Glenda Bissex kept a record of detailed observations about her son Paul's growth as a reader and writer between the ages of 5 and 10 (Bissex 1980). Interestingly, he became a fluent writer (of signs, letters, school exercises, lists, rhymes, “little books,” home newspapers, observational notebooks, diaries, and fictional stories) before he became a fluent reader. He was a bright child in a home filled with books and all kinds of printed material, and with parents who were skilled at stimulating his linguistic abilities (his mother was a reading teacher), though he received no particular reading instructions other than being allowed to watch “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company.” I have selected and summarized some parts of his mother's very detailed analysis.

Paul's first steps as a reader predictably involve decoding titles of his favorite books, highway signs, and the labels on cereal boxes. Then he moves on to his first whole book, Go, Dog, Go! (at 5.7). Just before his sixth birthday he spontaneously shifts to reading silently a Dr. Seuss book, Yertle the Turtle. He still reads slowly and has to work at building his vocabulary, but he also says, “I just love reading” (at 6.7). Soon he is reading longer books, at home (The Phantom Tollbooth) and during silent reading time at school (The Wind in the Willows). His family moves from the country to a suburb of Boston and Paul makes new friends in the neighborhood; social activities take time away from reading.