The author of this article finds the premise as ridiculous as any of us will, by the way.

Just for the record, I can remember not being able to read, and I can remember learning how to do it. Learning to read wasn't painful in the least, but not knowing how was pretty frustrating. I was probably 1 and a half or so, and was looking at a magazine that my parents had left out. I was trying to figure out what they found so fascinating about the text. I knew the alphabet, but I didn't have any concept yet that the letters came together to form words, so I couldn't figure out what it was all about. I knew that the letters weren't in order though.

This is to let all comers know that the word prention refers to the act of starting a new thread on an already exhausted subject. Those found behaving in a prentionistic manner, that is, prentionistically, will likely have their prention pointed out to them, ad nauseum.

Those with a penchant for prention will, no doubt, get the more severe keyboard lashing they so richly deserve.

Of course, prention is also used to refer to the act of pointing out the prention of others, so, neatly (and ipso facto) the person pointing out the prention is guilty of the same crime.

This keeps us all friendly, I would imagine.

My mother told me I learned to read in kindergarten, but I can't even remember this.

What I do remember was how pleasurable it was to read when I first learned. I'd read aloud every single sign or billboard visible from the car as we were driving around. I bet it sent my mother crazy!

I remember my little brother looking at books and wanting really badly to know what they said. He'd ask me "what's that say?" and I'd tell him, then he'd ask "what's THAT say?" and then I'd tell him that one. This would go on for hours.

Sometimes I think I'd like to know what the sensation would be like of not being able to read. Then I realize I can just look at Chinese writing, or Arabic, or something, to get that feeling.

In Chinese restaurants I often stare and stare at the banners and things that are draped around with Chinese writing on them. I keep thinking if I look at them long enough I'll understand what they mean. When I first started looking, I was thinking fortune-cookieish things, and Tao-Te-Chingish things, but after a long while, it finally occurred to me that they probably said things like "$20 fee on all returned checks", or "No shirt, no shoes, no service".

*shrieks* THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!!!!!

No more rhymes, I mean it!
Anybody wanna peanut?

Dad was an Army man, and not a big one for tact.

I remember my sister breaking her finger on a girl scout hike, what the cast and splint looked like. All that happened before I was 2.

I do remember learning to read. I was the youngest of three and really didn't get much attention if I wasn't bleeding or something. When Mom found out I had to know my abcs before I could go to first grade, she got my brother to teach me. I knew my numbers and simple math already, and I knew how to write my name and certain other words. I'd copy words from books and catalogues, but I couldn't read.

I can remember spending a fair amount of time trying to pick myself up when I was 2 or 3. I'd stand there, pick up one leg by the knee, and then very carefully try to pick the other leg up. Then I'd get up, dust myself off, and try it again. I remember doing this *alot*. It just seemed like it ought to work.

Ophelia, Your story about using the term Blue for all colors, but knowing that it wasn't right--how absolutely fascinating! I mean, pretty much any person who studies child development would tell you that at that point you didn't understand that blue was a term for a specific color--they'd say that you were using it as a general term for color. But you weren't! You knew exactly what color blue was, but found yourself saying it in place of the other color names. I wonder why that was?

I would really be able to tap into more of my very early childhood memories--I don't remember learning how to walk, for example, but that must have been a big deal to me at the time. I can remember not being able to talk, like I mentioned earlier, but I can't remember when I was finally able to do it. I can't help thinking that it would be really illuminating to remember what it was like to be learning all of that stuff. Remembering what it was like to realize that those noises people made had meaning, and to be actively puzzling it out--that would be fascinating.

It's been too long since my linguistics classes for me to remember the names for the different classes of writing systems (yes, I could look it up online, but I'm feeling lazy)

In any case, if that is what you meant, then I'm sorry to say that I haven't learned any charactered systems yet--Thai is an alphabetic system. It just used a completely different alphabet than ours (Interestingly, though, the Thai "L" is *very* similar to the Attic Greek lambda, and I think that you can kind of see how our "L" is related to lambda, although maybe I'm stretching it a bit on that one).

