I have two children roughly OP's age, they couldn't possibly be more different in terms of motricity, senses, intelligence, etc. Polar opposites.
My first said her first words at 9 months old, "ba" for ball, bath, and 2-3 more meanings, and made a repeated sound pointing towards the object of interest, sound which cannot be described in words. Before the age of 1 we had amassed over 50 words, most up to 3 syllables, a handful had more. Same for walking, fine motricity, etc. She reads at 5 years old.
My second only started saying single syllable words at 1y10m, started walking similarly later, and isn't able to do at 1y10m most things that my first was already able to do before being 1yo, so the delay between them is higher than 100%, more than double.
Same family, same teaching style, etc, only 3 years apart.
The ability to teach your child to do something depends almost entirely on the child, your teaching abilities don't seem to matter much, they simply copy you. All that matters is that you are present and offer them the attention they need.
yoko888 · 15h ago
My child is now six years old. To be honest, watching her grow up has made me let go of many ideas about "what should be done".
She speaks later than other children and walks later. I once wondered if I was not doing well enough.
But one day, she suddenly told me a story like "Clouds are shy before raining".
She can't read perfectly yet, but she will draw a whole dream world and then tell me excitedly like a little writer.
Home is the same, love is the same, I haven't changed, but she is growing up at her own pace.
Now I think that the best education is not to push her forward, but to accompany her to slowly discover and grow up. Every child has his or her own destiny, and I think what I can do is to accompany her.
I am also very grateful for her company, which makes my world bigger, softer, and better. I really love her very much. Although there are pains, doubts, and times when emotions are out of control in this process. But most of them are beautiful. Thinking of her company, my heart is full of joy and love.
Freak_NL · 16h ago
Genetics and a bit of dice rolling. That's the biggest part of the equation it seems. I have only one specimen to work with (and I am not inclined to create more), but he was reading at 4 and currently at 6 reads at a 3rd or 4th grade level, despite still being stuck in kindergarden until September.
Sure, we read to him, and we make him read aloud to us too, but we're really just catalysts. He can make himself comfortable in a chair or on a sofa and read comics (Donald Duck, Asterix, etc.) for hours without any prompting (which, honestly, is a really nice feature to have on a child). I expect we'll be able to coerce him onto autonomously reading suitable books in addition to comics by next year too.
I do strongly believe that him seeing us read, and being surrounded by (actual paper) books helps. It means he grows up in an environment where books are normal, not just something you must grapple with because of school.
I don't like the heavy training implied by the article though. I want to raise a kid who likes reading, not one who will resent being pushed to read.
acquisitionsilk · 15h ago
I wonder if it's merely some language or cultural difference, and I don't mean it as a snipe at all, but may I just say - software products have "features", human beings have traits! Maybe it's a confusion based on the fact that human beings as well as traits also do have "features", but that refers to things like having tiny ears.
Having a very strong liking for sitting reading books for long periods is a lovely trait, but it certainly is not a feature (I would say!).
BobaFloutist · 14h ago
I think it was intentionally playful language, not a language difference.
WillAdams · 15h ago
One thing which I tried to do with my kids, after exhausting all the classics (Narnia, _The Hobbit_, _The Lord of the Rings_, Susan Cooper's _The Dark is Rising Pentalogy_ --- highly recommend the latter for folks who have not read it) was to read biographies in chronological order --- as a dry run I did American Presidents (which did great things for my understanding of the ebb-and-flow of American history, since I would try to read an adult biography in advance in anticipation of questions).
The intent was to then go back to the beginning of human history and read biographies of notable persons in chronological order --- unfortunately, my wife's work schedule changed, so that bedtime reading quit happening --- probably my kids were about to age out of this anyway, but it was an interesting endeavour, and one which I have been meaning to take up again for my own sake. EDIT: and, if I should ever have grandchildren, inflict on them.
pc86 · 17h ago
Are they the same sex? I seem to recall a study where there are some - not huge, but statistically significant - differences in first onset of movement vs. language in boys vs. girls.
perlgeek · 16h ago
The common wisdom is that that girls often speak earlier than boys.
pc86 · 15h ago
Yeah and anecdotally this is what I've noticed in our family and our friends' families at a pretty high percentage.
randunel · 16h ago
My youngest is a boy, indeed.
HPsquared · 16h ago
Biologically it's not double, you need to add 9 months to both.
Then it's not 12m vs 22m, it's 21m vs 31m. Still a big difference but not twice as fast, just 48% faster overall.
Brain development starts very soon after conception.
viraptor · 17h ago
Yeah, one off examples don't really mean much when people talk about anything kids related. In this case additionally because hyperlexia exists. (https://www.healthline.com/health/hyperlexia) Maybe the methods worked, maybe you got lucky, maybe the kid learned despite what you did. Who knows.
pc86 · 16h ago
I see this "yeah well that's an anecdote so let's just ignore it" claim a lot but it doesn't hold water in my opinion. Most glaringly, the article almost immediately links to peer-reviewed scholarly research about the effects of reading for pleasure being initiated at various times in development relative to the average. N > 10,000, not that big N is itself a positive measure but it certainly doesn't hurt.
