Re: CHAT: learning to read

Herman Miller wrote:

> My mom tells me that when I was young, I would point to the letters of the
> alphabet and insist on being told what they were. Sesame Street came out
in
> the late 60's but by then I already knew the alphabet, and I was reading
> well before I got to first grade. I don't have clear memories of the first
> three years of school, but I'm pretty sure they used phonics or a similar
> method.
Well.  I think I had a similar development.  I even remeber the first word I
learn how to write: it was "avion" (airplane), because I always asked my
parents how to write it (or some other words) and they use the name of the
letters to tell me. When I came in to first grade (actually grade zero) they
bought me the book asked at school, and in a night, before the first day at
school, I took the book with my 15 month younger syster and, knowing the
letters, I found out how to read.

I remember that in school when the teacher said that <m> was the letter /m:/
for me was the letter /eme/, and I proudly was the only one in the class
that knew that the picture of a "rana" (frog) was actually the picture of a
"sapo" (toad), because I could read it.

Short after I flyed to Sweden and begun first grade there, and at the time
my classmates where learning how to read, for me those books where actually
learning how to speak (Swedish).

-- Carlos Th