I am not a primary teacher but have been researching English spelling since 1995 and have recently been re-examining some of the stuff I've written about it. I have just finished reviewing a chapter on school starting age. It's a bit long, but perhaps u will find it interesting.
Greater pressure for an early start
In most of Europe the starting age for formal schooling is 6. In Finland, Estonia and Lithuania it is 7. In England children must start school by 5, but many are enrolled soon after their 4th birthday.
Because English literacy acquisition takes around two years longer than in most of Europe (Seymour et al, 2003), it makes logical sense to want to begin teaching children to read and write from a relatively young age. Nobody can learn much without acquiring at least basic literacy skills first. If English-speaking children started learning them at 6 or 7, as other Europeans do, they would begin their general education quite some time behind them.
There is also a great deal of evidence that the best English-speaking readers and spellers nearly all started learning to read early, around age 3.
Unfortunately many children do not become reading-ready until much later. But because of the knowledge that early readers tend to be better at all learning, many parents start to feel anxious if their children are lagging behind and succumb to the temptation to push them into reading before they are ready.
Our daughter first began to show a keen interest in learning to read at about 3½. With a little help from me and a few Ladybird ?John and Jane? books, she became fluent long before she turned 5. Teaching her to read put no strain or effort on her or us.
Our son, by contrast, was not even particularly fond of being read to until he was nearly 5. He much preferred to be left to play with his Lego, but I could not resist asking him from time to time if he would not like to try and start learning to read a little. Trying to teach him to read before he started school would have been traumatic for both him and us. At school, his reading progress was laborious, and in total contrast to his love of maths. He needed a great deal of patient help and cajoling at home, to keep trying. And although he eventually came to enjoy reading more than most, we were quite often anxious about his progress. We kept a close eye on it during his early school years. I have already mentioned that many parents express similar anxieties on Mumsnet nowadays.
Making children learn any skill before they are developmentally mature enough for it is generally accepted as a bad idea. But how long should you delay the start to learning a skill that is undoubtedly going to take a very long time master and is crucial for other learning? Quite a few people who are aware that Finland is consistently near the top in international educational league tables, yet does not begin formal schooling until 7, have suggested that English-speaking pupils may be doing less well because they start their education too early. But given the difficulties of English literacy acquisition, it would be foolish to restrain any child who is keen to embark on it at quite a young age. There has therefore been much debate about what the official school starting age for English-speaking children should be.
In the ?Independent review of the teaching of early reading?, which was commissioned by the UK government and was published in 2006, Sir Jim Rose recommended that children should ideally start school after their 4th birthday and that the teaching of phonics (learning to sound out letters and common letter strings for reading and writing simple words using this knowledge) should begin as soon as possible after that. He did so on the grounds that: ?An appropriate introduction to phonic work by the age of five enables our children to cover ground that many of their counterparts in countries whose language is much less complex phonetically do not have to cover?.
In other words, English-speaking children have to start learning to read and write earlier, because their road to literacy is much longer and bumpier, even though this is problematic for children whose reading-readiness develops more slowly. This may well be part of the reason why all English-speaking countries have a relatively long tail of educational underachievers. Children who can cope with English spelling inconsistencies from a young age go from strength to strength. Many of those who develop more slowly have a miserable start to their schooling, because they are often introduced to reading and writing before their abilities for literacy learning have fully develop. Such a premature start can do long-lasting harm.
It also has to be noted that starting to learn at least learning to read English from a young age is very helpful with learning to spell English too. Learning to write in a language in which at least 3700 common words have unpredictable spellings, such as ?stole coal bowl? or ?blue shoe flew? is a big challenge. It?s mainly a matter of learning what ?looks right?. Becoming familiar with the look of quite a few words from a young age undoubtedly helps with embedding them in memory.
It may also be much easier to accept English spelling irregularities and just learn them if one is introduced to them before logical reasoning becomes fully developed. Because my first acquaintance with English spelling was when I was already 14, I found its lack of logic extremely annoying and constantly distracting. I have been unable to stop feeling cross about it to this day.
When a spelling system requires children ?to cover ground that many of their counterparts ... do not have to cover?, pressure to start literacy learning early is quite inevitable. It makes it much more difficult to give children the sort of leisurely, relaxed childhood enjoyed by most Europeans, and which would be better for many English-speaking ones too. A relatively early start to formal schooling is but another of the many costs which the irregularities of English spelling dictate.
Should u enjoy reading this, u might like some of the other pieces on my blog englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com too.
Masha Bell