There are certainly times where "this is an anecdote" is useful commentary, even though everybody knows what an anecdote is. But I don't think this is one of those times.
viraptor · 15h ago
I meant the method, not the benefits - that one kid reading at 3yo doesn't say anything about the method used. Also, that paper classifies early as starting reading between 0-7yo. Also, in twin studies they show quite high heritability compared to environment impact (which is higher to be fair). Also the impact they showed was between early reading and positive outcomes, but it doesn't show that (simplifying) you can make kids read earlier in some ways.
So it's an interesting study, but it's not really discussing "How I taught...". It's (simplifying) "do early readers have better life", not "can you use method to give kids better life via earlier reading". (Which may still be true!)
Jedd · 17h ago
Is that just the phenomenon of subsequent children leveraging the benefits of a slightly older sibling? Combined with some training of the parents by the first child, and therefore a significantly different mindset being exhibited towards the second child.
> The ability to teach your child to do something depends almost entirely on the child ...
Is this a summary of your personal experience or are you citing research?
xattt · 16h ago
I can second the OP. Children can be wildly different, and development can be influenced both ways. The age gap between children also matters.
Yes, children can piggyback off the achievements of their older sibling in social development and play.
However, I found that I am unable to devote as much time with my second child because my attention is split.
Jedd · 3h ago
Your third sentence seems to agree with my suspicion - subsequent children get less attention. (Though I reiterate my belief that some of the apparent developmental difference is because second children don't need to be as communicative as the first child.)
The sibling comments here primarily echoed a similar sentiment, while agreeing that there's variation and assuming that's just random, while also tacitly confirming that 2nd-child tended to perform less well.
wiredfool · 15h ago
First Child: ooh I know nothing. Nothing works.
Second Child: Ok, We've got this. Except, No, completely different.
Third Child: At least we've got the range. No. No you don't.
Big issue we had with the first was that he was reading several years above grade level, and we ran out of interesting things for him to read that were age appropriate. When they can read the Hobbit at 7, but are scared, it's really difficult.
Of course, he's now reading things like type theory and scares me with Nix advocacy, so I guess it all comes around.
WillAdams · 13h ago
A great follow-one to _The Hobbit_ is Susan Cooper's _The Dark is Rising_ --- my kids also enjoyed H. Beam Piper's _Little Fuzzy_ (and its sequels).
wiredfool · 13h ago
(To be clear, child in question is now 20)
The problem was coming up with enough to read that wasn't too scary when he was young. Even the Hobbit was rough. Harry Potter is downright scary. Book series were falling in a week. We never had Christmas present books that lasted till New Year's.
I'm pretty sure that we have The Dark is Rising, but it was never one that was a reread, if they ever got through it. I've read the Little Fuzzy and other H Beam Piper books, and they're a little 50's to really let a young kid loose on.
Terry Pratchett worked, specifically the Bromeliad Trilogy. Eragon was ok. There was a set of Wings of Fire. And bookshelves of others that are gone by now.
The problem of course is "the newspapers in utopia are boring" (to paraphrase Mark Twain) and "tales of the land of the happy nice people" doesn't make for much of a story.
Another couple of books which I enjoyed sharing w/ my kids were _Divers Down! Adventure Beneath Hawaiian Seas_ and _The Adventures of the Mad Scientists Club_ (and various sequels).
randunel · 15h ago
> > The ability to teach your child to do something depends almost entirely on the child ...
> Is this a summary of your personal experience or are you citing research?
Strictly personal experience, not just my own kids, but also personally observed.
timcobb · 16h ago
Nope, it's "just" genetics...
kayodelycaon · 16h ago
Nope. I’m the older brother and I’ve always been further ahead developmentally.
Which is somewhat ironic because I’m the one that’s bipolar.
darkwater · 17h ago
More or less same here, both girls, now 10 and 7. The 10yo started reading pretty good at 4.5yo on her own, now she reads books for teenagers since a couple of years, the 7yo is more or less OK for her age (probably having her side by side with her sister doesn't help us to be fair).
selimnairb · 16h ago
Came here to say this. Well said. Also language skills and reading have a complicated relationship. My daughter was saying sentences like “no suppository for me!” when she was two (she had constipation issues). But is now seven and while she still has excellent verbal skills, reading is coming slowly for her, though she can read and is making progress, it’s just slower than her classmates. Her school district has high standards (students on average read at two years above grade level). However, I wonder if this push to have kids read at younger and younger ages is not appropriate and harmful at some point. We were warned by our OT upon entering kindergarten that the curriculum will have the kids do things that are not developmentally appropriate. Also, my daughter has a mid spring birthday, so she’s 6 months younger than many of her classmates, which at this age still matters I think.
I think the theory is that it’s okay if the bucket overflows, at least it’s full. However, I worry that pushing kids to do too much too early can make it hard for them to build confidence and enthusiasm for reading and learning in general.
flkiwi · 16h ago
Our kid effectively taught himself to read very early. We had been reading to him at every opportunity, and I think he teased out what was going on and, on some level, decided to learn on his own. He's been reading well above his age level for years now. As the OP mentioned, one of the primary short term benefits is that this child is, comparatively, a breeze to parent. If he gets frustrated, he goes and reads. If he gets bored with playing a video game, he goes and reads. He appears to be a well-adjusted kid with a close and functional friend group--within the limits of the COVID generation anyway--and he gets on fine with kids who aren't big readers. It's his thing, his intellectual space.
