9 ms·

Spaced repetition for teaching two-year olds how to read

133 points by jseliger 2y ago

082349872349872 2y ago
As a former two-year old who underwent a manual version of this process, I recommend it.
082349872349872 2y ago
dup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40671986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40671986
- dang 2y ago
  On HN we don't treat reposts as dupes unless the earlier thread got significant attention. That's on purpose, to give good articles multiple chances at making the front page. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. (I mention this because it's probably why your comment was downvoted.) I've merged the comments from that thread into this one.
gwern 2y ago
Also https://chipmonk.substack.com/p/spaced-repetition-for-teaching-two https://chipmonk.substack.com/p/spaced-repetition-for-teachi...
frithsun 2y ago
That's great, and they're probably on to a cool learning technique. But it's really just another case of smart parents with a smart kid thinking they reinvented education because the kid is smart.
- ezconnect 2y ago
  I have two kids and they have totally different skills of learning. My first kid learned numbers and arithmetic without teaching him by 3 years old. He discovered it himself using youtube. He learned to use the remote when he was 2 years old and knew which shows could teach him. My other kid is already 3 years old and he has problems understanding the concept of numbers and doesn't know how to use the remote control.
  - drekipus 2y ago
    I'm curious, cause I have two young kids (< 3yo) , and the first is exceptionally smart (in our completely unbiased and nuanced opinion). When did you get the remote/ allow them to watch YouTube, in this example? Could it be related to how long they're been able to use it relative to their age? (IE: remote is relatively new to the older, but 90% of life of the younger). I have a hard time thinking that kids are just naturally "not clever" - I think any kid can be extremely clever if given the chance to explore and play and grow. (Parents to parents talk is always laden with judgement, so in not doing that. I'm just curious and seeking info for what I think about for my kids. I hope you don't feel like I'm judging you or anything. )
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      In my opinion, clever and motivated are two completely different things. Trying to get around the restrictions on video watching? Sure, he’ll spend an hour typing possible 4 number combinations and realize he’ll eventually get there. Having to make the effort to actually look at the letters, read them, and figure out the word? Nope, that’s too much effort. Besides, if he can read himself, how is he going to get papa to read to him. I dunno how kids work.
    - ezconnect 2y ago
      Youtube is youtube kids. The first one really have a curiosity to learn and explore. We were really surprised he got the idea of how to count almost unlimited numbers. We only taught him it just repeats and changes name once you reach the end of tens. He was also able to do arithmetic just by watching number blocks and learned multiplication by 3 yrs old just by explaining to him the concept of addition, subtraction and multiplication. The other guy is totally different he can memorize songs and retell stories on a book (he can't read) told to him. He likes to be babied don't even try to touch the remote for fear of losing what he is watching. They are both intelligent it just that the other guy is not interested in exploring by himself. I think language development was the key to early development because they could understand what you are explaining to them.
    - arrowsmith 2y ago
noahmbarr 2y ago
Is prioritizing developing these skills good for a child’s overall development?
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  I found that reading easily and quickly left me more hours in the day to work at skills that are not easily conveyed via literacy. I could easily be biased though: much of my adult life has involved reading large quantities of material and writing much shorter quantities afterwards; if my life were not text-centric I might've viewed the early start and subsequent advantage as a waste?
  - watwut 2y ago
    They are two years old. Their reading speed as adults ability is unlikely to be affected
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      Coincidentally, the age when my mother taught me to read, via manual repetition (first flashcards, then books, then my own library card) (being in the habit of reading for years before you get there also makes elementary school far more bearable, as you have time free to think your own thoughts while the rest of the class is still finishing the assigned reading)
robto 2y ago
I taught my kids how to read pretty early (4, not 2) using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, which was astoundingly easy. Both kids are now in school and reading significantly above grade level and I have different concern - their ability far outstrips their experience. So even though they can read large unfamiliar words, the subject matter of the stories that are challenging enough to be interesting to them deal with themes and experiences that are pretty foreign. Books that deal more with their experiences and interests are written at a much more basic reading level and are not interesting to them. They seem to really enjoy reading but sometimes I wonder if early reading is really beneficial in the long run. On the other hand, I certainly read some books too young, but I don't really regret that, so maybe I'm just making up problems to worry about.
- coryrc 2y ago
  I tried using that book with a kid with adhd and it wasn't working, but I have tried to use its lessons while reading other books. If anybody reads this that has success despite adhd, please let me know if you have any advice. 4 is still pretty young so I'm not stressing about it.
  - robto 2y ago
    For what it's worth, the oldest got all the way through on his own power, asking to do it each day. The next kid petered out around day 45 and we didn't try to force it, but she's even more advanced than the first one was at her age now. Not stressing about it seems to be a good approach : )
  - sinuhe69 2y ago
