So when did you guys learn to read? This is how my reading skills developed: -At 3 I could read those short kiddybooks -At 4 I started to read accurately on those short kiddy books and I knew the full alphabet -At 5 I was ahead of my class and started reading books meant for Junior school books (7Year old+) -At 6 I improved a little bit more -At 7 I started to read Harry Potter books -At 10 I read all Harry Potter that were out at the time and started going for much longer books. -At 11 I was reading at an Adult level
I taught myself to read from about age 2, and went through a phase where I would only read factual books (dictionaries and encyclopedias etc) I read Lord of the Rings at age 7 or 8 and it only took me a week of reading off and on to finish. (read it again last year, cover to cover in only 8 hours). I read pretty much anything with print on it.
Cool, my brain works differently helping me learn better but I get problems, the most common is blanking out (I go into deep thought without really realising and everything around me seems to be gone...), I guess your condition is similar with the advantages...
I started reading when I was about 3. You know, the usual little kid stuff. Then from there, as I got older, I started reading longer books( mostly on my own, but I still asked an adult for help with the bigger words). I could remember the first set of books that I got hooked on were the Hardy Boys Mysteries. @Loonylion, you actually finished reading the Lord of the Rings? I've had the complete set going on for two years now, and I still can't get started on the second part yet. I used to love reading every book I could get my hands on, but recently I have been on a reading slump. Maybe I lost interest. :-\
I learned to read when I was 3... I stuck to dictionaries at that time >.< at 4 I went onto picture books... 5, I read my first chapter book, 6 not much changed, 7 I think I read harry potter.... can't really remember
I don't remember when I started to read. But I do know that my favorite book is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. ;D
My favourit book is The Stand by Stephen King, my favourite series is Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom
The way our parents raised us, the way we as an individual act & think, the way our countries' percieve the value of reading & the structure of our countries' educational system affects how we each learn to read. Some of you guys like loony read thick books with little pictures at an early age because you might have been given much support or some push from your parents, siblings &/or other relatives. As they say, children pick up their parents' habits or mode of doing things at an early stage, so if a child sees that reading is something everyone in his family does as a leisure activity, then he can pick up on that. As for myself, in a way I was kinda not really into reading when I was young, because having poor vision made reading became a painful chore. Also growing up & going through school didn't quite help, I hated to be forced into reading stuff I could never really like or catch on. I remember hating reading home economics as a kid because I felt the subject was lame, but loved Science so much so that it was one of the few subjects that inspired me to love reading. Also I realized that I was happier if I was left to read up on things off my own & in my own pace. I often got in trouble in class because I never liked reading up on subjects they forced me to read. As an example, having to stick throughout elementary up 'til high school reading up over & over about sentence structure, God for 10 years you read up that every sentence has a subject & a predicate & that there are strict rules in grammar, sheesh. The result? I might be able to write "good enough" English, but I can't speak out using the language. What I meant is, say seph or loony will be visiting the Philippines & I was supposed to be their guide/contact. If we communicated via written or in this case, typed media, we might understand each other because as I type/write, I can edit what to say to make it understandable. But if we were to converse spokenly, we might have a problem, the years of painful grammar training has dulled my English speaking profficiency. Unconsciously I tend to get held back by "proper grammar" making me nervous around peope (foreigners mostly, even worse Americans &/or British people), this leads me to stutter a bit, talk uncomprehensively & generally unable to communicate freely. I remember this class at University where the Professor was a British National, I was really ashamed because aside from my issues, we were only three people in the class so Naturally you can't avoid talking to the man. One time, I was early in class that he approached me & started talking to me, he told me that I should never be ashamed if I might not sound good enough talking in English because that can help me overcome my issues. Since then I do my best to speak in English but I still get mentally hindered & people like Born2killx makes it worse. No offense there I hope.
Americans don't use proper grammar anyway, and in the UK it's considered less important than it used to be, sadly.
I started reading at a late age, i think i was the worst reader in first grade elementary. But after my dad bought a satellite receiver i just wanted to learn english, so i could understand Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck I always remeber reading English and German dictionaries when i was bored at school, even during math and czech And now i'm proficient in both English and German, but severely lacking in czech. I just wish there'd be more people with good English and German in my town.
Most English and Americans don't know a second language, if people say bad things about your English speaking skills at least you can tell them that at least you actually learnt a second language and that you try...
