Bernard Girard expressed surprise that Doug Seeley claimed that his
children learned to read without explicit instruction. There is a story
that James Watt learned to read upside down first, at age three, by
following his father's finger on the Bible while seated at the dinner
table. I don't know if this story is true, but I have always believed it
because I learned how to read English at about age four at a time when -
although they were both literate in other languages - neither of my
parents could read English, and they rarely spoke to me in English either.
Apparently I amazed adults with my ability to read advertisements on the
New York subways, and my ability to spell words like "infantile paralysis"
(learned from a March of Dimes ad) without even knowing what they meant...
BTW, my parents learned to read English mostly from the reading of
newapapers, which I read before I had any books...
-- Jack Hirschfeld Don't you know, you fool, you never can win? jack@his.com