How old were you when you first started reading?

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I can remember being able to read at about three, about a month or two before I started speaking. I didn't speak because I knew once I started i'd be expected to talk all the time, and I'd have less time to learn things about things

Younger than 3. I was recognising letters at 18 months. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. I've always had excellent reading comprehension, too.

I was reading and writing at 3.

I guess that I started reading at about 5, in kindergarten. I found learning to read really easy, and I remember feeling as if I might explode as I sat during reading groups at school while the other kids took their turn to read. They were so slow, and it took all of my self control to not scream out the word that they were struggling to sound out.

4 or 5. I got tired of asking my mom what signs said and having her say "I can't look at it, I'm driving." so I was pretty excited to be able to figure it out myself.

I started reading at 3 or 4; and taught myself to read phonetically long before going to school. As a kid, I read encyclopediae for fun. When I was 10-11 and doing the school reading programs, the "advanced readers" were reading stuff like Judy Blume, Madeline L'Engle, Laura Ingalls Wilder, or Anna Sewell. I was reading William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. When i wanted something less challenging, I picked up C.S. Forester, C. S. Lewis fiction and non-fiction, or Charles Dickens. In Jr. High, instead of the usual Young Adult crap, I was reading J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, Frank Herbert's Dune series, pretty much everything by Ray Bradbury, Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon, and whatever I could find by Arthur C. Clarke.

Started reading at age two: my first read word was the sign for "Zellers" (a Canadian discount store chain)

I was definitely hyperlexic as a kid, and even to this day I remember having a very advanced reading level and vocabulary for my age. I have pictures and video of me at age 4-5 reading about surgeries from our family's medical book and telling my mother "It's not a starfish, it's an echinoderm!" Haha.

That was exactly how I felt! I remember my teacher in grade one teaching the rest of the class to read sooooooo slooowwwwlllyyy annnnddd moonnnoootttonnnoooussslllyyy. Even though I knew that everyone else was slower than me, it got on my nerves and irritated me to no end.

Once, we were reading a text about grasshoppers, and she called upon each one of us to read a line from it. After hearing "iiiiiittttt isssss greeeeeennn" and other variations for the longest time, she finally called on me. Sick of the tedious way she made us read, I read, as fast and as loud as I could, "ITHASSIXLEGS!! !! !!".

Hahaha. I once asked my mom if I didn't talk as early as other kids. She said that I started talking normally early... but that I hardly ever talked, like I couldn't be bothered.

Well damned right I couldn't be bothered.

I learned to read at age 2 1/2. My mother tells me that when my reading was assessed at school when I was 4, the teachers said I had a 'reading age' of 9. When everybody else in the class had to take turns to go and sit with the teacher for reading lessons, I was just told to go and fetch a book from the library corner to read; the lessons were pointless because I could read all the test cards easily.

I remember being incredibly frustrated at how awkwardly other people in class read when we had to read aloud. I couldn't understand why these other kids who seemed otherwise perfectly intelligent were struggling with something so easy.

I struggled at 5, so maybe 6.

This thread is depressing me.

i was about 4-5 when i started reading. i remember that we had some reading lessons in kindergarten - my classmates were reading some simple things about girl, who has a cat, a dog, and she goes for a walk with her mum.. but when the teacher came to me, she would turn the book to the last page with the most difficult texts and say - here, read. the stuff they read is too simple for you..

This is a difficult question, because I don't remember the act of learning to read very well; I vaguely remember using the simple picture books provided by school in first grade, and I can remember reading through all of them very quickly, from the easiest to the most difficult. I never remember struggling or feeling frustrated. I do remember that I became obsessed with reading as soon as it was introduced and encouraged, and then it was like a spike, because suddenly I was lightyears ahead of everyone in the class by second grade (about age seven). There was a special teaching assistant who would spend time with each student reading about one time a week, and I remember she told me I was an excellent reader, and she gave me extra attention; I was reading adult level material (longer things, four hundred or so pages) with pronunciation maybe more highly developed than comprehension, since I only got the "gist" of what was being described.

I do remember being fascinated with words and the idea of reading in preschool, but I don't think I actually had much of an ability to spell or write; I think I may have been able to recognize and assign meanings to some words at ages 3-5. My memory is hazy without the proper trigger.

My comprehension eventually caught up with my pronunciation and for a short while I was reading "age appropriate" material that I could get through very quickly; I loved Roald Dahl and Goosebumps like my classmates, the difference was that I read about five times as efficiently and often as they did.

Now I've gone on to read things like Proust's novel and other difficult and monstrous (and beautiful) things very few people bother to read.

Me too Everyone was so young while I was already six starting to read.

By the way, I have a question in between. Does everybody remembers them reading or is that just information you learned from your parents? I notice that many of you guys can remember details when you were 2-3 years old. I have no memories of that period. I think my earliest memory is some of when I was 5-6 years old.

I have distinct memories from that period... my sister's birth and death, the time with her between, picking out books (always been attracted to myths and fanciful tales), sitting in the garden, much more. I do remember some of the books, although I recall content better from age 4 onward (like wearing out my copy of "A Wrinkle in Time" during that time).


M.

I have no idea when I started to read. I know people commented on my good reading skills by first grade. This was when we were actively learning to read (that is: To read properly) and I was ahead of the others. I have vague memories of reading a book on the porch with my mother and of trying to remember what that a certain letter was (I think it was an "I"). It is one of the few reasonable solid memories I have of that time.

When I was young I actually preferred to lay on that same porch and listen to things on tape. I think one of those things was Titanic.

Now that I think of it, I remember more of that time than I thought...(Including when I decided it would be a good idea to "ride" down the stairs on an office chair. But that is another thread)

As others have said as well, I hated group reading sessions. I always gave up trying to read at the pace of the other children and read ahead by myself. Then when it was my turn to read I wouldn't know where we (or perhaps better said: they) were and I would get scolded for not paying attention.

I don't know when I started. Maybe I'll see if my mom remembers later.

All I know is that I started reading Dean Koontz's books at a younger age than I probably should have... (then stopped for a little bit, because one of his short stories freaked me out, then started again), then picked up on Stephen King... and have been happily reading and re-reading books by said authors since.