    My young son also has ADHD (diagnosed but no need for medical intervention). When Covid came and we stayed at home, he got bored, so I decided to teach him to read. We are non-native speakers, so it's natural for us to look for a phonics method. Luckily, I stumbled upon the right one: Reading Egg. It's a reading app based on a scientific phonics-based approach with very engaging activities and a library to choose from. In the beginning, I worked with my son, but after about a week he was able to continue on his own. We started very light with 2 lessons per weak + maths lessons (oh, they have maths too. But the reading app is much better, IMO). Later it was probably 3 lessons per weak, IIRC. I still do the reading with him in the first month, but in the later months he could read (the task) on his own. After 3 months my son could read independently and he ventured out to read books outside the app. Today he is an avid reader with a wide range of interests (business and marketing is the currentbhot topic :D ). He scores in the top 3% in reading (measured twice a year by the MAPS tests) and in the top 0.001% in maths. Considering his developmental problems, I think it's remarkable progress. And not least thanks to the Reading Eggs app. I always find the discussion about how to teach reading in the US superfluous because there is a proven better way and it is so cheap. So maybe give it a try. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Reading Eggs. Just a happy customer.
prpl 2y ago
My kid taught himself to read, but he's also on the spectrum. He was recognizing symbols and then words at the age of two - the first thing he really recognized was "Thank You". At some point he just learned to sound things out. It's been a mild issue with ABA for his age because a lot of the material includes words and he just reads things. If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably either reading ever night, maybe Ms Rachel on Youtube, or something else on youtube, or some combination, but I didn't teach him how to sound out long words, he worked that out on his own. I'm not sure I could replicate it though. He's 4 now, recognizes 100+ flags, knows most objects in the universe, can read just about any word I've thrown at him. I'm not entirely sure he internalizes most of what he reads, but he can easily read anything my 9 year old can.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  I also have ASD and learned to read by myself. I don’t remember exactly how old I was—my mom says it was around 2. I was frequently ready adult books by age 10. However I can’t say it really helped me as an adult. It’s not like I can read more advanced shit now. There is still a plateau.
  - bombela 2y ago
    Identical experience for me. No significant advantage gained in life. I don't read better than the average person.
  - wenc 2y ago
    My parents taught me to read at age 2 and the more I read the more I wanted to read. By the time I got to kindergarten, I had already read more than all the other kids. It inculcated the love of reading in me which paid dividends throughout my life. It helped me greatly as an adult. Most of my peers in the tech industry haven’t read a book since high school (because their upbringing didn’t emphasize reading). But reading books and believing you can actually learn things from them helps you enter fields outside of what you went to school for. I taught myself stuff from books. I learned from books how to navigate corporate culture (High Output Management), how business actually works (the Halo Effect, Hard Things), how charisma actually works (How to Win Friends), templates for doing things I’m not good at (Difficult Conversations, Getting to Yes) etc. Arguably you can learn all these things by reading articles and by watching YouTube. But books are special. Granted most books today have a lot of fluff but at least for the parts that are useful, books slow me down and help me absorb at a better pace. Similar to the idea of bioavailability of nutrients, books to me are more “bio available” in that they’re the same nutrients, but are better and more deeply absorbed.
hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
Tremendous work. I've spoken elsewhere about the massive benefits 12 years and counting of Anki has had on my intellectual growth, and how introducing it to my wife was the secret sauce that let her retake her high school math exams and get into a great university with a major in computer science - I'm fully on board with exposing children to this wonderful, powerful, free tool as early as possible. It puts knowledge acquisition itself under statistical process control. I can think of nothing more which my child self wanted.
- unshavedyak 2y ago
  I've been thinking about incorporating more SR in my life (mostly toying with my own impls). Since you seem to be smitten with the practice, any tips you've discovered on writing, managing, etc SR cards?
  - hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
    Plenty, but I'd need to know more about your use case to give useful feedback. Feel free to email me, I love talking about this stuff.
  - sodality2 2y ago
    I’m not GP, but here’s two articles I’ve found that have been extremely informative. https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition
    - MichaelNolan 2y ago
      Those two links are fantastic. In addition to those two I’d add: http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html
grugagag 2y ago
2 year olds learn so much about the world, learning to read that early will not do as much as parents expect. Let 2 year olds learn and be exposed to things children of that age normally do, sure an early start here and there is okay. But please do not set high expectations for them and first and foremost, let them play a lot. This obsession with getting them ahead of their peers could backfire, they may later feel alienated from their peers, be misfits in their age group and so on. When the circumstances bring along and when the child gravitates toward early intelectual pursuits let it be as it is of their own choosing.
- mikkom 2y ago
  Well said, I would think it's even disadvantageous to make them sit in front of smart screens to learn to read and to get positive feedback from their parents.
- kragen 2y ago