One thing OP didn't address directly is that the most significant lesson of watching our kid on this journey has been learning on a practical level how early individuality and complex reasoning show up. Before I was a parent, I thought kids were blobs where parenting unlocked skills. Since becoming a parent, I've learned that kids, on some level, are experiencing frustrations and joys that are shockingly similar to adults' and that a lot of their development isn't just bits and pieces turning on over time but affirmative effort on their part. I don't know why that should be surprising given we're the same species, but it really struck me that this little person on some level realized he couldn't read, wanted to, and learned. That affected other areas of our parenting, e.g., addressing his frustration as if it were a rational human response to a challenging situation from his perspective rather than irrational childhood reaction. (Note: He's still a child and we don't parent him as if he's an adult, but we have subtly adjusted our approach to be more ... I don't know, respectful of his individual motivations as a thinking, feeling person with comprehensible goals and desires, even if the underlying support infrastructure is still a bit in flux.)
j2kun · 16h ago
I have been trying to teach my 3 (now 4) y/o to read and while he's getting it, the process is very slow and he won't try reading on his own except to look at the pictures.
On the other hand, he finds numbers delightful, can add two digit numbers and knows his multiplication table up to 10, loves squares and square roots, and can do simple algebra problems in his head (equivalent to solving 3x+1=28). He once sat by himself with his blocks for an hour figuring out all the triangular numbers ("step squad" numbers) that he could make with the 200 blocks he had.
I think you just have to try different things and see what the kid latches on to. Lego, drawing, music, whatever. Reading is not the only way to activate your brain, and I think peer pressure is a big part of why kids want to learn to read once they get to school. That and there are just too many ways to be entertained these days (video, audio, toys, etc.) while reading takes true grit.
jonhohle · 15h ago
My oldest son was similar and when he did start reading he wouldn’t stop. We restricted screen time but never books (until he was up all night reading, rushing through work to read, etc.).
You may want to look into having your son tested for gifted services when he reaches school age and if he’s highly gifted and your district offers it, enroll him in a comprehensive gifted program. Someone with abstract reasoning like that may benefit from a modified educational environment.
11101010001100 · 15h ago
Similar story here. Kid is very happy to talk numbers.
IMO logic is something that is not directly taught, so I'm happy to fill this hole as a parent.
WillAdams · 16h ago
The problem of course is how does one continue such a trajectory?
Dividing classes up by reading level is a major factor in reducing problems in a classroom --- but it's only feasible where the number of classes offered and class sizes and school size/budget allow.
The best school system I ever attended extended that to dividing classes betwixt academic and social --- social classes were attended at one's age level (homeroom, civics/social studies, PE, &c.), while academic classes (math, science, English/reading) were attended at one's ability level, with a 4 grade cap until 8th grade --- after that, the school had faculty who were accredited by a local college and there was a mechanism to either bring professors from that college to the school, or to take students to the college for classes --- it was not uncommon for students to graduate and be simultaneously awarded a BS or BA or BFA along with their high school diploma.
ttshaw1 · 12h ago
What school system? Sounds like a great setup
WillAdams · 12h ago
As noted elsethread, it was adjudged to be an illegal system by the Mississippi State Supreme Court, so was dismantled.
Alan Kay: "I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me."
kayodelycaon · 16h ago
I can relate to this. Grade school was hell. Learning cursive when I knew none of the adults in my life used it drove me up a wall. My dad worked for IBM and we had a 286. My mom was doing night classes for her degree and she always typed her papers.
sincerecook · 14h ago
Adults don't go to recess or play marbles either, were you mad about that too?
kayodelycaon · 12h ago
Yes, actually. It was like being locked in a prison yard. I was safer in a classroom.
sixtram · 15h ago
I taught my five-year-old to read in approximately three months. We progressed from simple letters to sounding out two letters, then three, then words with hyphens, then simple stories, and finally children's books. We practiced daily for 5-20 minutes, five times per week. There were plateaus, but also huge jumps in ability, especially when we took a two-week break. Now, she can read two to three pages of an A4 document in one sitting with great speed (i.e., she looks at the words and sentences in one quick pass). She still slows down and makes some errors with complex new words.
Note that our language is Hungarian, which is much easier to teach because writing and sounding out words are nearly one-to-one in terms of letters and sounds. The AI part: Phonemic orthography: A writing system in which each letter (or combination of letters) consistently represents a specific sound (phoneme), and each sound is represented by a consistent letter. Hungarian is highly phonemic, meaning you can usually tell how to pronounce a word just by looking at how it's written, and vice versa.
evanmoran · 14h ago
I think the main takeaway of this shouldn’t be that all kids will be able to read, but more that parents should not be afraid to try to teach letter sounds/blending/simple reading before kindergarten. So many parents I’ve met feel like this is “way too early” and I found many of those same parents end up tutoring their kids in kindergarten to catch up to grade level.
More recently, I’ve been teaching a 3 year old letter sounds and he loves running around finding signs saying “Dad” I found a “duh”. “Duh duh duh!” (For D). Kids really just want to hang out with you so, it’s ok to just throw in some letter sounds or number counting ideas in here and there. You’ll be surprised what they pick up!
Maybe one day I'll get used to people people putting pictures and videos of their 3-year-olds on the internet, but that day has not yet come. I see it there and can only think, oh the poor kid. It even says he's shy at one point in the article.
