How old were you when you learned how to read?

I was six years old already when I learned to read. I went straight to Grade 1, no kinder, no pre-school. When a baby niece came to live with me, I immediately exposed her to the wonder of books. She learned the alphabet at two - she would spell out anything she laid her eyes on, like once she read out the letters on a bottle of coke: E-K-O-C, and gleefully shouted "coca-cola". She learned to read words at three years old.

Between 3 & 4 by my paternal grandmother. When I spent a year (1951) in an English school (in London as opposed to Australia) I was reading Enid Blyton and Biggles books while the rest of them were still learning alphabets just about. I think children taught as young as that always have a reading age far ahead of their contemporaries. It's just like foreign languages, which are far easier learnt by the very young. Musicians taught to play very young are aways ahead of the field, and so on. Talent and intelligence, of course, always help. Lash

I was only four years then! I started to learn alphabets and counting with the help of my parents and a home tutor, even without going to a school! Books with small pictorial stories and poems in my mother-tongue (Oriya) were very much charming and pleasant! A particular book named 'Chaatasaalee Paatha' (Lessons for Nursery Class) was very much popular and beneficial among kids then! Some kids were very much proud of reading and reciting that pictorial book and some others were even proud of just possessing that nice book! Anyway, that book had helped millions to promote literacy in our state! Thanks for this nice discussion!

Having two sisters who are much older than me, they taught me to read before I went to school. I think I was about 3 years old. I haven't stopped reading since.. I love it!

I don't really remember when is the first time I learned to read. My mother is a busy parents, she worked. Sometimes she felt asleep when she was reading me stories from the storybook, I was 3-4 year old that moment. So that I learned to read myself because I was curious about the story. I asked the nanny to teach me reading and I guess I didn't need my mom to read the night stories before I slept. LOL. That's the time I really read I guess. I read the Ugly Duckling the first time when I was about 4-5 year old I guess. LOL. That's why I like reading so much, until now.

I had to have been in kindergarten when I started to learn the one or two words, and I can remember having a difficult time with it. But now I kind of speed read through everything.

Oh, that is so funny! I was (am) dyslexic and my mother's aunt (who was a nun) finally tought me to read when I was probably 5 or 6. My father would be uspet sometimes because I could crochet but I couldn't read. I love to read now!

my grandfather was a teacher, my father is teacher and they always teach me how to learn to remember the alphabets and how to read from 2 years old, and now my sister is a teacher's too, we are teacher's family

I learned my alphabet and some small words before I went to kindergarten. I remember learning to site read, recognize words on flash cards, in kindergarten. The teacher made a set of flash cards with the names of eight basic colors for each student. My mom would hold them up for me to read. She didn't realize she had the cards upside down but I still recognized the words. The school also used the (D)ick And Jane books that also use the site reading method of word recognition. In first grade they began teaching language rules and silent letters. I still remember the saying "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and the second just does the walking." Due to repeated colds and ear infections I was absent so much I ended up repeating first grade so I excelled in reading the second time around. I had older brothers who told me once I learned the spelling and sound rules I could read ANYTHING I wanted just by sounding out the words. I remember reading the newspaper at an early age, and many of their Jr High and High School text books. I hated reading class in school as many of the stories were boring and the school was trying to teach speed reading by having us read the story projected on a screen at the front of the class. It would flash a single line at a time or would run through the lines at a certain speed. Because of my reading comprehension level was always 2-4 grades higher I was expected to read faster. I remember one year we had three reading groups. I would read the story while it was shown at the slower speeds as well as at the higher speed for my group so I could get enough of it to answer the test questions. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't read faster then my slow steady speed. I had a lazy eye problem that was diagnosed in 4th grade because I was having headaches while trying to read from a book during reading class. The Dr prescribed some exercises that only made my eyes ache more. It wasn't until I was in college that I found out why I couldn't follow the speed reading was my eyes didn't track together. I've always loved reading for enjoyment. In one of my college classes I was taught a few skim reading tecniques like reading only the first three letters of a word. Our brains will fill in what is missing based on the following word(s). It was great fun to be able to finally get through large blocks of text quickly when I needed to. But to this day I still read slow when I an reading for fun. I often finish books quickly only because I will read straight through with no breaks for meals or even sleep. The few speed reading techniques do sometimes give me a laugh when I try to catch a line from a billboard while driving. You's be surprised at what crazy saying I thought they were till I gave them a real read.:-)

