three, five or ten?

i can't remember exactly what books i was taught from - i remember one my mother had written herself but i'm not sure about the others, don't think they were too interesting though. i liked enid blyton later too - she might be very irritating to adults (and very dated) but children don't notice and the adventures were fun. didn't like the school stories so much though. and noddy irritates even children.

mysdianait,

Hey there!! Hope you are doing well, my friend. So glad I saw your reply to this interesting topic about learning to read, otherwise I might have missed this subject matter.*smile*... Will respond to the poster who started this in a few, but wanted to say hey to you first.

Just like you I also read a lot while in school as a youngster and was quite frequently found at the library. I loved to read!! Guess it was an escape of sorts at the time, perhaps?

Take Care,
firefox333

Hey there!

Now where have you been hiding out? Good to see you back and I hope we will see a bit more of you

I liked Noddy! I know there was some controversy over Enid Blyton books, about the gollywog... silly IMO I didn't think it was racist at all. It was even removed from the marmalade!

I preferred Big Ears - and marmalade!

i didn't like noddy (was probably too old for it when i got noddy books) but the controversy is ridiculous

Again - My reading habit started with my school teacher rather. My gratitude to them and my salute too.

language [s] come very easily to small children, including reading. it is as you said very easy for a child to learn two or more languages, and not confuse them (i've seen this in friends' children). so what was this series you became addicted to?

It was a detective series named "Bhaskar" ( Bhaskar is the name of the protagonist in the story like a hard core detective lol )and it was written in my tongue not English. Later I went through several of those English series, sorry I do not recollect the name right away.

i liked detective stories very much back then - after moving on from the likes of the famous five and nancy drew i read a lot of (sort of) adult ones like agatha christie. i wouldn't read these now but i have to admit i read quite a lot of thrillers...

Actually our reading habits keep changing their dens as we reach different milestone in life. Later I became a fan of DH Lawrence's novels. 'The Rainbow, 'Lady Chatterly's Lover', Tess and almost all those complicated plot and characters.

I read few of agatha christie too. But do not why it did not appeal me so much.

well yes i do read other things too and i agree that what you read changes as you do.

oh and i thought the rainbow was one of the best d.h.lawrence novels - i read most of them a while ago and while he certainly was not perfect (some unfortunate attitudes surface occasionally and sometimes the writing is over the top) i still think he was one of the best of the modernists.

That is true. D.H Lawrence is especially known fr his knack of plot construction among the modern novelists. Hence sometime the plots gets so tied up with the narrative that it becomes difficult to make sense as to what the author trying to carry through. But I like the theme of the Rainbow and this novel was filmed too. Did you watch it?

i haven't seen it - did it work as a film? btw i use modernist and modern novelist to mean different things. when i was talking about modernists i meant that group of writers who were trying radically different ways of writing round about the same time as lawrence - other famous ones include virginia woolf (depressing), james joyce (dreadful) and joseph conrad (very depressing)...

i think that is what my mother did with me, but i was very obstinate and it was only when i figured out there were advantages to being able to read for myself that i went along with it without whinging.

Oh, my mother started teaching my brother and I how to read from the time we were born. She was always reading to us, and she would always tell us what certain words were. Even if I do not know what a word means, I can read it.

sounds like your family did a great job, pity school appeared to have undone their good work though...

School just wasn't the real reason for my want or need to read. My Kindergarten and first grade teachers did not teach me how to read. They may have taught my letters and numbers, although I think I learned that before Kindergarten, it was while I was in pre-school, but they did not really teach me how to read.

excellent teacher you had there. why do you only read religious and spiritual books now though?

May be it's my age, that I lost interest in reading love stories or whatever that is fiction.

but there are a lot of novels that are not silly romances...

Ofcourse there are many many valuable books..but I think I have had my share of them for a lifetime. Now let me go a bit spiritual....

fair enough. i imagine these books are very interesting themselves.

[note - not being sarcastic - i haven't read many but i find religious and spiritual ideas interesting]

that was a good start you got from your mother and grandmother.

I think so too and am glad to have had it.

out of the classics those are probably the most entertaining for a child - i read great expectations much later and thought that i might have liked it more when i was younger. maybe you don't have a lot of memories of school (even though you loved it) because it was quiet and predictable compared to other parts of your life?

That is possibly partly true jb. I think it was largely because the teachers accepted me - not so much because of ME - but because I was a reliable student. I loved school work and was always WAY ahead of the rest of the class. Because I felt so badly about myself, it gave me a boost to be good at something (maybe a rebellion about what I believed about myself?) Anyway, school was the only place I felt good - but certainly NOT out on the playground.

sounds like you had a tough time cloudwatcher.

"HAD" is the operative word - past tense.
Thankfully, I am now thankful for those 22 years!
The last 51 years have been fantastic!

good.

I don't think Dr Seuss had crossed the pond when I was a child but I discovered them for my own son and they were wonderful.

obviously you got into reading young, and dr seuss could well be partially responsible, he was brilliant. anyway i read the hobbit and the lord of the ring trilogy lots of times when i was about 9-11 years old. the lord of the rings was pretty intense at that age. lord of the flies i had to study at school and hated it. and btw don't know that song - but i doubt many patriotic american songs make it over the puddle alive...

hey, you must still be pretty young . i'm 31 and none of the harry potter books came out until i was an adult - i think i might have enjoyed them when i was a child.

?