More on-topic - I recommend Grace Llewellyn and John Holt on learning, to anyone. Truly life-changing material. Finally got around to John Holt recently, and am very happy to eventually read his work.
You can't get back the years made painfully lesser by the school systems we put people through - myself included - and you probably can't undo all the damage done, either. But you can face the absurdity of the situation, and try to improve your own mental life, and that of the people in your life.
explorigin · 16h ago
People are different; that includes children. Some kids can advance in some areas faster than others. But to measure them all by the same ruler (by way of assumed potential) is dehumanizing. Love and raise your kid where they are.
pc86 · 16h ago
It's a spectrum. The OP's approach, with the wrong kid, could very quickly turn home into another (worse) school and wreck the kid for a long time. "Raise kids where they are," taken to the extreme, will teach a lot of kids to accept mediocrity.
"Dehumanizing" is extreme. Having goals and benchmarks is important, probably even required, to help everyone grow to their full potential.
timonoko · 14h ago
Excellent.
I remember we learned to read and write in one month in Finnish school. If this did not happen, one was officially classified as retarded (in 1950s). How long it takes average american to achieve errorfree skills?
Grok:... In USA on average, achieving consistent error-free literacy might take 4-6 years of schooling (kindergarten through fourth grade), but this varies widely.
schnitzelstoat · 16h ago
My child is still too young for this at the moment, but I will for sure try it.
Reading is probably the most important skill for children as a child that struggles to read will later struggle to study and learn anything else as well.
9rx · 16h ago
> a child that struggles to read will later struggle to study and learn anything else as well.
Back in my day that was more or less true. Accessible information was almost exclusively limited to textual form. But that is increasingly not the case. Where I had to pour over words when I was a child, the kids these days are turning to Youtube to learn the same. Especially coupled with other emerging technologies, this may not continue to hold.
bitshiftfaced · 14h ago
I cant help but think that you're just substituting x hours of tutoring/memorization now for x hours of sitting through a class later in life only they won't be at the same level as their peers and will either need accommodations or be bored.
What's more is that those x hours of tutoring/memorization could've been filled with creative/social/emotional regulation/etc. learning that we know for sure benefits kids at that age.
nathell · 16h ago
I learned to recognize individual letters at ~18 months old, and read fluently at ~3yo (by way of adults responding to my curiosity about letters).
I’m 41 now; AMA.
asvitkine · 8h ago
How was your elementary school experience?
lostmsu · 15h ago
What's your IQ in adult ages and how did you do on SAT? Have you ever done any form of science Olympics?
nathell · 14h ago
It’s something like 130. I was educated in Poland, so never passed SAT, but did well at the ~equivalent matura. At the uni, I was a mediocre-ish student, though.
I approached the math olympiad back in high school, but found it too challenging. Looking backwards, I think I might have benefitted from having a better math teacher.
bonthron · 13h ago
Just want to plug:
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann
I taught my daughter to read at 3. Amazing book.
jacknews · 16h ago
Can he understand anything of what he reads? It seems robotic; the point of reading is to get the meaning, not regurgitate the sounds.
The best teacher is want.
jwrallie · 15h ago
They are two separate skills, most obviously in languages such as Chinese or Japanese.
If he can only read the sounds that is half the work, and is amazing on its own.
I’ve started reading at 5 when my father was at home during a short period of unemployment. He was quizzing me about sounds of words with similar letters and I was a curious boy. It seems that just giving kids attention works.
I’ve entered first grade at 6 when all my classmates were 7. Looking back I think it’s best to not create much age difference from your mates, there is already an (at most) 1 year difference that occurs naturally in the yearly school scheme.
There are more things in the body that progress in parallel other than intellectual abilities, I was always underperforming my classmates in sports and maturity for example.
rtkwe · 15h ago
I think that's unlikely if the kid is doing it on their own they're likely getting something out of it. Even if they're not fully understanding what they're reading it's REALLY unlikely they're just mechanically translating words to sounds on their own with no additional processing.
sincerecook · 14h ago
Intelligence is only good up to a point. The successful people I know were not the best students and their parents were not the most obsessive parents. Those kids generally ended up having more difficult and troubled lives. Trying to make your kids geniuses is a mistake.
FridayoLeary · 16h ago
obviously it's good to encourage an exceptional child but what about the average i.e. most children? I know some countries start primary education at 4 and others as late as 6 and learn reading at a later stage. I assume they very quickly catch up with their peers.
Is there any studies out there on adults to see what affect if any there is from learning to read at different ages. I'm not talking about someone who learnt at the age of 12, just the 4-8 age range.
snvzz · 14h ago
pre-school started at 4 for me (it's 3 these days), and by the end of the first year, every kid could read and write.
Some public school systems are better than others. Many countries outright suck.
FridayoLeary · 12h ago
My theory is that pushing a child to read earlier doesn't necessarily lead to a better educational outcome then giving them time and teaching them when they are a bit older. I'm not suggesting that one way is more valid because i have no idea. I'm honestly curious if there's more information on this.
jstummbillig · 17h ago
That was a very elaborate piece of marketing copy
horsawlarway · 16h ago
I think this is the underrated comment here.
This appears to essentially be a "pay for my course" post.
Very heavy on "my kid can read at 3!" very light on much useful information other than "this is for paid subscribers" and "you can buy it here".
