4 ms·

How some babies like Alan Kay in his childhood acquire exceptional talent of reading in such a small age. The wiki tells that he had read lofty number of books

How some babies like Alan Kay in his childhood acquire exceptional talent of reading in such a small age. The wiki tells that he had read lofty number of books before he was three? Is it a talent or something to do with nurturing?

jawns 13y ago
I'm pretty sure that in the case of highly exceptional children, it's a combination of both nature and nurture, but with nurture taking a backseat to nature. But I actually tried to stay away from topics like this in "Experimenting With Babies," because, well, how many readers are going to be able to experiment on a kid who can read fluently before age 3? However, if you're interested in learning more about the topic, you might find this resource interesting: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10162.aspx http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10162.aspx
- mathattack 13y ago
  Science tells us that it's not either/or, it's the interaction between our genes and the environment. My intuition (based on anecdotes and observations, not hard data) is that nature provides a starting point, and perhaps an ultimate cap or speed limit to growth, but nurture provides the year over year progress. The most successful people I know nailed the nurture (or hard work) part of the equation. They were all at least smart, but very few were the smartest in the room at a young age. Over time they've appeared smarter and smarter to their surrounding audience.
  - pstuart 13y ago
    I have twins. It's nature, shaped by nurture.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      Identical? I've observed fraternal twins whose parents try to raise them 100% identical, but have wound up very similar in values but different in abilities and personality.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  There are better sources than that on precocity in young children. I'll have to find some references for you. (They may not be found in time for the edit window of this comment, so feel free to write me off-forum if you would like those.) In general, early reading is less remarkable (in English) than people think it is, because with the right materials[1] English can be seen by a young learner as a rather consistent writing system that is not insuperably hard to decode. That said, my four homeschooled children, the first two of whom are strongly bilingual in Chinese and English, having lived in Taiwan in early childhood, were early but not strikingly precocious readers, and all my children were learning a lot of other things besides reading in their early childhood, of which chess was perhaps more conspicuously precocious than reading. Earliness is less important than long-term solid development of skill, and it sounds like the parents of some of the HN participants here who have personally observed examples of very precocious reading were well aware of that. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Minutes-ebook/dp/B000PY4DMC/ http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Minutes-ebook/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-Linguistic-Leonard-Bloomfield/dp/0814334555/ http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-Linguistic-Leonard-Bloomfiel... http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/details.cfm?seriesonly=357M http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/details.cfm?serieson...
- brc 13y ago
  A friend of my sons comes from a house definitely not focussed on teaching reading and writing at a young age. Yet their 5 year old son is streets ahead of his age for reading and writing. He is naturally gifted at it. None of his siblings share this trait or even an interest. Another friend of mine found out their son was a reader when he started kindergarten. He was always 'reading' the books in the house, but his parents thought he had just memorised them from being ready. In fact his kindergarten teachers gave him new stuff to read and he lapped it up. He was reading the first Harry Potter book by the second grade. My friend actually got frustrated because his son didn't want to do father/son things, but preferred to read. Some kids are gifted readers, just like some are gifted at hitting a ball with a bat. The important thing is (a) spend extra time and attention if it is clear they do have a gift and (b) don't feel like your child is somehow behind if there is a kid like this in their class.
- sethammons 13y ago
  Nature vs nurture is a fun topic. The above topic reminded me how I learned to read. No where near as advanced as they, but nightly my dad would read to me and often the same book, the little prince. I was four or younger. I noticed that the words correlated with what is said, and I began seeking forward for shorter two and three letter words and was excited when I acurately picked out the right upcoming words. The words got bigger and I realized the link between letters and sounds. Exposure is important. Related somewhat to the article: my first memory is around 18 months old and involved knowing a good guy toy was to be punched and I found it odd that you would "hurt" the good guy.
daeken 13y ago
I'm not sure of Alan Kay's childhood, but in my case I was reading at a 6th grade level (IIRC) when I entered kindergarten, and was reading and writing stories from a very young age. I can't speak to the nature side of things, but I can speak to the nurture: Every day from the time I was born, my mother would spend hours reading to me; not just "See Spot Run" level books, but things like the Bruce Coville "Magic Shop" series. Instead of just letting it stay there, she'd ask me questions about what she was reading, and then we'd make up our own stories that riffed on the same concepts/characters/settings. When going to bed, she wouldn't read to me, but rather we would make up our own stories using a theme that she'd select, which forced me to think through things at a higher level. The one part I wish I understood better was how it went from oral to written, both in terms of reading and writing stories; I remember well her reading to me, but not how it switched to me reading. Regardless, I imagine that the nurture side of things had a huge, huge impact on my abilities, so: thanks mom! [Edit: Linked her this thread, so I'll update with her thoughts whenever she sees it, if she doesn't comment herself.]
- jawns 13y ago
  That's awesome! One thing I've started to do with my older son, who'll be 4 in a month, is helping him journal about his day. About half an hour before he goes up to bed, we sit down at the table and he dictates a journal entry about his day. If he says something ungrammatical, like "I go'ed to the library," I'll say aloud, "I went to the library" as I write it down, so he picks up on it. I've noticed, over the past six months or so that we've been doing it, that he's gotten better at putting events in a sequence, and I think it's helping to spark his imagination, too, because sometimes he'll tell me fanciful things about his day that I know he didn't actually do.
  - AndrewKemendo 13y ago
    That sounds really neat, I think I will start doing that with my daughter. I am away from home a lot so it might be something that we can do over the phone as our thing.
  - rooster8 13y ago
    What a great idea.
girvo 13y ago
I should ask my parents. According to my baby diary, I was reading on my own at 1.5 years, and have been reading nonstop ever since. :)

