first?
"tadpoles in a tank,"
"you drive, I'll man the gun..."
Janet and John? Ah, we're much of the same vintage, then.
Ahh, memories - I could also read very early (again, parental teaching), so I was a right PITA for the teacher (a miserable old cow, as I recall)
Memories of 'Wide Range Readers' still haunt my nightmares to this day...
Janet and John? Ah, we're much of the same vintage, then.
Not necessarily, anybody between about 30 and 65 would have come across them as a kid. Maybe we should get a class action together and sue...
As my dad had taught me to read newspapers before I reached school age, I too was beyond the J&J sagas by the time I got there.
My first proper read was 'Bark, the bush pig' about a domesticated porker who went feral.
Good read, I recall...
We had Billy Blue Hat and his repulsive minions. I hated them all. And (the horror) we used to have to do half an hour of "reading practice" every day, and get the form signed by parent/guardian/responsible adult/binman to say that "yes, little Rosamundi has done her 30 minutes of reading." I used to whip through those vile books in about ten seconds and go off and do two hours of unsupervised reading of something much more interesting!
I was in the same boat - my brother was four years old than me, and I learnt from him long before school. (No nursery school for me either - I must be older than Misty 
)
And there were 12 J&J? I only remember the first three. I read 1 & 2 (and knew them backwards) so they had to send me to the next classroom to borrow a copy of book 3.
This side t'pond, we had Dick and Jane, who were no more fun than Janet and John sound like.
"See Dick. See Dick run. Run, Dick, run." Scintillating.
I had similar difficulties. Although I didn't learn to read before school, I picked it up very quickly and would be lost in the book when it was my turn to read aloud in reading circle. The teacher would call my name, I'd "ignore" her, she was too stupid to realize that I was so intent on reading that I couldn't hear her and then she'd loudly announce, "Well! I guess Dawn doesn't WANT to read for us today!" Fun times.
Rik: 
I like that!
Stegbeetle: Possibly
Sjn: I bet your teacher loved you really 
Nigle: I like that idea! Want to get the paperwork together?
Mr.D: I think I read that too! Certainly sounds familiar.
Rosamundi: After googling 'billy blue hat' I can't say I blame you. It sounds awful...And oh gods, I recall the horror of 'reading practise' too!
GoodTwin: I got sent to nursery school because both my parents were working, and although I said I'd be happy to stay at home alone, they wouldn't let me 
Dawn: Did Dick and Jane also have a ball? A big, red ball? And a dog that ran? And I had the same thing said to me when engrossed in a book as well. Happy days, eh? *not*
As someone who grew up with an exceptionally advanced reading age, I found myself nodding like a Parkinson's reading this.
I still enjoy the Dr Seuss from my childhood though.
Apparently, at the age of 4.5 I had great difficulty learning to read, but once I'd started, there was no stopping me. I have no recollection of what I read at that age, though. I am of the age for it to have been Janet and John.
Books are wonderful.
Being about a year older than you, and also having conscientious parents who taught me how to read before I went to school, I ran into similar problems.
The ITA alphabet. This set everyone who'd learned to read back to square one, and then in three years, when we got to junior school, we had to wait whilst the thicker kids got used to the big alphabet.
This post got so long I've edited it down and bunged the bigger version on my blog.
Heh, my old man's a teacher ("he wears a teacher's hat"), and he taught me to read before I went to school as well. As a result I got very bored at primary school and dicked about a lot and acted rather weird.
This led up to the school getting an educational psychologist in to evaluate me, with somehwat comical results. It's a bit too long to recount here, so I've stuck it on my site instead:
http://www.snurfer.org/jibba/arc...ves/
000316.html
Bloody hell - the lady who works next to me has just started talking about how one of her kids learned to read before he went to school with absolutely no prompting by me.
The I visit Steve's blog to see an entry titled "Million-to-One Coincidences Happen 9 Times Out Of 10"
Ah, it's enough to make you a solipsist sometimes, except if that were the case then I'm sure I should be getting laid more often ...
Fish: I sadly lost my Dr. Seuss books while on holiday one year, so I've now started collecting them again
Quentin: Books are indeed wonderful
Steve D: You poor thing having to suffer the ITA
Jonah: It's probably an augury or smething.
An orgy?
Don't get me started on the deep and abiding evils of reading practice. It is an abomination, and those who force it upon innocent children should be smote, mightily. Forcing children to read is not the way to foster in them a love of books.
Dawn, I may sue for the resurrected memory of the horror that is Reading Aloud In Class. I got so bored listening to the dreadfully slow person (they drove me bonkers, because I have no patience), that I'd be about four chapters ahead by the time it came to be my turn. This was Bad.
Don't mind me. Just imagining you in a school uniform.
Not normally my thing, even, but I'll make an exception this once.
Yep!! a similar situation with me as well. I too could read before I went to school. My mum taught me with the flash cards that used to be popular in my 'youf". I think I did J&J too, but a bit too long ago to remember I do however remember a teaching series at my middle school where I rushed straight through to the final colour in days!!
Commenting by HaloScan