Looks like it basically boils down to "We did spaced repetition with phonics".
subpixel · 16h ago
There ought to be a way to filter and label posts that are part of a marketing funnel. Not to ban them but to recognize them.
pc86 · 16h ago
What is it marketing? I'll admit I didn't read it super closely, but the closest thing I could find was the books that are only available in the US via Amazon but there doesn't seem to be a direct affiliation there. And the root page just seems to be a blog.
horsawlarway · 16h ago
I did read it pretty closely as someone with a 3 year old who's working on reading.
> The details for anyone who wants to replicate this can be found in a series of guides [with 3 links]
But those are basically all "go buy my course" style posts.
This was the hook, the links in the quoted section (you know the actual "how") are basically just "pay for the course".
---
Overall - it's an okish post, but this is 100% marketing material to make money.
joewhale · 16h ago
is that a good or bad thing?
jacknews · 16h ago
As I scrolled, and scrolled, and .... scrolled, I was reminded of aliexpress sales pages, or kickstarter pages, with their endless affirming details, and 'oh and another thing's, so yes I think you're probably right.
toolslive · 17h ago
But, why? Now the kid will be bored at primary school. You could have diverted him toward skills you aren't going to learn in school (checkers, chess, music,...)
pc86 · 16h ago
This is a good point that I don't think gets enough thought. Unless he's going to an excellent public school, or a private school, the odds he's much more bored in the first few years of school goes up dramatically when he's reading the book in 5 minutes (or practically has it memorized from reading it at home so much) while everyone else is sounding out the words on the first page.
This does all sort of go away if he's going to great school with more individualized attention. The odds of that in general are pretty low, but hopefully a bit better assuming there's some correlation between having a parent that cares enough to teach a 2-year-old to read in their spare time and having the resources to be in a great public district or go to private school.
smokel · 16h ago
Learning to be bored will be of great value once AI takes over all our jobs.
pc86 · 16h ago
Funny how "Bitcoin fixes this" has become "AI will break this." I wonder what the next one will be.
alabastervlog · 16h ago
I learned way more on most topics on my own than in school. Reading was the main skill that unlocked that, though things like PBS and (when somewhere with cable, and before these channels went to shit) Discovery & TLC played a role too.
Reading earlier means getting to start on that stuff sooner. Young kids have shitloads of free time.
programjames · 16h ago
This is the same reason people don't take calculus in ninth grade, or organic chemistry in tenth. "What will you do if you run out of classes?" I don't know, learn on your own? And once you run out of learning, do your own reseach? You cannot simultaneously view school as a place to advance your child's learning, and also a place you need to hold off on their learning for. Pick one, and if you pick the latter, admit to yourself that they're not going to school, they're getting babysat.
WillAdams · 16h ago
I actually attended a school system which had a system in place for that --- see my post elsethread.
Unfortunately, the Mississippi State Supreme Court ruled it to be an unfair and illegal educational system which conferred undue benefits to the students able to take advantage of it and that the lack of a commensurate compensation for students who were unable to do so was manifestly inappropriate.
programjames · 16h ago
By "unable to take advantage of it", do you mean:
- Unable to demonstrate prequisite knowledge, or
- Unable to go to a school further away?
I can get the latter one, which is why I think we shouldn't just have magnet schools, we should have free, government-run magnet boarding schools. Or, alternatively, how much would it really cost to provide a chauffeur service to kids who have demonstrated intelligence and need? If schools can provide personal aides to 1% of their population, I'm sure they have the budget to treat another 1% equitably.
WillAdams · 15h ago
The former.
The crux of the lawsuit as I understood it from hearing about it from letters my parents received from involved parents was that a student who was unable to learn at the accelerated pace and graduated with only a high-school diploma sued to either be allowed to continue to attend the school for 4 additional years, or to be granted funds to attend a college.
The school was the only public school in the county, and was attended by all the local residents (the student who initiated the lawsuit was one of them) and the children of the personnel of the local Air Force Base --- it was the matching DoD funding which made the school system possible.
FridayoLeary · 12h ago
From what you say it sounds a boneheaded decision, to deprive students from a good education because other students aren't ready for it.
The UK excels at something similar, where they are trying to undermine private schools and even higher level public grammar schools. This is because it's only privileged children who can afford to go to there, and the outcomes are way better then public schools.
There is a term for this: "the politics of envy",
where it's better to funnel everyone through the same mediocre system so that nobody can gain an advantage. This was very much the logic behind the recent law to tax private schools, and it's an idiotic principle.
jxjnskkzxxhx · 16h ago
What a stupid thing to say. If he's bored the teacher can advance his grade faster or at least give him personally more challenging material.
Should we never teach anyone anything, just to avoid they'll be bored when they see something they already know? Is starting to learn at 6 objectively "better" than at 2? No, that's just how our system currently works. And what you're saying is you want your kid to be mediocre. Great, but the rest of us are aiming higher.
programjames · 16h ago
And, in most places, your public school has the legal obligation to provide an education for all ability levels, including people who show up to their first year with the ability to read. Even in the United States of America, where the culture is only the bottom 20% of students deserve to learn, most school districts still have this in their bylaws (they just ignore it).
sincerecook · 14h ago
Yes, we should never teach anyone anything because someone raised a mild and relevant objection.
rtkwe · 15h ago
Holding your kid back because they'll be bored by the ponderous pace of public school education isn't the answer you're looking for. Continue to be an active parent and find them a different school or a program within the school where their above grade level reading is embraced. Also you don't always get to just choose what the kid gets interested in, they're going to focus on something and at that age you're just overjoyed if it's not destructive or expensive.