Many Jewish children are brought up as I was. We must be potty-trained and able to read in order to attend Hebrew School, and that's expected to be before the third birthday. That way, we're fairly well-rooted in our religious education before we go off to the secular school and on a schedule that puts us in Hebrew School every day after school, except on the Sabbath. My father made us sit on his lap at breakfast and read the newspaper to him. It sounds like some sort of unrealistic torture, but it wasn't, at all. We knew we were expected to do that reading, and we were excited to do it. If we did really well, our prizwas to have a book of our own that we could read for ourselves. THAT was really exciting, and I've cherished books ever since.

It has been so long ago that I can't say for certain how old I was when I learned to read. I was probably 5 or 6. In those days, there was no such thing as kindergarten. We started to first grade on or about age 6. I was still 5 when I began first grade but turned 6 before the semester was over. I had to be reading well by then, as my mother told me that my teacher had me ready for 2nd grade by Christmas. Whether I learned to read at school or my mother (an ex school teacher) taught me at home, I cannot remember, and both are now deceased. I'm grateful to whoever taught me, though.

i believe that i was 4 or 5 years when i started to read and my grandma taught me and i used to spend most of the time with her and she used to say "if you want to be a big man,you will need to learn and work hard" and she used to give me chocolates for each successive alphabet i learned and that was the way i became familiar with the alphabets and then i was familiarized with the reading of newspaper and she used to listen to the news that i would read from the paper and she was my teacher and i love and miss her.

I was 2 years old, back in 1971, my mom was pushing me thru the grocery store and I had Electric Company Magazine in front of me, reading the jokes out loud to my mom. Another woman came up & said "Isn't that cute, he's pretending to read" and my mom said "look at the page lady, he IS reading."

Wow, you were so young then but it's no wonder because your mom is a teacher. I was six when I learned how to read. I have a very good elder sister who always taught us so many things and told us so many stories. I love what she did to us when we were young. She was our teacher who was very patient teaching us how to read. I didn't start with the sounds. My sister just taught us to read the books that were available at home. We did have plenty of imported books, donations from UK that time. Which up to now are in our house. Thanks to my sister for teaching me how to read. When I grew up, I loved reading and up to now, reading and writing are my number one hobbies in life.

I and also a cousin of mine learned how to read when we were five years old, thanks to our grandmother, who taught us using her magazines. When we went to school, we began at Kindergarten. Our teacher realized that we already knew how to read few days later the beginning of the classes. He took us by the hand and delivered us at First Grade room. That way we shortened one year our education. I must confess that I didn´t like the idea initially, as I kept crying the whole day. :( ---» :)

hi pinkytabor I learned to read about five years as my mom taught me by reading to me, and sounding out the letters. I also knew my alphabet and my number up to one hundred. when I got to the first grade Iwas so bored Iwouldnt do the wo rk, they kept me back then in the fifth grade my english teacher found out I was three grades ahead in reading and in science and two in math so I was skipped from fifth to the seventh grade. we had no gifted kids classes and also no nursery schools or kindergarten either in my small home town.

I learned to read when i was in Grade one. Some of my classmates know how to read the abcd because they were able to be in Kindergarten. I did not have to chance to be like them because of financially problem. My mother did enroll me in grade one and it was really kinda hard to me at first. So what our teacher did she let those who know how to read to teach those who do not. THe one who tutored me is Chona..I still remember her name of course. She teach me reading the abcd and in the filipino the A BA CA DA. SHe had all the time to teach me for me to learn. I never had her effort wasted because i learned so fast..Just imagine i was the second honor when i was in grade one and the one who teach me has no ribbon haha..that was funny..I had able to maintain it till i graduated in elementary grade as second honor.

i learned the alphabet at the age of 5, but i started reading a word when I became 6 years old.My teacher in Kinder taught me how.

When I was 6 I think. Still remember the first book I read is the Humpty Dumpty poem. Took me a week just to finished it. lol