  the great thing about knowing how to read early on is that you can read things adults write for other adults, so you can tell when what adults say to you contradicts it. which it does, a lot condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel. everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world, and literacy is a crucial tool for doing so, because books can't discriminate against you the way adults will you cannot gravitate toward pursuits you don't know about. deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable and none of this takes away from play; play does not depend on ignorance but on imagination
  - hifromwork 2y ago
    >condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel I don't understand your point. Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours? >everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world As a children I had zero interest in doing that. There may be children way different than I was, but I think speech, ability to express emotion, self-worth, etc are way more important for this than (very) early reading skills. >deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable Come on, nobody talks about raising an analphabete children. The topic was about (not) speeding up the learning process extremely, and (not) leting kids learn this skill at a more usual pace.
isoprophlex 2y ago
> Hannah went through a phase where she didn't want to do it. We tried to compromise and work through it. Eventually, it became part of her "job" -- we told her that every human has a job, and her job was to do Anki. In my personal experience, precociousness as a kid breeds alienation from your peers. I hope this kid gets plenty of exercise to train her social and emotional intelligence, too.
red_admiral 2y ago
Something that's really important but almost buried here: > I was ready to stop at any moment. As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good. The moment you have some kind of schedule in mind, and you're trying to cram stuff into your kids' head because they're "falling behind schedule", consider you might be doing net harm. > A four year old with a 3rd grade reading ability learns about a WHOLE lot more -- it opened up politics for her. She would read our junk mail, and learn who our council member was, who our representative is, the mayor, current events, history, etc. This is great. Learning about the world is so much easier when you can read.
- wenc 2y ago
  > As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good. I’m sure you meant it in the kindest way - that respects your kid’s interests and abilities. But being raised in a more rigid culture, this was not the case for me, and having a forcing function helped me develop foundations in areas I’m not naturally strong in. I was a gifted child, and the way most gifted child lose their luster is they are given too much free rein to ignore things they’re not good at because they’re so exceptionally good at their narrow areas. Many of the brightest kids I knew who amounted to nothing had this problem: they’re smart but they always give up when they encounter anything that doesn’t come easily to them. Maybe there’s ADHD involved but the core of it is that humans always want to do things that come easily and avoid things that are hard. I know many of them suffer depressions and end up in manual data entry jobs and jobs where they are underemployed. But you need structure and persistence to do well in anything. In my case it was math. I did well in elementary school but high school math didn’t come easily to me (my giftedness was in languages). I was going to resign and study the humanities — nothing wrong with that, that is a worthy pursuit of its own - except my dad knew it was a cop out and I wasn’t giving my best. He was right, and he had the backing of the culture. He told me he would support me in anything I chose to do, but he was more concerned that I “gave up too easily without trying my best”. So instead of giving up, I gave it my best shot and used my languages skills to get good at math. Math is one of those foundational skills that pays dividends in life, no matter what you choose to major in later. I kept trying and failing (it didn’t come naturally to me) but somehow after reaching a certain level, math clicked for me and made sense. It’s all about incremental improvement and pushing through the troughs. (I now have a PhD in numerical optimization — not bad for a humanities and languages kid.) Kids (and adults)don’t know what they’re capable of and many give up too eagerly because they “have lost interest” (common refrain). But I say adopt a growth mindset. Sometimes there are paths that are open but parents close them too quickly. We still have limits, and I for one will never be a world class mathematician (because I’m not naturally talented) but I am a far sight better than that kid in high school who thought he couldn’t do math. Would I have done better going into the humanities? Maybe but I wouldn’t have the job I do now which allows me to do the breadth of things that I do and to emigrate to the country I’m in.
euroderf 2y ago
Our son showed an interest in letters before he was 2. He would point at an S and say Ssssss. So at age two and some months, I made a set of flash cards for body parts. So we would play "the body parts game", where I show him a card and ask him to try to say the word and to point to the body part. He thoroughly enjoyed this game. We did it in both languages (we are raising him bilingually.) I tried to use a bit of creative fontology (is that a word?) to de-emphasize silent letters, like thum(b) and (k)nee, and to mark letter combinations like ch and sh. When he asked about the silent letters, I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid). Obviously spoken language is the baseline in all this.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  > I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid). One of my earliest memories is the unwelcome lesson that the printed word "ice" is the spoken word /aɪs/ but "police" is /pʊˈliːs/. In retrospect, it helped me get an early start on accepting the notion that substantial parts of life involve putting up with network effects left lying around by previous generations. (upon reflection, I did ultimately immigrate to someplace where "Eis" is /aɪ̯s/ and "Polizei" is /poliˈt͡saɪ̯/, so maybe I hadn't been as successful with acceptance as I believe?)
