Are lots of pre-reception 4 year olds reading ?

How so ? I am dyslexic and " see and say" is the only way I could learn to read

Share books, stories, nursery rhymes, games like eye spy, phonological skill games like what's the first sound in cat (c), what's the last sound/middle sound? Rhymes great as later on they can see/hear that cat rhymes with bat (and you can read the same sounds in both). Give lots of examples, she may not come up with her own rhymes yet. It;s a skill.

Being able to have finely developed hearing skills for sounds is a key to phonics. Sound walks - I can hear a dog/siren/crunchy leaves/the wind/rain. All of these help her think about and tune into sounds - which then helps with sounds in language.

Lots of talking, chatting, singing and age appropriate vocabulary/new words (tell her a word then explain the meaning) and things like gross motor and fine motor play e.g. play doh to support learning to write... plus the practical stuff other have mentioned.

Dressing up, imaginative play. Also lots of RL experiences like going to the seaside or a wildlife park. Reading depends a lot on real life experience, so the child can relate to situations.

She'll get plenty of exposure to phonics at school and they do it systematically. They will very likely give you info on how to support her at home with pre-reading and reading skills.

We enjoyed Geraldine the Giraffe on YouTube as a funny phonics resource. There are millions of great phonics resources on YouTube. Miss Phonics is good - when the time comes.

For now, relax and enjoy playing and chatting, sharing books you enjoy and singing and going on mini trips to explore the world! Have fun!

Thank you for sharing this - I was an early self taught reader (and musical instrument player); had read Austen’s complete works and most of the classics by 11. Only now my children are both diagnosed - and their assessment clinicians suggested, unprompted by me, I get a formal diagnosis too 🤣- that I now now I am on the spectrum too. Had not heard of hyperlexia, but it may explain why I am doing a PhD in literature/creative writing! My youngest wouldn’t read a book with gun at his head, so clearly didn’t get that bit of ASD 😭

My DD was not reading at all before school. At the end of reception her reading is great in my view. Don't worry about it. It sounds like your DC is doing brilliantly. Also, take what the other parents say with a pinch of salt. People have very different ideas of what is "reading".

DS (starting in September), incidentally, is sounding things out more because he wants to be like his big sister. I'm much more worried about him managing school emotionally than I was with her. Reading is not the focus for school readiness.

I remember with my eldest they spend so much time on phonics and it's pretty amazing how it all comes together. I remember they were still watching phonics videos in lockdown so that would be late spring term so plenty of time is allocated to learning to read.
My youngest is starting school in September and although we look at a lot of books she isn't anywhere near reading yet.

My eldest could sound out letters. She could do words like cat, dog and duck etc. I would have said she could read. She was top reading group in reception and over a year ahead on the Oxford reading scheme.

It wasn't until my youngest went in actually properly reading (his sister was reception in lockdown so he watched all her homeschooling) that I thought, yeah, my eldest wasn't reading. This one is reading. Teacher had him free reading from the start.

It's not JUST about the decoding though, it's allll about comprehension. You need to focus on what they call VIPERS
Vocab
Inferences
Prediction
Retrieve
Summarise

My friends fancy private school has just gone back to VIPERS because they were too focussed on decoding and moving the kids up a level and it was causing problems with comprehension further up the school.

My two boys are 8 and 5, neither could read at all when starting school.

All school expected was that they could count to 10 and recognise their own name written down.

As someone else mentioned it was far more useful that they could zip up a coat, put on their shoes on the right feet etc.

I taught myself to read before I started school and wrote lists of words, I think I might be ND so possible hyperlexic:
Hyperlexia is a condition where preschool children display an intense early interest in letters in a way that is very advanced for their age. They can decode words accurately, but without understanding their meaning. It is most common among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – with approximately 6-20% of children with autism demonstrating hyperlexia.

DS has ASD but wasn't hyperlexic, he couldn't blend before starting school but was one of the first to be a free reader. Just read lots to her to foster a love of reading and listen to her read everyday when she brings home books from school. Join the library too (for when the school books get really tedious!).

