Comments on: Eight not very random things about me

By: Out of ideas » Blog Archive » Seven weird things about Reed

Out of ideas » Blog Archive » Seven weird things about Reed — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:00:31 +0000

[...] Helen has tagged me. I am obediently obeying the tagging imperative. Did you all want to know seven more weird (in my opinion) things about me? That I haven’t mentioned before? [...]

By: Archie

Archie — Wed, 30 May 2007 16:38:39 +0000

I was a 1,000+ word a minute reader in my youth. In recent years I have consciously decided to read slower (read individual words rather than phrases) and appreciate the author’s craft. Reading is not a race.

@hmh, I am arriving on your doorstep expecting carrot cake with cream cheese icing!

By: Lilian

Lilian — Sun, 27 May 2007 16:47:28 +0000

Thanks for wanting to tag me! The Library Porn looks scrumptious, just from the front cover. I have no idea how many words I can read a minute. I read fast-ish, but don’t always (often) remember what on earth I just read, which is no use at all, really.

By: Sol

Sol — Sat, 26 May 2007 07:05:13 +0000

*winces* And I also apologise to the Editor for the mass of typos in that.

By: Sol

Sol — Sat, 26 May 2007 07:03:01 +0000

You’re not supposed to teach illiterate people the alphabet first either – it’s the equivalent of making us learn the 288 (depending on how you count it) strokes that make up Chinese characters before letting us do anything meaningful with them.

Mind you, that’s more because it’s depressing than anything else.

Except that I found that when I was trying to improve my reading skills in Russian there were words I recognised as whole words, which weren’t always ones I heard or used myself in speech or knew how to pronounce, and that improving my fluency in reading was a metter of builing up a bank of this and whomping along cheerfully getting the gist without trying to puzzle over every word. Of course sometime this didn’t work, and then I’d have to stop and spend five minutes trying to decode some crucial word letter by letter to see if I knew it, only to discover it was a word like ‘please’ which I just hadn’t seen written down before.

Needless to say I am a bigger fan of the ‘learn to read by learning to recognise whole words’ school of thought than this phonics business, but then I did hear somewhere, perhaps from you, Reed, that actually the phonics thing is better for dyslexics?

Deary me, that went on a bit.

By: healingmagichands

healingmagichands — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:11:46 +0000

I read 1000 words per minute too, but I don’t always remember what I read. I also learned to read when I was 3; actually I didn’t learn to read, I “remembered” how to read. I clearly remember the day, sitting there as my mother was reading aloud to me, and thinking “I know how to do that.” and I did. I learned the alphabet a couple of years later as well.

Hmm. I do not find it odd that you like carrot cake while detesting orange food. Carrot cake is not orange, at least the one I make isn’t, it is more Pre-raphaelite auburn. And it usually comes covered with cream cheese icing.

By: SG V

SG V — Wed, 23 May 2007 12:53:46 +0000

Reading at three is very early. Acquiring that skill rather early does run in our family, apparently – I read before school and my son taught himself, apparently – though I have no clue as to how – when he was 5 and a bit… (I know how I learned – by watching the small funny black thingies while my Dad read Donald Duck for me, no less)

My son and I, on another coincidence, reads fastest in our little family – though our daughter probably comes close and the Mrs certainly reads more that I do these times, shame on me!

It could be good fun to speed test our reading – I’m sure it’d be fast and sure that it won’t be as fast!

As to #6, I go by the maxim “if I don’t remember it, it never happened!” Has come in handy once or twice, I’m sure – though I obviously cannot really say

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:11:52 +0000

Whoa, are you me? I learnt to read at age 3 but didn’t learn the alphabet until age 7 either. I learnt by eavesdropping on a teacher in the remedial corner of our primary school classroom.

I’ve also been told I have PreRaphaelite hair but that was when I was younger. It’s shorter now, just past my shoulders, and not in the best condition. I really ought to do something about it (like wear a paperbag over my head, hmmmm!)

I am in awe of you being able to knit Shetland lace. I have been to that museum and seen the exhibits and we learnt about the yarn at school. I lived in Shetland for 10 years and knitting classes were compulsory in primary school. I was the bane of my knitting teacher’s life and once got into huge trouble for hiding behind a pile of books in knitting class and reading instead of knitting. People used to say to me: “You’ll wish you’d stuck in at knitting when you have a baby,” to which I’d reply: “No. I’ll buy clothes.” Did their words come true…? Yes. I wish I could both sew and knit so I could dress Kiko up like Little Lord Fauntelroy but unfortunately I am hopeless in both areas.

By: Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:35:22 +0000

1000 words per minute? Is that possible? And given that the readers of picture-script (What is the word? Languages like Chinese and Japanese and Ancient Egyptian?) Anyway, given that the readers of those languages apparently don’t suffer from dyslexia, it seems highly likely that if you’d been taught to read o-n-e l-e-t-t-e-r a-t a t-i-m-e you would have ended up dyslexic.

Yes, I know. I know. I had an email to send.

Aphra.

By: Reed

Reed — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:10:24 +0000

I apologise for both the hair and the reading. Both have caused me a great deal of smug pride and a great deal of immense self-conscious embarrassment over the years. My aunts loathe the both of them. The one is too untidy and the other is antisocial, and, worse, showing off. To which I say, oops, I did it again.