wizzwizz4 2y ago
From the guy who invented spaced repetition: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_does_not_work_for_kids https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_does_not_work_for_kids > Whatever enhances child's model of the world will integrate with his "world" knowledge. It can even integrate at the physical neural level and last for a lifetime. All irrelevant and abstract material will be rejected. As a result, this is a perfect illustration of the fact that early teaching makes little sense. It is the child's brain that makes choices on what to remember. SuperMemo becomes useless because it does not have a contribution to the child's knowledge. That contribution will only slowly develop over time when memory improves, mnemonic capacity improves, and the ability for abstract reasoning shows up. https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Educational_dyslexia https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Educational_dyslexia > The mechanism of educational dyslexia (or school-induced dyslexia) is the same as the formation of toxic memory in all forms of coercive learning. When a child learns to associate reading with displeasure, the learning process may grind to a halt. A regress in reading skills is also possible. Sensitive children with passions that do not involve reading are at particular risk. https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Don%27t_teach_your_child_to_read https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Don%27t_teach_your_child_to_read > Optimum age for reading is not much different from the optimum age for learning multiplication or learning how to use a map. Optimum age is as absurd as the optimum time to learn the Beer's law in physics. Some people learn Beer's law at 3, some never learn it. In the same individual, Letter A may be familiar at the age of 1.5, while the distinction between U and Y can be made stable only at 7. Should that smart kid learn to read at 1.5? No! That would sure lead to toxic memories (unless under zero coercion). Perhaps at 7? No! Why wait? Knowing A may accelerate learning B. > As long as it comes naturally, early is good but late is also nice, and always better than never.
deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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dubeye 2y ago
I was told by nursery not to do any home reading tuition until 5/6, which seems to be in vogue advice here in UK. unsure of the reality but I was happy to take this advice on board, I'm happy with an average happy child
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  That’s crazy. I haven’t heard of this. My son was reading like an adult by 4. I didn’t do anything structured but just did what made sense. He enjoyed the learning process and so did I, so I’m not sure why anyone would tell you not to do it. Where’s the harm?
achatham 2y ago
I've been doing this for the past 2 years with my two older kids (now 5.5 and 3.5) based on the same reddit post this article is about. I've found it works great, though I have high-focus kids. I call it "word cards". For the older kid, he learned the letters at preschool and then we did the Bob Books together. That worked well for phonics, but we hit a wall with sight words that require memorization. That's where Anki saved the day. We'd do 5 minutes of word cards every morning, and he'd get a token on a reward tracker, which eventually added up to a toy. Worked great for both of us. He's now a fluent reader, and I add unusual words we encounter to the deck, though I've stopped pushing so hard on reading and we just do "fact cards". For my middle child, I started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (TYCTR100), in plain book form. That got her sounding out simple words at 2.5, but it's a really boring process, and I couldn't get her to do 20 minute lessons on a regular basis and didn't want to force it on her. But then I bought a set of TYCTR100 flashcards on Etsy and turned them into Anki cards, and that's worked great. Again, 5 minutes most mornings, though at her age it works better with a short term reward (eg, interleaving with Daniel Tiger). Apparently my kids said they planned to do "word cards" with their kids when I wasn't around. Anki is great at what it does, but the main enabler is finding a process your kids will pay attention to. I probably lucked out there.
growingkittens 2y ago
My mother started teaching me to read as a baby by pointing to the words as she read them. I wonder how that compares?
arjie 2y ago
This is really interesting. As a child I loved reading and I think I know why. It's the only way to acquire more information about the world at scale. As a little child I grew up in a home the grounds of which had tropical birds (mynahs, hoopoes, massive eagles) of all sorts, snakes (vipers, cobras, pythons, garden snakes) of all sorts, cows and scorpions, peacocks and fish. So there was no shortage of real life observation of the world but the variation you encounter in a book is far broader. I'm grateful for my parents picking out so many books for me and helping me learn to read because it unlocked a huge world with no horizon. And when you're young all this learning doesn't feel like work. I remember being excited to remember my tables, or to know trivia like the capitals of nations, and so on. Bizarrely, I was terrible with the exact placement of events in history and consequently hated it. And a fun game I'd play with myself was the idea of figuring out things without remembering it. When did X happen? What is a Y? And I think that was possible because I read the things I read when young. And I decried rote memorization. It was obviously intelligence that gave me this ability. Looking back now that's funny because it's my good memory and all the things I shoved into it that did the trick. Hurray to indulging children's curiosity. Also, it's been illuminating following your blog, Jake. I check it every time I see your username. But I've recently gotten back into reading things through RSS so I'm glad you've got one.
iforgotmysocks 2y ago
Only focusing on spaced repetition here: you can't just get good by doing spaced repetition. Learning (or reading in this context) is much more bigger than that. If it only take space repetition and Anki, everyone would be good at it.