I may have an opportunity to learn Chinese though--I just caught wind of some teaching positions in China that my wife and I might be in a position to accept. It will be kind of weird just throwing over the computer networking stuff I've been doing for the past few years to teach ESL again, but I'm feeling kind of excited about it. Of course, right now it's just a possibility--I haven't even met with the recruiter yet--but it's an interesting possibility.

Anyway, I haven't noticed any particular change coming from learning such a different language, although I do think that anthing like that is generally exercise for the mind. Maybe after I've gotten more proficient in the language I'll see more of a difference in the way I think.

I remember playing with a bucket of army men my dad got me, at the commissary, for my first birthday , trying to set them all on their feet. Not easy, since I was still bad at fine motor skills (and some of them were made to be on the ground -- as if belly-crawling through the trenches}. My mother was on the phone.

I remember thinking I should tell her I needed to go (I didn't quite think in those terms yet, but something like that) but I just had to make all my little men stand up first. I remember my diaper getting sort of un-comfy, but I was intensely focussed on the Army men.

Later, mom told me that if I went to the potty when I had to go, I could get back to playing faster than if she had to change my diaper. That was basically it, though sometimes I would get involved in something and not quite make it. My mother says it took less than a month, and I was older than 1 year, but less than a year and a half.

The thing I remember most is how focussed I was on those Army men. I've always had times when I was concentrating so hard on something that people could come up to me and speak loudly and I wouldn't respond. I was aware they were there, usually afterwards I could remember most of what they said, but I wouldn't acknowledge them until I was done with whatever it was. The extreme opposite of ADD.

My mother used to take pictures of me like that. She had me tested for epilepsy and everything. Finally, they said, "She just thinks real hard." Mom thought that was a hoot. (These were Army doctors, mind you. Usually going out of their way to sound professional.)

I would get really frustrated when people didn't understand me-- so much so that I would just break down in tears-- but the potty thing wasn't like that. It was just like, "So THAT'S how you do it." End of story.

Good luck on the ESL thing. My husband and I nearly went to Japan, but the first place we talked to preferred singles. Then half my family died an the other half got sick or divorced, and we moved back to take care of my mom. The second place we went to would have sent us to Kyoto, and that was 2 months before the big earthquake in '94. Good thing we didn't go.

My brother was about two and wanted to go on the Father/Son campout his daddy and big brother was going on.

[Edit--turns out I related a story here that I had already related in an earlier posting. I remembered typing it in, but I thought that it was in the posting that I lost when my computer crashed. Turns out it was just in an earlier posting]

It's interesting now to look through picture books that completely captivated my attention as a child, and try to remember what it is about those illustrations that seemed so fascinating to me. I used to spend a lot of time pouring over the pictures in _Snowy Day_ (I think that's the title), and there was a book about a live mouse and a wind up mouse that had illustrations that I used to loose myself in. And things that I appreciate now, like the gleam of winter sunlight on a bale of hay (when it catches the light just right), I used to go into a meditative state staring at back then (I recognize it now as having been a meditative state--I didn't think of it that way at the time).

Another interesting thing is that I can remember foods tasting differently than I now perceive them to taste. Cantaloupe, for example, tastes completely different to my adult palate than it did to my child palate. I can remember distinctly what it tasted like, and it's nothing like what it tastes like to me now.

This post is getting long, so I'll wrap it up, but one other thing on the subject that I've been thinking about is this: I've read in a number of places that virtually all of the things that we consider instinctual are actually learned, and the writers usually point to the fact that babies show no sign of revultion at the odor of feces to be proof of this. I wonder though--is it possible that babies sense of smell is different than ours? They definitely have a developed sense of smell, since they are able to recognize their mothers by their scent, but could it be that it's just really different from our own sense of smell? Kind of like that taste thing I was discussing above? It might not be a question of learning that feces stink so much as their olfactory perceptions changing so soemthing that was at perceived to be at least neutral before is now perceived to be unplesant.

[Edit--well, looks like I ended up with another mammoth posting anyway! Guess I had the energy after all]

[This message has been edited by Noemon (edited November 01, 2000).]

