ·
Mama I totally hear you! We were in the same boat with our three year old boy a few years back. He was desperate to learn to read, but too young to understand that it was a process that was going to take time. Its hard, I know. I've totally been there.

I had planned on not teaching reading (we homeschool) until age 6-7, but sometimes you have to change your plans! At three we helped him learn to recognize and write all the letters, both uppercase and lowercase as well as the sounds of the letters. He looooved flashcards for this...used to beg us to do another round of flashcards. We taught him punctuation. We taught him to write his name and simple words, just like you're doing. Then at 4.5 something just clicked and he figured it out. We've still had lots of teaching to do in terms of all those words that "break the rules" and silent letters and the like, but if you get her a good foundation now with learning letter sounds and reading to her tons one day she'll just figure it out. Starfall is a great program he was using at three because he could clearly see his progress. Flashcards helped too. Just make it all a fun game and follow her lead!
 
#9 · (Edited)
For about the past six months, there are daily tears over her inability to read. She has some sight words. She is able to spell some basic words (her name, our animals, a lot of common nouns), but she is better at putting words together than decoding them. We read a lot, I use my finger to guide. I point out words when we are out and about and talk about them. Still...daily she asks me why I won't just show her how to read.
Does she know what sounds the letters make? If not, you should certainly start with this skill, which is really commonly taught at her age and totally age appropriate; my kids did it at every preschool they've been so (which is 5, between them). My daughter loved to talk about letters and play with our magnetic fridge letters and was definitely better at creating small words for a long time before she could reliably decode them.

My daughter learned reading at school but my son was in a playschool when he developed an interest in reading. We started with the BOB books. We would just read one at bedtime, during our normal reading time. His initial interest around age 3.5 lasted about a month, then he wasn't interested for 4 or 5 months, and then right around 4 he got into it again. He also did some phonics stuff online on starfall.com. I just did it when he expressed interest, and didn't push when he didn't.

Oh, and you might find this write-up about the stages of reading to be useful: http://giftedkids.about.com/od/gifted101/a/How-Children-Learn-to-Read.htm
 
#10 ·
I'm hesitant to call my kid gifted, I don't like labeling small kids and early acquisition isn't always linked with high performance. Maybe not gifted, but I would say advanced for her age. She is 3.25, she was an early talker, she seemed to develop an understanding of social cues early. She is able to do pretty high count puzzles independently (60-80 pieces). Wicked attention span and comprehension.

For about the past six months, there are daily tears over her inability to read. She has some sight words. She is able to spell some basic words (her name, our animals, a lot of common nouns), but she is better at putting words together than decoding them. We read a lot, I use my finger to guide. I point out words when we are out and about and talk about them. Still...daily she asks me why I won't just show her how to read. I've explained it is a process, that she is where she needs to be, but she disagrees. Are there any programs or techniques that I'm not doing for a very young child who really wants to read? I never thought I would be worrying about my three year old reading, but it is the cause of so much stress and anxiety for her. She asks her teachers, my friends, her grandparents to just help her figure it out. I've just always been of the opinion that literacy will happen naturally with exposure. And I'm sure it will with her, but if I can lower her stress and have another tool for when she asks? That would be great.
Let her try the book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" with you. It works and if she is asking to read, she will enjoy learning.
 
#11 ·
Maybe concentrate on reading more complex, 'big kid' books to her. Work of comprehension skills (why do you think this happened? What do you think will happen next?) Reading should be fun. The decoding part will come.
 
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