133 points by jseliger 2y ago

082349872349872 2y ago

As a former two-year old who underwent a manual version of this process, I recommend it.

082349872349872 2y ago

dup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40671986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40671986

dang 2y ago
On HN we don't treat reposts as dupes unless the earlier thread got significant attention. That's on purpose, to give good articles multiple chances at making the front page. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. (I mention this because it's probably why your comment was downvoted.) I've merged the comments from that thread into this one.

gwern 2y ago

Also https://chipmonk.substack.com/p/spaced-repetition-for-teaching-two https://chipmonk.substack.com/p/spaced-repetition-for-teachi...

frithsun 2y ago

That's great, and they're probably on to a cool learning technique. But it's really just another case of smart parents with a smart kid thinking they reinvented education because the kid is smart.

ezconnect 2y ago
I have two kids and they have totally different skills of learning. My first kid learned numbers and arithmetic without teaching him by 3 years old. He discovered it himself using youtube. He learned to use the remote when he was 2 years old and knew which shows could teach him. My other kid is already 3 years old and he has problems understanding the concept of numbers and doesn't know how to use the remote control.
- drekipus 2y ago
  I'm curious, cause I have two young kids (< 3yo) , and the first is exceptionally smart (in our completely unbiased and nuanced opinion). When did you get the remote/ allow them to watch YouTube, in this example? Could it be related to how long they're been able to use it relative to their age? (IE: remote is relatively new to the older, but 90% of life of the younger). I have a hard time thinking that kids are just naturally "not clever" - I think any kid can be extremely clever if given the chance to explore and play and grow. (Parents to parents talk is always laden with judgement, so in not doing that. I'm just curious and seeking info for what I think about for my kids. I hope you don't feel like I'm judging you or anything. )
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    In my opinion, clever and motivated are two completely different things. Trying to get around the restrictions on video watching? Sure, he’ll spend an hour typing possible 4 number combinations and realize he’ll eventually get there. Having to make the effort to actually look at the letters, read them, and figure out the word? Nope, that’s too much effort. Besides, if he can read himself, how is he going to get papa to read to him. I dunno how kids work.
  - ezconnect 2y ago
    Youtube is youtube kids. The first one really have a curiosity to learn and explore. We were really surprised he got the idea of how to count almost unlimited numbers. We only taught him it just repeats and changes name once you reach the end of tens. He was also able to do arithmetic just by watching number blocks and learned multiplication by 3 yrs old just by explaining to him the concept of addition, subtraction and multiplication. The other guy is totally different he can memorize songs and retell stories on a book (he can't read) told to him. He likes to be babied don't even try to touch the remote for fear of losing what he is watching. They are both intelligent it just that the other guy is not interested in exploring by himself. I think language development was the key to early development because they could understand what you are explaining to them.
  - arrowsmith 2y ago

noahmbarr 2y ago

Is prioritizing developing these skills good for a child’s overall development?

082349872349872 2y ago
I found that reading easily and quickly left me more hours in the day to work at skills that are not easily conveyed via literacy. I could easily be biased though: much of my adult life has involved reading large quantities of material and writing much shorter quantities afterwards; if my life were not text-centric I might've viewed the early start and subsequent advantage as a waste?
- watwut 2y ago
  They are two years old. Their reading speed as adults ability is unlikely to be affected
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Coincidentally, the age when my mother taught me to read, via manual repetition (first flashcards, then books, then my own library card) (being in the habit of reading for years before you get there also makes elementary school far more bearable, as you have time free to think your own thoughts while the rest of the class is still finishing the assigned reading)

robto 2y ago

I taught my kids how to read pretty early (4, not 2) using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, which was astoundingly easy. Both kids are now in school and reading significantly above grade level and I have different concern - their ability far outstrips their experience. So even though they can read large unfamiliar words, the subject matter of the stories that are challenging enough to be interesting to them deal with themes and experiences that are pretty foreign. Books that deal more with their experiences and interests are written at a much more basic reading level and are not interesting to them. They seem to really enjoy reading but sometimes I wonder if early reading is really beneficial in the long run. On the other hand, I certainly read some books too young, but I don't really regret that, so maybe I'm just making up problems to worry about.