I remember when I first learned that everything falls at the same speed no matter what it weighs, and I didn't believe it. So I got on my parents' bed with Poochy Pooh, the stuffed dog, and jumped up and down on it. Each time at the top of the jump, I'd let Poochy Pooh go, and watch as he stayed in the same position relative to my hands until I caught him again at the bottom of every bounce. So it really was true. I remember just bouncing and doing that for a long long time one day.

"Mom, do you remember when you became a person?"

Not sure where this was heading: "Do you mean when I was born? Not really."

"No, no, when you became a PERSON." Impatiently: "You know, when you were turned on, like a light."

Still not sure what she meant but not wanting to cut off the conversation: "I'm not quite sure -- do YOU remember when you became a person?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"You know, I became ME, the person I am."

"Who were you before that??"

"Oh, I was just hanging around."

as for learning to read:
i had 'mommy school' when i was little before kindergarten. i learned shapes and numbers and letters and how to do chores like scrubbing the bathtub. a few months before kindergarten-i started when i was almost 5-i could read small 3-4 letter words.reading never gave me a problem untill i was still at a 7th grade reading level at the beginning of 9th grade.(i now read shakespeare and plato for fun,dont worry about having an incompetent reader at hatrack)

On a completely different subject (not that I'm not trying to derail the current subject (it's fascinating, but conversation on it seems to be slowing down), but I just came across the following:
http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2000/11/02/minesweeper/index.html

And thought that some of our resident Minesweepers, such as aka, might find it interesting.

There's something very satisfying to me about minesweeper. I'm not sure what. Same is true for Freecell and Tetris. Those are the only three games I've ever become addicted to, but I've avoided all the really interesting games because I want to be able to keep my job and stuff.

(you can read it at http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/11/15/sturgeon/index.html )

and I found what the critic had to say to be very much at odds with what I remember of Sturgeon's work. The thing is, I haven't read anything by him in the better part of a decade, and I'm a much more perceptive reader now than I was then, so it's possible that I just missed quite alot last time I read his stuff. Then again, the critic could be full of crap.

One thing that he said that just seems ridicuolus to me was this:

"Over and above the pleasures of his storytelling -- for he could tell a rattling yarn when it suited his deeper needs to do so..."

As for the "remembering before reading" topics, a book suggestion:

A is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in an Electronic Age by Barry Sanders

That's the most brilliant of my nieces; the one who's going to be a scientist or research doc or something.

Another thing she said once that blew me away. When she was about four she said something I didn't understand and I asked her, "What did you just say, Mary?" And she answered, "I don't know.... ... Sometimes I don't know WHAT I say." It seemed to be very much in the spirit of her early attempts at writing. That she just made noises with her mouth sometimes and wasn't sure whether she was really saying something and if so what it might have been that she said. That seemed so bizarre to me. I still puzzle over it, and what it means about how people's brains work and who they really are.

And also there's a brand new rule (or actually it's more like a guideline or maybe it's one of David's beloved memes) that peek-a-boo seems to be successfully propogating, namely "it's all good". It keeps growing and growing on me. Like "Yeah! She's right! It IS all good!"

I am an advocate of not getting involved in threads already more than 50 posts long if I haven't already posted in the thread. Saves lots of time and trouble.

My heartfelt condolences if you have actually read every post in this thread in an attempt to familiarize yourself with this forum and its idiosyncracies. I did not, and I still haven't.

One more thing--I have never seen any other posts by Emily Milner. Of course, I am a relative newcomer myself. Doubtless the oldcomers will all say "Oh, Emily Milner used to post here all the time. She was the cat's pajamas! Man, those were the days. I knew Emily Milner well, and jRc, you're no Emily Milner!"

The biggest problem with "jumping to the end" syndrome is that newcomers to the thread who post the same old points practically DEMAND the same old response from the people who've already posted, since the latter group knows that OTHER newcomers will visit the thread, notice such an unchallenged point, and either accept it or go off on their OWN response. This tends to snowball; any thread longer than three pages almost always demonstrates this to some degree.