I had a similar problem in my elementary school in the 90s having learned reading early and pretty easily and even had a 2nd grade teacher get a little peeved because I was just reading ahead during group reading exercises and didn't know where the group was when it was my turn. The solution was getting the teacher to stop and the next year getting a better teacher and into a little group with the other good readers and tested for AIG early.
stonewhite · 16h ago
If the kid is bright they'll be bored anyway. This is something you cannot avoid, so teaching them to behave in a boring environment is more productive.
jxjnskkzxxhx · 16h ago
Yup. I was a "smarter than average" kid at this age and though I couldn't read when I started primary school I was still bored with the slow pace of school the vast majority of the time.
rendang · 12h ago
Why would you put a much smarter than average kid in an ordinary government school in the first place? That's like making a naturally athletic and fit kid attend 6 hours/day of occupational therapy to learn to walk
bmacho · 15h ago
> You could have diverted him toward skills you aren't going to learn in school (checkers, chess, music,...)
I think the kid has a higher chance to excel at their hobby of choice now that they are ahead of the curriculum and can focus on the hobby?
wat10000 · 16h ago
This really rubs me the wrong way. You're not that special. You're not an educational genius who has cracked the code for teaching kids how to read at years above their grade level. You put some effort into it and you have a kid with a great deal of natural ability. This is their achievement, not yours. The title should be "My 3-year-old learned to read like a 9-year-old."
Too many smart parents have smart kids, avoid completely neglecting them, and then talk about how great they are at teaching kids and how stupid The System is for failing to do this. Good on you for being there, and no doubt your effort helped out, but don't kid yourself. Your main contribution here is your DNA.
programjames · 15h ago
I've seen people with a great deal of natural ability. I'm certainly one of them. But most never got as good at maths as me, because my father began teaching me before an age I can remember. I also never got as good as some others, with arguably less natural ability, because my father didn't know what an amazing maths education looks like either—he grew up in the middle-of-nowhere, went off to college, and realized, "I really should have learned all this stuff earlier," and did his best to do so for me, but he was learning about competition maths at the same time as me. This is not to say that competition maths make an "amazing maths education", just that competition maths coaches exist, and they know exactly how to best teach students maths, while I learned mostly through trial and error.
hgomersall · 16h ago
Indeed. Plenty of people have strong opinions on parenting until they get a child that is less easy. The worst though are the parents that never have their own experience of such children.
bmacho · 15h ago
> Your main contribution here is your DNA.
I think you are confusing contribution with effort. While it might not take a huge effort from a parent to do this, it is still a ginormous contribution, most likely life-changing in itself, even if they don't continue with this accelerated education.
My first said her first words at 9 months old, "ba" for ball, bath, and 2-3 more meanings, and made a repeated sound pointing towards the object of interest, sound which cannot be described in words. Before the age of 1 we had amassed over 50 words, most up to 3 syllables, a handful had more. Same for walking, fine motricity, etc. She reads at 5 years old.
My second only started saying single syllable words at 1y10m, started walking similarly later, and isn't able to do at 1y10m most things that my first was already able to do before being 1yo, so the delay between them is higher than 100%, more than double.
Same family, same teaching style, etc, only 3 years apart.
The ability to teach your child to do something depends almost entirely on the child, your teaching abilities don't seem to matter much, they simply copy you. All that matters is that you are present and offer them the attention they need.
Sure, we read to him, and we make him read aloud to us too, but we're really just catalysts. He can make himself comfortable in a chair or on a sofa and read comics (Donald Duck, Asterix, etc.) for hours without any prompting (which, honestly, is a really nice feature to have on a child). I expect we'll be able to coerce him onto autonomously reading suitable books in addition to comics by next year too.
I do strongly believe that him seeing us read, and being surrounded by (actual paper) books helps. It means he grows up in an environment where books are normal, not just something you must grapple with because of school.
I don't like the heavy training implied by the article though. I want to raise a kid who likes reading, not one who will resent being pushed to read.
Having a very strong liking for sitting reading books for long periods is a lovely trait, but it certainly is not a feature (I would say!).
The intent was to then go back to the beginning of human history and read biographies of notable persons in chronological order --- unfortunately, my wife's work schedule changed, so that bedtime reading quit happening --- probably my kids were about to age out of this anyway, but it was an interesting endeavour, and one which I have been meaning to take up again for my own sake. EDIT: and, if I should ever have grandchildren, inflict on them.
Brain development starts very soon after conception.
There are certainly times where "this is an anecdote" is useful commentary, even though everybody knows what an anecdote is. But I don't think this is one of those times.
So it's an interesting study, but it's not really discussing "How I taught...". It's (simplifying) "do early readers have better life", not "can you use method to give kids better life via earlier reading". (Which may still be true!)
> The ability to teach your child to do something depends almost entirely on the child ...
Is this a summary of your personal experience or are you citing research?
Yes, children can piggyback off the achievements of their older sibling in social development and play.
However, I found that I am unable to devote as much time with my second child because my attention is split.