coryrc 2y ago
I tried using that book with a kid with adhd and it wasn't working, but I have tried to use its lessons while reading other books. If anybody reads this that has success despite adhd, please let me know if you have any advice. 4 is still pretty young so I'm not stressing about it.
- robto 2y ago
  For what it's worth, the oldest got all the way through on his own power, asking to do it each day. The next kid petered out around day 45 and we didn't try to force it, but she's even more advanced than the first one was at her age now. Not stressing about it seems to be a good approach : )
- sinuhe69 2y ago
  My young son also has ADHD (diagnosed but no need for medical intervention). When Covid came and we stayed at home, he got bored, so I decided to teach him to read. We are non-native speakers, so it's natural for us to look for a phonics method. Luckily, I stumbled upon the right one: Reading Egg. It's a reading app based on a scientific phonics-based approach with very engaging activities and a library to choose from. In the beginning, I worked with my son, but after about a week he was able to continue on his own. We started very light with 2 lessons per weak + maths lessons (oh, they have maths too. But the reading app is much better, IMO). Later it was probably 3 lessons per weak, IIRC. I still do the reading with him in the first month, but in the later months he could read (the task) on his own. After 3 months my son could read independently and he ventured out to read books outside the app. Today he is an avid reader with a wide range of interests (business and marketing is the currentbhot topic :D ). He scores in the top 3% in reading (measured twice a year by the MAPS tests) and in the top 0.001% in maths. Considering his developmental problems, I think it's remarkable progress. And not least thanks to the Reading Eggs app. I always find the discussion about how to teach reading in the US superfluous because there is a proven better way and it is so cheap. So maybe give it a try. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Reading Eggs. Just a happy customer.

prpl 2y ago

My kid taught himself to read, but he's also on the spectrum. He was recognizing symbols and then words at the age of two - the first thing he really recognized was "Thank You". At some point he just learned to sound things out. It's been a mild issue with ABA for his age because a lot of the material includes words and he just reads things. If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably either reading ever night, maybe Ms Rachel on Youtube, or something else on youtube, or some combination, but I didn't teach him how to sound out long words, he worked that out on his own. I'm not sure I could replicate it though. He's 4 now, recognizes 100+ flags, knows most objects in the universe, can read just about any word I've thrown at him. I'm not entirely sure he internalizes most of what he reads, but he can easily read anything my 9 year old can.

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zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I also have ASD and learned to read by myself. I don’t remember exactly how old I was—my mom says it was around 2. I was frequently ready adult books by age 10. However I can’t say it really helped me as an adult. It’s not like I can read more advanced shit now. There is still a plateau.
- bombela 2y ago
  Identical experience for me. No significant advantage gained in life. I don't read better than the average person.
- wenc 2y ago
  My parents taught me to read at age 2 and the more I read the more I wanted to read. By the time I got to kindergarten, I had already read more than all the other kids. It inculcated the love of reading in me which paid dividends throughout my life. It helped me greatly as an adult. Most of my peers in the tech industry haven’t read a book since high school (because their upbringing didn’t emphasize reading). But reading books and believing you can actually learn things from them helps you enter fields outside of what you went to school for. I taught myself stuff from books. I learned from books how to navigate corporate culture (High Output Management), how business actually works (the Halo Effect, Hard Things), how charisma actually works (How to Win Friends), templates for doing things I’m not good at (Difficult Conversations, Getting to Yes) etc. Arguably you can learn all these things by reading articles and by watching YouTube. But books are special. Granted most books today have a lot of fluff but at least for the parts that are useful, books slow me down and help me absorb at a better pace. Similar to the idea of bioavailability of nutrients, books to me are more “bio available” in that they’re the same nutrients, but are better and more deeply absorbed.

hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago

Tremendous work. I've spoken elsewhere about the massive benefits 12 years and counting of Anki has had on my intellectual growth, and how introducing it to my wife was the secret sauce that let her retake her high school math exams and get into a great university with a major in computer science - I'm fully on board with exposing children to this wonderful, powerful, free tool as early as possible. It puts knowledge acquisition itself under statistical process control. I can think of nothing more which my child self wanted.

unshavedyak 2y ago
I've been thinking about incorporating more SR in my life (mostly toying with my own impls). Since you seem to be smitten with the practice, any tips you've discovered on writing, managing, etc SR cards?
- hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
  Plenty, but I'd need to know more about your use case to give useful feedback. Feel free to email me, I love talking about this stuff.
- sodality2 2y ago
  I’m not GP, but here’s two articles I’ve found that have been extremely informative. https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition https://gwern.net/spaced-repetition
  - MichaelNolan 2y ago
    Those two links are fantastic. In addition to those two I’d add: http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm http://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/ http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

grugagag 2y ago

2 year olds learn so much about the world, learning to read that early will not do as much as parents expect. Let 2 year olds learn and be exposed to things children of that age normally do, sure an early start here and there is okay. But please do not set high expectations for them and first and foremost, let them play a lot. This obsession with getting them ahead of their peers could backfire, they may later feel alienated from their peers, be misfits in their age group and so on. When the circumstances bring along and when the child gravitates toward early intelectual pursuits let it be as it is of their own choosing.