I never went out of my way to teach any of my children to read, but I read to them an awful lot and they picked stuff up. My youngest child ( of 3) started nursery being able to read so well he was put on colour staged reading books with full sentences while the others were still on books with no words, just pictures to talk about. He was always ahead of the game in that respect throughout his school life, and his teachers in nursery were quite in awe of his ability. I honestly never set about 'teaching' him, he just worked it out for himself!
Most schools have some sort of formal phonics teaching - ours uses Read,Write,Inc - which works pretty well for the majority of children. Just make sure you practice with her when she starts to learn, and keep reading to her as well as getting her to read to you.

Because her child is 3.5 and there's so much else they could be doing than learning to read.

No, there’s no benefit to being able to read before you start reception, kids need to be able to go to the loo themselves, put their coat on, do their shoes up and listen.

I was buying a book for children age 7 - 9 in well known bookshop recently and the woman behind the till told me she had read the entire series by the time she was 2 🤔because her mum had taught her to read at 2, I think she thought I’d be impressed but she was just working behind the till in a bookshop so…..

The ages of kids in reception will span a year. What's that, about a quarter of the lifespan of a child who has only just turned 4. So the kids who have been 4 for most of a year can be expected to have developed a lot more and got some more skills. Believe me it evens out by secondary school. The most annoying part of having a summer born child is realising that your child is achieving way more when they reach the same age as the 'older' children in the year were at that age, but in the academic year are more likely to be sitting on the less 'academic' tables in primary school.
Plus, you can always console yourself that the kids of boasting parents may well have peaked too early, which is pretty gutting if it's in primary school. I am not being mean, this is really what happens to a good proportion of the kids who are very advanced in primary. Sometimes it's simply because they are the oldest, or have older siblings who they have learnt alongside at home, or their academic skillset suits primary school more than secondary school or higher education. It's a long game and things change for better or worse for everyone.
As pps say, forget about teaching your DC to read. Make sure they can feed themselves, go to the loo, socialise them, talk to them.
Make the most of the time before primary school starts.

Why on earth shouldn’t she if the kids are ready and enjoying it 🤷🏼‍♀️

if she enjoys it, why not? every child learns things at their own pace. don't feel pressurised. but if she is interested, don't hold back earlier.

not sure re the Teachers having to unlearn bad reading techniques etc though, not had any such issues in our extended family. quite are very early readers.

my little brother, the cheeky bugger that he is, pretended he couldn't read, because he didn't want to do the extra work that entailed. soon got found out when my mum spoke to the teacher. think they were more impressed by his machiavallian tendencies than the reading

I'm a teacher in Reception with my own 4yo starting this year. He can sight read - think words like Olympic - I have never sat down and taught him. He doesn't use his phonics to read. By all means encourage your children to love reading but it is not necessary for them to "read" before Reception.

Make sure they know what their name looks like though for lost things! 🤣 My advice is ignore everyone else and concentrate on your own child 😘

Reception teacher here.

Doing their coat up and putting on their own shoes are far more important life skills on starting school. Focus on those. Don’t worry about trying to teach them to read. Leave it to school.

Having said that, August born DS could read fluently before starting school. He loved jigsaws. I had phonics on display in his bedroom. He made the links between them and put sounds together like a jigsaw. Taught himself to read.

It blew XH away! XH got the complete works of Shakespeare off the shelf and told DS to read it. He did, still aged 3, with fluency and pace. Didn’t understand a word of it mind you!

DS then decided he’d teach DD to read, so she also started school a fluent reader. She amused herself in Reception by teaching a Polish girl to read in English.

They’re now adults, who did well in their exams. Their early reading skills were great, but really not vital to who they are now, as their peers caught up.

No, concentrate on getting your daughter ready for school. Things like being able to independently go to toilet, put on her coat and be able to zip it, put on her shoes, eat with cutlery etc. Pre school is all about getting children ready for school , the teachers don't have time to helping out with this type or stuff.

I honestly wouldn't bother, there's about 1000 things you could use that time for instead. She will pick up reading in no time later on if she's bright and switched on. There really is no need to teach her at 3.5.

My DS was 4 in December, so will be one of the older ones when he starts school in September. He is really interested in reading so I've taught him to sound out simple words and he recognises others. He couldn't read a story by himself though. He reads things like road signs and the labels in the supermarket etc.