jawns 13y ago

I'm pretty sure that in the case of highly exceptional children, it's a combination of both nature and nurture, but with nurture taking a backseat to nature. But I actually tried to stay away from topics like this in "Experimenting With Babies," because, well, how many readers are going to be able to experiment on a kid who can read fluently before age 3? However, if you're interested in learning more about the topic, you might find this resource interesting: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10162.aspx http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10162.aspx

mathattack 13y ago
Science tells us that it's not either/or, it's the interaction between our genes and the environment. My intuition (based on anecdotes and observations, not hard data) is that nature provides a starting point, and perhaps an ultimate cap or speed limit to growth, but nurture provides the year over year progress. The most successful people I know nailed the nurture (or hard work) part of the equation. They were all at least smart, but very few were the smartest in the room at a young age. Over time they've appeared smarter and smarter to their surrounding audience.
- pstuart 13y ago
  I have twins. It's nature, shaped by nurture.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Identical? I've observed fraternal twins whose parents try to raise them 100% identical, but have wound up very similar in values but different in abilities and personality.
tokenadult 13y ago
There are better sources than that on precocity in young children. I'll have to find some references for you. (They may not be found in time for the edit window of this comment, so feel free to write me off-forum if you would like those.) In general, early reading is less remarkable (in English) than people think it is, because with the right materials[1] English can be seen by a young learner as a rather consistent writing system that is not insuperably hard to decode. That said, my four homeschooled children, the first two of whom are strongly bilingual in Chinese and English, having lived in Taiwan in early childhood, were early but not strikingly precocious readers, and all my children were learning a lot of other things besides reading in their early childhood, of which chess was perhaps more conspicuously precocious than reading. Earliness is less important than long-term solid development of skill, and it sounds like the parents of some of the HN participants here who have personally observed examples of very precocious reading were well aware of that. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Minutes-ebook/dp/B000PY4DMC/ http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Minutes-ebook/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-Linguistic-Leonard-Bloomfield/dp/0814334555/ http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-Linguistic-Leonard-Bloomfiel... http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/details.cfm?seriesonly=357M http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/details.cfm?serieson...
brc 13y ago
A friend of my sons comes from a house definitely not focussed on teaching reading and writing at a young age. Yet their 5 year old son is streets ahead of his age for reading and writing. He is naturally gifted at it. None of his siblings share this trait or even an interest. Another friend of mine found out their son was a reader when he started kindergarten. He was always 'reading' the books in the house, but his parents thought he had just memorised them from being ready. In fact his kindergarten teachers gave him new stuff to read and he lapped it up. He was reading the first Harry Potter book by the second grade. My friend actually got frustrated because his son didn't want to do father/son things, but preferred to read. Some kids are gifted readers, just like some are gifted at hitting a ball with a bat. The important thing is (a) spend extra time and attention if it is clear they do have a gift and (b) don't feel like your child is somehow behind if there is a kid like this in their class.
sethammons 13y ago
Nature vs nurture is a fun topic. The above topic reminded me how I learned to read. No where near as advanced as they, but nightly my dad would read to me and often the same book, the little prince. I was four or younger. I noticed that the words correlated with what is said, and I began seeking forward for shorter two and three letter words and was excited when I acurately picked out the right upcoming words. The words got bigger and I realized the link between letters and sounds. Exposure is important. Related somewhat to the article: my first memory is around 18 months old and involved knowing a good guy toy was to be punched and I found it odd that you would "hurt" the good guy.

daeken 13y ago

I'm not sure of Alan Kay's childhood, but in my case I was reading at a 6th grade level (IIRC) when I entered kindergarten, and was reading and writing stories from a very young age. I can't speak to the nature side of things, but I can speak to the nurture: Every day from the time I was born, my mother would spend hours reading to me; not just "See Spot Run" level books, but things like the Bruce Coville "Magic Shop" series. Instead of just letting it stay there, she'd ask me questions about what she was reading, and then we'd make up our own stories that riffed on the same concepts/characters/settings. When going to bed, she wouldn't read to me, but rather we would make up our own stories using a theme that she'd select, which forced me to think through things at a higher level. The one part I wish I understood better was how it went from oral to written, both in terms of reading and writing stories; I remember well her reading to me, but not how it switched to me reading. Regardless, I imagine that the nurture side of things had a huge, huge impact on my abilities, so: thanks mom! [Edit: Linked her this thread, so I'll update with her thoughts whenever she sees it, if she doesn't comment herself.]

jawns 13y ago
That's awesome! One thing I've started to do with my older son, who'll be 4 in a month, is helping him journal about his day. About half an hour before he goes up to bed, we sit down at the table and he dictates a journal entry about his day. If he says something ungrammatical, like "I go'ed to the library," I'll say aloud, "I went to the library" as I write it down, so he picks up on it. I've noticed, over the past six months or so that we've been doing it, that he's gotten better at putting events in a sequence, and I think it's helping to spark his imagination, too, because sometimes he'll tell me fanciful things about his day that I know he didn't actually do.
- AndrewKemendo 13y ago
  That sounds really neat, I think I will start doing that with my daughter. I am away from home a lot so it might be something that we can do over the phone as our thing.
- rooster8 13y ago
  What a great idea.

girvo 13y ago

I should ask my parents. According to my baby diary, I was reading on my own at 1.5 years, and have been reading nonstop ever since. :)