How Alex Learned to Read
Part One: Age about 2 to 5
We lived in a very reading friendly environment. I love to read, so Alex would see Mom reading books, reading on the computer, a magazine, letters, recipes, sale ads, street signs, etc. I would frequently turn to a book or the computer for information, for pictures, and for entertainment.
We had many, many books covering a wide variety of subjects: children's books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, books of science experiments, Star Wars books, books on dinosaurs, craft and puzzle books, etc. Any time Alex was interested in something, he would run to our bookshelves to see if he could find a book with pictures of his subject. His favorites were Lego magazines and books about cats, planets, and dinosaurs.
We had many computer games. Alex was mostly interested in arcade style adventure games, but occasionally he would play things like Arthur and Winnie the Pooh. He began recognizing simple words by sight -- words like "play," "exit," "print," and others.
We watched Sesame Street, Barney, and Between the Lions. His absolute favorite was Barney. I taped all the episodes so he could watch anytime he wanted.
I strewed alphabet stuff all over, including posters of the letters, alphabet bingo games, magnetic letters, and so forth, but I let him do what he wanted with it. I didn't try to teach him letters or sounds unless he asked about them. I trusted that he would learn what he needed to learn in order to do what he wanted to do.
A few times, Alex asked about a letter or sound, but for the most part, he was interested in complete words for his pictures. He asked me to spell words and then asked what the letters looked like so he could write them. He started carrying around a Reader Rabbit laminated alphabet card so I could point to the letters he needed for the words. Sometimes, he even wrote short stories like this. It was amazing to watch him write stories without even knowing the alphabet.
A story I love to tell has to do with an alphabet chart. It was a huge fold out coloring poster that came in a workbook someone had given him. It had seven rows of letters, six rows having four letters and one row having two. Alex colored the first two rows of letters and then asked me what "two fours make." I told him eight. He colored the third row and asked what "three fours make." I told him twelve. He went on to ask what "four fours make" and what "five fours make." Again, I just gave him the answers -- sixteen and twenty.
After coloring the sixth row, I was waiting for him to ask what "six fours make." Instead, he asked a question that caught me completely off guard. "What do three two fours make?" After thinking about what he was asking, I told him twenty-four. He then asked what twenty-four and two made, and after hearing my answer, told me there were twenty-six letters in the alphabet.
If you think about what most people would do in a situation where a child is coloring an alphabet chart, you would probably picture them pointing out the letters as they were colored and maybe asking or telling a child what they are and what sounds they make. They might even mention words that begin with those letters. Since I didn't do any of this, but instead just watched and answered his questions, I was able to get a glimpse of what he was thinking and where his interest was. He wasn't interested in the letters at all, except in their numbers. He was realizing that the rows all had four and he could know the total by knowing how many rows of four there were. Not only that, he also realized that six fours was the same as three eights, or "three two fours."
This episode helped strengthen my belief that we could be holding our children back by trying to make sure they learn what we think is important for them to learn at the time.
And so, I never taught Alex the alphabet. He saw and heard the letters so many times while writing, watching his shows, and playing with various toys and on the computer that I'm pretty sure he just absorbed the information. I can't be certain when it was that he knew their order, but I do know it was much later than anyone who knew us was comfortable with.
One thing I haven't mentioned yet is story time. We never really had that. I read stories to him when he asked, but he was usually so busy doing other things that he wasn't interested in, or didn't think about, hearing a story. Sometimes, he asked me to read while he was building with Legos or jumping on the sofa. Of the books I read to him, Beneath the Ghost Moon by Jane Yolen was his favorite. Whenever I read, he came to glance at the pictures, but he never followed along with me in a book.
How Alex Learned to Read - Part Two
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