Parrots are very sociable and intelligent birds that rarely tolerate boredom or loneliness.
Because of this, and just like mist social creatures, they usually find a way to communicate with one another.
Naturally, birds use songs and behavior to pass messages to one another.
They can also use sound or action to scare off danger or warn fellow birds to abut an impending danger.
But these are birds from the wild.
What about domesticated birds such as parrots that have lived with humans for so long?
Can they learn things that humans do, such as reading?
Yes, parrots are capable of learning many human activities including reading. There are many ways you can make a parrot read, but the most common and easiest is to read the text to them first.
Helping your parrot learn to read can help him in a number of ways.
Most importantly, it will help them quickly and effectively adjust to their new environment.
When you domesticate a parrot, it usually tries to employ the same thought process as well as physical structures that it would typically use in the wild to leaner its natural communication songs or calls to imitate the things you say and strike a communication with you.
Do parrots learn to read quickly?
Compared to other birds and animals, parrots can learn things quickly, including learning how to read.
According to scientists, parrots have more advanced vocal communication.
However, parrots do not form words like humans do, since we use our lips, face, and mouth to shape sounds produced by our vocal cords.
However, it depends on the technique you use to teach your parrot.
The best method is using letter cards.
What is the best age for a parrot to start learning to read?
First of all, you need to understand that some parrot species are known for their higher intelligence than others, and therefore, depending on the type of parrot you have, it may be ready to start leaning as early as three months old or 12 months old.
Nevertheless, the sooner you start training your parrot how to read the better.
What species of parrots learn quickly to read?
All parrots can learn how to read, but it all depends on how you train them.
However, there are certain species that have been found to have higher cognitive intelligence than others.
Some of them include:
Amazon Parrots
Amazon parrots have high abilities to contextualize human speech.
They have the capability to learn a wide range of words and imitate them excellently.
It is better to start training them from an early age.
African Grey Parrot
African Grey Parrots are known for their developed cognitive abilities as well as their great powers to pronounce words properly.
This species can learn how to read within their first year.
Parakeets
Parakeets are known for their quick learning abilities due to their potential for a wide range of vocabularies and a well-socialized demeanor.
Eclectus Parrot
These parrots originated from New Guinea and are noted for their wide range of vocabulary.
They can also learn how to sing a song.
If your parrot is not on this list don’t fret, this is not an exclusive list.
Remember, all parrots can be taught how to read, but the trick is to start early.
What is the best way to teach a parrot how to read?
There are many ways you can teach your parrot how to read, but most of them revolve around training them to recognize alphabetical letters, words, vocabulary development, and then how to read and communicate properly.
Letter training
The best way to start training your parrot to read is helping him learn how to recognize and pronounce letters.
Use objects and letter it begins with. For example, you can use an apple with letter A.
You can use target training to make it easy for your parrot to familiarize yourself with other words bearing the phonetic A, such as cat, cake, and so on.
After training him to recognize letter A, move on to B using the word boy or ball.
Continue with the letters until the letter Z.
You can also use videos for this training.
For example, you can use videos of objects that are not readily available in the house, such as lion for letter L and Elephant for letter E.
Word training
Now build on what your parrot has learned so far in letter training and teach him how to make words out of the letters.
Of course, you cannot expect your bird to learn all the 26 alphabetical letters at once, but you can use the letters that he has learned to teach him to read words constructed using those letters.
For example, if he has so far mastered letters like A, B, E, L, and T, you could teach him to read words made of these letters, including BELL, BALL, and BELT. Of course, you should only focus on training your parrot to read common household words such as an apple, tea, door, eat and so on.
From this experiment, you can already see that the fastest way to teach your parrot how to read is by focusing on teaching him to learn all the vowels.
This is the same as teaching a child how to read.
Write the words on flashcards and target train your parrot to touch each of them, and also to teach the objects represented by those words.
Try to dive deeper and focus on blending the sounds of the letters into consonant-vowel-consonant, comprising the letters your parrot has learned so far, for example, bending the word BALL to get BELL, TALL to get TELL, and so on.
Vocabulary Development
Expand on what your parrot has learned and see if he can read larger words such as BANANA, BLUEBERRIES, and so on.
Why should I teach my parrot how to read?
Teaching your parrot how to read comes with lots of benefits.
First, you will get to spend more time with your pet bird, thus strengthening the bond between the two of you.
Perhaps, the most important benefit of teaching your parrot how to read is so that he can have consent on things.
Your parrot can choose his own meals, for instance, you can ask him if he wanted healthy pancakes, a warm sweet potato, eggs, or veggies.
Your parrot could also choose the toys he wants to play with and so on.
That’s all for now and we will see you on the next article!