mikkom 2y ago
Well said, I would think it's even disadvantageous to make them sit in front of smart screens to learn to read and to get positive feedback from their parents.
kragen 2y ago
the great thing about knowing how to read early on is that you can read things adults write for other adults, so you can tell when what adults say to you contradicts it. which it does, a lot condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel. everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world, and literacy is a crucial tool for doing so, because books can't discriminate against you the way adults will you cannot gravitate toward pursuits you don't know about. deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable and none of this takes away from play; play does not depend on ignorance but on imagination
- hifromwork 2y ago
  >condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel I don't understand your point. Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours? >everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world As a children I had zero interest in doing that. There may be children way different than I was, but I think speech, ability to express emotion, self-worth, etc are way more important for this than (very) early reading skills. >deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable Come on, nobody talks about raising an analphabete children. The topic was about (not) speeding up the learning process extremely, and (not) leting kids learn this skill at a more usual pace.

isoprophlex 2y ago

> Hannah went through a phase where she didn't want to do it. We tried to compromise and work through it. Eventually, it became part of her "job" -- we told her that every human has a job, and her job was to do Anki. In my personal experience, precociousness as a kid breeds alienation from your peers. I hope this kid gets plenty of exercise to train her social and emotional intelligence, too.

red_admiral 2y ago

Something that's really important but almost buried here: > I was ready to stop at any moment. As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good. The moment you have some kind of schedule in mind, and you're trying to cram stuff into your kids' head because they're "falling behind schedule", consider you might be doing net harm. > A four year old with a 3rd grade reading ability learns about a WHOLE lot more -- it opened up politics for her. She would read our junk mail, and learn who our council member was, who our representative is, the mayor, current events, history, etc. This is great. Learning about the world is so much easier when you can read.

wenc 2y ago
> As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good. I’m sure you meant it in the kindest way - that respects your kid’s interests and abilities. But being raised in a more rigid culture, this was not the case for me, and having a forcing function helped me develop foundations in areas I’m not naturally strong in. I was a gifted child, and the way most gifted child lose their luster is they are given too much free rein to ignore things they’re not good at because they’re so exceptionally good at their narrow areas. Many of the brightest kids I knew who amounted to nothing had this problem: they’re smart but they always give up when they encounter anything that doesn’t come easily to them. Maybe there’s ADHD involved but the core of it is that humans always want to do things that come easily and avoid things that are hard. I know many of them suffer depressions and end up in manual data entry jobs and jobs where they are underemployed. But you need structure and persistence to do well in anything. In my case it was math. I did well in elementary school but high school math didn’t come easily to me (my giftedness was in languages). I was going to resign and study the humanities — nothing wrong with that, that is a worthy pursuit of its own - except my dad knew it was a cop out and I wasn’t giving my best. He was right, and he had the backing of the culture. He told me he would support me in anything I chose to do, but he was more concerned that I “gave up too easily without trying my best”. So instead of giving up, I gave it my best shot and used my languages skills to get good at math. Math is one of those foundational skills that pays dividends in life, no matter what you choose to major in later. I kept trying and failing (it didn’t come naturally to me) but somehow after reaching a certain level, math clicked for me and made sense. It’s all about incremental improvement and pushing through the troughs. (I now have a PhD in numerical optimization — not bad for a humanities and languages kid.) Kids (and adults)don’t know what they’re capable of and many give up too eagerly because they “have lost interest” (common refrain). But I say adopt a growth mindset. Sometimes there are paths that are open but parents close them too quickly. We still have limits, and I for one will never be a world class mathematician (because I’m not naturally talented) but I am a far sight better than that kid in high school who thought he couldn’t do math. Would I have done better going into the humanities? Maybe but I wouldn’t have the job I do now which allows me to do the breadth of things that I do and to emigrate to the country I’m in.

euroderf 2y ago

Our son showed an interest in letters before he was 2. He would point at an S and say Ssssss. So at age two and some months, I made a set of flash cards for body parts. So we would play "the body parts game", where I show him a card and ask him to try to say the word and to point to the body part. He thoroughly enjoyed this game. We did it in both languages (we are raising him bilingually.) I tried to use a bit of creative fontology (is that a word?) to de-emphasize silent letters, like thum(b) and (k)nee, and to mark letter combinations like ch and sh. When he asked about the silent letters, I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid). Obviously spoken language is the baseline in all this.