His writing is way behind his reading - he's just less interested in writing and drawing than he is in reading (or lots of other things). He can write the first letter of his name and can write kisses and that's it. He has only very recently started colouring vaguely within the lines.

I thought he was pretty advanced with reading and maybe a behind with writing and drawing, but nursery seem to think he's within the bounds of normal for everything so 🤷‍♀️

Only a handful of children will have any meaningful phonics at all. We start at the beginning with all the children anyway. It’s really not needed (or desirable!).

I hated it when parents or nursery staff with limited training had taught their child just a bit of phonics, because often it meant bad habits that we had to reteach.

Send them in being able to go to the loo, listen to a story, put on their coat and play nicely. Those are the skills that are most helpful!

PS for any parent of a child with additional needs or medical needs who can’t do the above list, don’t panic. We understand!

Some can read. I wasn't taught, but was read to a lot, and kind of picked it up. At 2 my mum remembers me reading each product label from my toddler seat as she put items in the trolley, even cheap tins with just text. At 3 I could pick up a story book I hadn't seen before and fluently read it to the other children at nursery, who would sit and listen because hey, extra story time (observed by staff, not just the fond imaginings of a proud mummy). When I started at Reception, my mum awkwardly mentioned that I could read "a bit", and they handed me back at the end of the day and confirmed I could indeed read, and not just a bit. At infant school, we had our reading age tested, and I came out at 14+/adult, on whatever test it was. It can happen, and it doesn't mean a kid's been hothoused, or is some kind of baby genius, or is actually just learning by heart. They maybe just happen to have maybe been interested in text, noticed links, and picked it up.

It's also entirely standard and typical for the prerequisites for reading not to come together for a child until 6 or 7, and trying to force it before then will just mean it's incredibly hard work and potentially dispiriting for everyone involved. And it doesn't suggest anything about "intelligence" and doesn't necessarily mean they're dyslexic. It's just that reading is an artificial skill that leeches off a whole load of abilities that didn't originally develop for that purpose — no wonder it's variable and messy.

That's why I agree with you that formal school and learning to read should start later, otherwise you risk unnecessarily putting a whole load of children off reading and maybe even education, children who would've been indistinguishable from any other children if the system just waited a couple of years, and instead having them "fall behind" at 5, for no good reason.

It's also not necessarily a good thing to read before school — I remember being very bored in the few phonics lessons I sat through, but in those days they decided that since I started school reading fluently, I could sit in the corridor with some books from the junior school every time the class did phonics. I don't know if schools now would even allow that. So at best the kid is bored and risks becoming disengaged. At worst, they've learnt some stuff that needs to be somehow unlearnt so they can relearn the school way.

Hour blanket statement about 4 year olds not being able to read is wrong, though. It's entirely possible, just not particularly useful.

As other PP’s have said, please don’t compare. All the research shows there is no academic or intellectual advantage to being able to ‘read’ by 4. School may see less stressful, but in many European countries they don’t even start teaching reading/writing until they are 7 and they’ve all got a high number of university graduates/PhDs/medical doctors per capita. This is MN. There’s a thread from a few weeks ago where a teacher was pointing out that so many children start school unable to toilet themselves/wearing nappies. Please relax.

My child started school aged 4 able to read. But he was certainly the exception. He was later assessed and is classified as exceptional and gifted. He was not the average.

My other children are very bright but were not reading before starting school. I remember mentioning my worries to the teacher who reminded me I was comparing them to a genius! There was no comparison and my children were all perfectly capable and normal!!

They are all very bright and often get academic awards in school but other than my first, none of them read or even recognised letters before school. That's what teachers and school curriculums are for 😉

I wouldn’t tell anyone in real life.

DD2 will start reception in September as the oldest in the class. She can read RWI red books. Each page has a very simple setence with no capitals or even a full stop. Think ‘dad has a hat’.

In school nursery she has been taught RWI set 1 phonics and have started some blending. Due to lockdown we have the books and I feel confident I could listen to her read without messing it up. Also she wants to read like her big sister.

But no it isn’t necessary. Personal development like self confidence, toileting, managing a zip are more important.