The sibling comments here primarily echoed a similar sentiment, while agreeing that there's variation and assuming that's just random, while also tacitly confirming that 2nd-child tended to perform less well.
Big issue we had with the first was that he was reading several years above grade level, and we ran out of interesting things for him to read that were age appropriate. When they can read the Hobbit at 7, but are scared, it's really difficult.
Of course, he's now reading things like type theory and scares me with Nix advocacy, so I guess it all comes around.
The problem was coming up with enough to read that wasn't too scary when he was young. Even the Hobbit was rough. Harry Potter is downright scary. Book series were falling in a week. We never had Christmas present books that lasted till New Year's.
I'm pretty sure that we have The Dark is Rising, but it was never one that was a reread, if they ever got through it. I've read the Little Fuzzy and other H Beam Piper books, and they're a little 50's to really let a young kid loose on.
Terry Pratchett worked, specifically the Bromeliad Trilogy. Eragon was ok. There was a set of Wings of Fire. And bookshelves of others that are gone by now.
See my comment elsethread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44126584
The problem of course is "the newspapers in utopia are boring" (to paraphrase Mark Twain) and "tales of the land of the happy nice people" doesn't make for much of a story.
Another couple of books which I enjoyed sharing w/ my kids were _Divers Down! Adventure Beneath Hawaiian Seas_ and _The Adventures of the Mad Scientists Club_ (and various sequels).
> Is this a summary of your personal experience or are you citing research?
Strictly personal experience, not just my own kids, but also personally observed.
Which is somewhat ironic because I’m the one that’s bipolar.
I think the theory is that it’s okay if the bucket overflows, at least it’s full. However, I worry that pushing kids to do too much too early can make it hard for them to build confidence and enthusiasm for reading and learning in general.
One thing OP didn't address directly is that the most significant lesson of watching our kid on this journey has been learning on a practical level how early individuality and complex reasoning show up. Before I was a parent, I thought kids were blobs where parenting unlocked skills. Since becoming a parent, I've learned that kids, on some level, are experiencing frustrations and joys that are shockingly similar to adults' and that a lot of their development isn't just bits and pieces turning on over time but affirmative effort on their part. I don't know why that should be surprising given we're the same species, but it really struck me that this little person on some level realized he couldn't read, wanted to, and learned. That affected other areas of our parenting, e.g., addressing his frustration as if it were a rational human response to a challenging situation from his perspective rather than irrational childhood reaction. (Note: He's still a child and we don't parent him as if he's an adult, but we have subtly adjusted our approach to be more ... I don't know, respectful of his individual motivations as a thinking, feeling person with comprehensible goals and desires, even if the underlying support infrastructure is still a bit in flux.)
On the other hand, he finds numbers delightful, can add two digit numbers and knows his multiplication table up to 10, loves squares and square roots, and can do simple algebra problems in his head (equivalent to solving 3x+1=28). He once sat by himself with his blocks for an hour figuring out all the triangular numbers ("step squad" numbers) that he could make with the 200 blocks he had.
I think you just have to try different things and see what the kid latches on to. Lego, drawing, music, whatever. Reading is not the only way to activate your brain, and I think peer pressure is a big part of why kids want to learn to read once they get to school. That and there are just too many ways to be entertained these days (video, audio, toys, etc.) while reading takes true grit.
You may want to look into having your son tested for gifted services when he reaches school age and if he’s highly gifted and your district offers it, enroll him in a comprehensive gifted program. Someone with abstract reasoning like that may benefit from a modified educational environment.
IMO logic is something that is not directly taught, so I'm happy to fill this hole as a parent.
Dividing classes up by reading level is a major factor in reducing problems in a classroom --- but it's only feasible where the number of classes offered and class sizes and school size/budget allow.
The best school system I ever attended extended that to dividing classes betwixt academic and social --- social classes were attended at one's age level (homeroom, civics/social studies, PE, &c.), while academic classes (math, science, English/reading) were attended at one's ability level, with a 4 grade cap until 8th grade --- after that, the school had faculty who were accredited by a local college and there was a mechanism to either bring professors from that college to the school, or to take students to the college for classes --- it was not uncommon for students to graduate and be simultaneously awarded a BS or BA or BFA along with their high school diploma.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44126175
Note that our language is Hungarian, which is much easier to teach because writing and sounding out words are nearly one-to-one in terms of letters and sounds. The AI part: Phonemic orthography: A writing system in which each letter (or combination of letters) consistently represents a specific sound (phoneme), and each sound is represented by a consistent letter. Hungarian is highly phonemic, meaning you can usually tell how to pronounce a word just by looking at how it's written, and vice versa.
More recently, I’ve been teaching a 3 year old letter sounds and he loves running around finding signs saying “Dad” I found a “duh”. “Duh duh duh!” (For D). Kids really just want to hang out with you so, it’s ok to just throw in some letter sounds or number counting ideas in here and there. You’ll be surprised what they pick up!
Adults spell "love" L-O-V-E. Kids spell "love" T-I-M-E.
More on-topic - I recommend Grace Llewellyn and John Holt on learning, to anyone. Truly life-changing material. Finally got around to John Holt recently, and am very happy to eventually read his work.
You can't get back the years made painfully lesser by the school systems we put people through - myself included - and you probably can't undo all the damage done, either. But you can face the absurdity of the situation, and try to improve your own mental life, and that of the people in your life.