082349872349872 2y ago
> I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid). One of my earliest memories is the unwelcome lesson that the printed word "ice" is the spoken word /aɪs/ but "police" is /pʊˈliːs/. In retrospect, it helped me get an early start on accepting the notion that substantial parts of life involve putting up with network effects left lying around by previous generations. (upon reflection, I did ultimately immigrate to someplace where "Eis" is /aɪ̯s/ and "Polizei" is /poliˈt͡saɪ̯/, so maybe I hadn't been as successful with acceptance as I believe?)

wizzwizz4 2y ago

From the guy who invented spaced repetition: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_does_not_work_for_kids https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_does_not_work_for_kids > Whatever enhances child's model of the world will integrate with his "world" knowledge. It can even integrate at the physical neural level and last for a lifetime. All irrelevant and abstract material will be rejected. As a result, this is a perfect illustration of the fact that early teaching makes little sense. It is the child's brain that makes choices on what to remember. SuperMemo becomes useless because it does not have a contribution to the child's knowledge. That contribution will only slowly develop over time when memory improves, mnemonic capacity improves, and the ability for abstract reasoning shows up. https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Educational_dyslexia https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Educational_dyslexia > The mechanism of educational dyslexia (or school-induced dyslexia) is the same as the formation of toxic memory in all forms of coercive learning. When a child learns to associate reading with displeasure, the learning process may grind to a halt. A regress in reading skills is also possible. Sensitive children with passions that do not involve reading are at particular risk. https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Don%27t_teach_your_child_to_read https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Don%27t_teach_your_child_to_read > Optimum age for reading is not much different from the optimum age for learning multiplication or learning how to use a map. Optimum age is as absurd as the optimum time to learn the Beer's law in physics. Some people learn Beer's law at 3, some never learn it. In the same individual, Letter A may be familiar at the age of 1.5, while the distinction between U and Y can be made stable only at 7. Should that smart kid learn to read at 1.5? No! That would sure lead to toxic memories (unless under zero coercion). Perhaps at 7? No! Why wait? Knowing A may accelerate learning B. > As long as it comes naturally, early is good but late is also nice, and always better than never.

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dubeye 2y ago

I was told by nursery not to do any home reading tuition until 5/6, which seems to be in vogue advice here in UK. unsure of the reality but I was happy to take this advice on board, I'm happy with an average happy child

thebruce87m 2y ago
That’s crazy. I haven’t heard of this. My son was reading like an adult by 4. I didn’t do anything structured but just did what made sense. He enjoyed the learning process and so did I, so I’m not sure why anyone would tell you not to do it. Where’s the harm?

achatham 2y ago

I've been doing this for the past 2 years with my two older kids (now 5.5 and 3.5) based on the same reddit post this article is about. I've found it works great, though I have high-focus kids. I call it "word cards". For the older kid, he learned the letters at preschool and then we did the Bob Books together. That worked well for phonics, but we hit a wall with sight words that require memorization. That's where Anki saved the day. We'd do 5 minutes of word cards every morning, and he'd get a token on a reward tracker, which eventually added up to a toy. Worked great for both of us. He's now a fluent reader, and I add unusual words we encounter to the deck, though I've stopped pushing so hard on reading and we just do "fact cards". For my middle child, I started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (TYCTR100), in plain book form. That got her sounding out simple words at 2.5, but it's a really boring process, and I couldn't get her to do 20 minute lessons on a regular basis and didn't want to force it on her. But then I bought a set of TYCTR100 flashcards on Etsy and turned them into Anki cards, and that's worked great. Again, 5 minutes most mornings, though at her age it works better with a short term reward (eg, interleaving with Daniel Tiger). Apparently my kids said they planned to do "word cards" with their kids when I wasn't around. Anki is great at what it does, but the main enabler is finding a process your kids will pay attention to. I probably lucked out there.

growingkittens 2y ago

My mother started teaching me to read as a baby by pointing to the words as she read them. I wonder how that compares?

arjie 2y ago

This is really interesting. As a child I loved reading and I think I know why. It's the only way to acquire more information about the world at scale. As a little child I grew up in a home the grounds of which had tropical birds (mynahs, hoopoes, massive eagles) of all sorts, snakes (vipers, cobras, pythons, garden snakes) of all sorts, cows and scorpions, peacocks and fish. So there was no shortage of real life observation of the world but the variation you encounter in a book is far broader. I'm grateful for my parents picking out so many books for me and helping me learn to read because it unlocked a huge world with no horizon. And when you're young all this learning doesn't feel like work. I remember being excited to remember my tables, or to know trivia like the capitals of nations, and so on. Bizarrely, I was terrible with the exact placement of events in history and consequently hated it. And a fun game I'd play with myself was the idea of figuring out things without remembering it. When did X happen? What is a Y? And I think that was possible because I read the things I read when young. And I decried rote memorization. It was obviously intelligence that gave me this ability. Looking back now that's funny because it's my good memory and all the things I shoved into it that did the trick. Hurray to indulging children's curiosity. Also, it's been illuminating following your blog, Jake. I check it every time I see your username. But I've recently gotten back into reading things through RSS so I'm glad you've got one.

iforgotmysocks 2y ago

Only focusing on spaced repetition here: you can't just get good by doing spaced repetition. Learning (or reading in this context) is much more bigger than that. If it only take space repetition and Anki, everyone would be good at it.