I should start by saying that we live in the sort of part of W London where a certain degree of what (for want of a better term) I'll call 'pushiness' is very much the norm.
DD is just 4 and due to start school in Sept. For various reasons we have chosen an independent school but it is a non-selective one (one of the reasons we chose it)
Her (lovely) pre-school is doing some great work on learning letters (they've been doing this for a while now) and she is now slowly moving into the realm of basic phonics. The pre-school work with them at their own pace, so the kids are at very different levels.
DD is NOT INTERESTED IN PHONICS AT ALL. Well, that's not strictly true. Whatever marginal interest she may have is totally supserseded by her personality type which is that she hates not being able to do something instantly. So even when she expresses an interest in looking at some basic phonics (her cousin gave her an old workbook) my heart absolutely sinks because I know she won't 'get it' within 3 seconds and this will lead to her getting frustrated, upset, and giving up immediately.
So we have steered clear. She starts school in Sept and we will obv give all the support she needs then to what she is learning in school.
BUT... from recent conversations with other mums, I have got the impression that DD is very very behind compared to where pretty much all the other kids are. Some are taking home actual phonics reading books for reading 'practice' (DD only just knows all her letters, and has wobbles even on that) and a couple of her friends are able to read simple picture books too.
I desperately don't want her to get to school and be 'behind' where all the others are as I know her only too well and she is so incredibly sensitive that it will knock her confidence. She is the kind to get terribly upset when she can't run as fast as her friends and she doesn't get 'spurred on', she just gets upset and gives up.
So.. should I, against most of my better instincts, try to do more at home with her? I think really both DH and I are a little surprised she's not showing any interest in the phonics etc because she is so obviously very bright (not just saying this - she catches onto concepts incredibly fast, she makes terrifically astute observations, her imagination is phenonmenal and her vocabulary etc is noticeably very advanced) and because she just loves being read to so much. Her concentration is such that she will sometimes sit for up to an hour being read to and she is increasingly choosing 'chapter books' from the library for me to read to her as she just loves 'stories' so much and gets so much out of them.
But phonics - she couldn't care less. She would rather just play, and until very recently, I felt anything else was best left until formal 'school'.
So was a right, or should we be encouraging her more? DH and I have a horror of pushing her but otoh gentle encouragement isn't pushing, i suppose?
Thanks for any advice or suggestions in advance.
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My pre-schooler and phonics/learning to read
42 replies
JessiCake · 23/03/2017 20:26
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