"Dehumanizing" is extreme. Having goals and benchmarks is important, probably even required, to help everyone grow to their full potential.
I remember we learned to read and write in one month in Finnish school. If this did not happen, one was officially classified as retarded (in 1950s). How long it takes average american to achieve errorfree skills?
Grok:... In USA on average, achieving consistent error-free literacy might take 4-6 years of schooling (kindergarten through fourth grade), but this varies widely.
Reading is probably the most important skill for children as a child that struggles to read will later struggle to study and learn anything else as well.
Back in my day that was more or less true. Accessible information was almost exclusively limited to textual form. But that is increasingly not the case. Where I had to pour over words when I was a child, the kids these days are turning to Youtube to learn the same. Especially coupled with other emerging technologies, this may not continue to hold.
What's more is that those x hours of tutoring/memorization could've been filled with creative/social/emotional regulation/etc. learning that we know for sure benefits kids at that age.
I’m 41 now; AMA.
I approached the math olympiad back in high school, but found it too challenging. Looking backwards, I think I might have benefitted from having a better math teacher.
The best teacher is want.
If he can only read the sounds that is half the work, and is amazing on its own.
I’ve started reading at 5 when my father was at home during a short period of unemployment. He was quizzing me about sounds of words with similar letters and I was a curious boy. It seems that just giving kids attention works.
I’ve entered first grade at 6 when all my classmates were 7. Looking back I think it’s best to not create much age difference from your mates, there is already an (at most) 1 year difference that occurs naturally in the yearly school scheme.
There are more things in the body that progress in parallel other than intellectual abilities, I was always underperforming my classmates in sports and maturity for example.
Is there any studies out there on adults to see what affect if any there is from learning to read at different ages. I'm not talking about someone who learnt at the age of 12, just the 4-8 age range.
Some public school systems are better than others. Many countries outright suck.
This appears to essentially be a "pay for my course" post.
Very heavy on "my kid can read at 3!" very light on much useful information other than "this is for paid subscribers" and "you can buy it here".
Looks like it basically boils down to "We did spaced repetition with phonics".
> The details for anyone who wants to replicate this can be found in a series of guides [with 3 links]
But those are basically all "go buy my course" style posts.
This was the hook, the links in the quoted section (you know the actual "how") are basically just "pay for the course".
---
Overall - it's an okish post, but this is 100% marketing material to make money.
This does all sort of go away if he's going to great school with more individualized attention. The odds of that in general are pretty low, but hopefully a bit better assuming there's some correlation between having a parent that cares enough to teach a 2-year-old to read in their spare time and having the resources to be in a great public district or go to private school.
Reading earlier means getting to start on that stuff sooner. Young kids have shitloads of free time.
Unfortunately, the Mississippi State Supreme Court ruled it to be an unfair and illegal educational system which conferred undue benefits to the students able to take advantage of it and that the lack of a commensurate compensation for students who were unable to do so was manifestly inappropriate.
- Unable to demonstrate prequisite knowledge, or
- Unable to go to a school further away?
I can get the latter one, which is why I think we shouldn't just have magnet schools, we should have free, government-run magnet boarding schools. Or, alternatively, how much would it really cost to provide a chauffeur service to kids who have demonstrated intelligence and need? If schools can provide personal aides to 1% of their population, I'm sure they have the budget to treat another 1% equitably.
The crux of the lawsuit as I understood it from hearing about it from letters my parents received from involved parents was that a student who was unable to learn at the accelerated pace and graduated with only a high-school diploma sued to either be allowed to continue to attend the school for 4 additional years, or to be granted funds to attend a college.
The school was the only public school in the county, and was attended by all the local residents (the student who initiated the lawsuit was one of them) and the children of the personnel of the local Air Force Base --- it was the matching DoD funding which made the school system possible.
The UK excels at something similar, where they are trying to undermine private schools and even higher level public grammar schools. This is because it's only privileged children who can afford to go to there, and the outcomes are way better then public schools.
There is a term for this: "the politics of envy", where it's better to funnel everyone through the same mediocre system so that nobody can gain an advantage. This was very much the logic behind the recent law to tax private schools, and it's an idiotic principle.
Should we never teach anyone anything, just to avoid they'll be bored when they see something they already know? Is starting to learn at 6 objectively "better" than at 2? No, that's just how our system currently works. And what you're saying is you want your kid to be mediocre. Great, but the rest of us are aiming higher.
I had a similar problem in my elementary school in the 90s having learned reading early and pretty easily and even had a 2nd grade teacher get a little peeved because I was just reading ahead during group reading exercises and didn't know where the group was when it was my turn. The solution was getting the teacher to stop and the next year getting a better teacher and into a little group with the other good readers and tested for AIG early.
I think the kid has a higher chance to excel at their hobby of choice now that they are ahead of the curriculum and can focus on the hobby?
Too many smart parents have smart kids, avoid completely neglecting them, and then talk about how great they are at teaching kids and how stupid The System is for failing to do this. Good on you for being there, and no doubt your effort helped out, but don't kid yourself. Your main contribution here is your DNA.
I think you are confusing contribution with effort. While it might not take a huge effort from a parent to do this, it is still a ginormous contribution, most likely life-changing in itself, even if they don't continue with this accelerated education.