i have taught pre k to 5 grade for ten years in 4 different countries including the usa
and have never met a "super reader"
or at least not one that had reading problems later on
in my experience kids that start ahead stay ahead
i have never met a kid that could read by 3 have any problems reading
and i have met a lot of early readers
I agree, it is so true that kids who start ahead, stay ahead. I have read so much research concerning this point, and I have never met or heard of a child who started to read at three or four years old and then magically turned into a poor reader when he got older, not even considering a child who began at two years, one year, or three months old.
The logic of the super reader would seem to apply, that is if “sight reading” simply means that the kids only “memorized the shapes”. But that is not in fact the case, they read words in the exact same way we do - keep in mind the “Crmabdige Uvnisirtey” example. And, one way or another, kids will crack the code of phonics, sometimes if they’re older it may take them longer, but nonetheless they will do it, just as all kids crack the code of English grammar, which is far more complex, far more irregular, and far more confusing. A kid who has been reading since three years old will not suddenly find his “visual memory” taxed out and be at a loss for reading when he gets to be eight years old - by the time he is eight, he will have had five years experience reading and I can guarantee that he has cracked the code.
And also to add, I have no idea where researchers came up with the idea that our brain has a limit of 2,000 facts. Our brain in fact has a limit of 125 trillion facts. Every word that we read well, we read from memory: restaurant, instruction, international, complication… let me ask you, did you sound those words out, letter by letter, or did you simple read them? How about this, 19864324, 98723421, 87234523… could you “read” those numbers as fast as you just read the above words, or did you have to look at the numerals one by one to “read” it? If we really were reading phonetically, it would take us as long to read the word “dictionary” as it does to read the numerals 3785044291 - they each have the same amount of characters. But in reality, we are reading virtually all of our words by memory. And new words, such as the nonsense word “flurpaltion”, we read based on a memory of letter combinations, like the combinations “fl”, “ur”, “pal”, and “tion”, which we would sound out based on our memory of how those combinations are used in context, in words. So in a way it is like all of those little letter combinations are words in themselves, and we can decipher the word “flurpaltion” much faster than we can decipher the word qtxlpmrv because the latter nonsense word has no letter combinations (or, “mini words”) that we have seen used in words so it takes much longer to try and sound out each letter one by one.
So, I understand that phonics is important - but then again so is grammar. And we never feared that if we don’t start our two-year-olds in English class, that they will be speaking in non-intelligible sentences by the time they reach six. No, in fact all children, without any instruction, decipher the tremendously complicated, complex, irregular task of English grammar before their sixth birthday. And although English spelling is at many places irregular, it is nothing compared to English grammar. If we can have faith that our little ones will learn to speak it properly, we should have faith that they will learn to read it properly.
All of the “research” that is presented about phonics is 1. Research done in children who began reading at five or six years old, and 2. Usually neglects the science of how our brain reads words. I like tatianna’s point when she says:
by the way i lot of educators think you shouldn't teach little kids to read
but wait till they are 6 and give the to the school to teach
if anyone thinks that is a good idea than way don't we stop talking to our babies and wait for the schools to ruin that as well
my point is that just because someone is suppose to be an "expert" doesn't always mean they know what there talking about
I realize that the point of people on here is not to stop early reading, or to pit whole words against phonics as if it’s an either/or. But if a child begins reading as a baby and has consistent exposure to many words, there will be no read the teach phonics, and my main point it that parents should not be afraid of the research that says if they teach their child to read using whole words that they are setting him up for failure, because it simply is not true.