How old do you think this child is?

[applefigs]

Please settle this debate! DP thinks one thing, I think another.

The child in question read this page fluently. Found the word 'calcium' tricky.

At what age would you expect a child to be reading this?

We could co-fund joint therapy? In the pub, maybe! 😂

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DD is hyperlexic, she could have read that fluently at 3. DS also hyperlexic but wouldn't have been able to get him to sit still enough to to read all of that until age 5-6. Niece aged about 6-7. Nephew is y6 and would be able to read the words easily but would struggle with how busy the page is and be distracted easily. All ND, all developing different skills at different rates and doing just fine!

@applefigs Come on OP, spill the beans. What do you and DP think, and how old is the child?

Me too! At the other side of the scale are parents like me who know their teen with learning difficulties can’t read this.

Agree, no one's wins when we compare children.

About 7. If has also been exposed to a knowledge based curriculum should be able to answer comprehension questions as well.

I have this book on my Year 3 bookshelf. About a third of my class could read it with ease (fluently, no hesitation), about a third could read most of it fluently, with some words having to be sounded out or supported, the rest wouldn't even know where to begin with it.

Reading is a journey...all children develop at different rates. It's not a competition.

I also hate this word. Insects, invertebrates, arachnids etc. I think 'minibeasts' is supposed to make them sound cuddly. Yuck.😡

Phonics, which should be taught with lots of reading aloud from books children not able to read yet and a knowledge rich curriculum. My nuclear physics is beyond basic, total pits, but I can read a page about it - had I the requisite knowledge I could also understand it.
And if they can decode the page but not understand most of it that is still important. They will not get very far if they know the word 'exoskeleton' but can't decode on a page.

Could be as early as age 4 upwards...

Two of my dc at age 5 could have read this.

Yep. And it’s not a competition. Early reading is not an indicator of intellectual genius or even high IQ. Often a child can read the words but not fully comprehend the meaning behind them. It’s just an indicator that they have the cognitive skills to read early. (I say this as an early reader.)

So, in summary. Who cares?

All graphemes on that page would have been covered by the end of Y1. Possibly not /ure/ in creature depending on phonics scheme used. And if they use a streamed program like RWI then can't guarantee they're taught within Y1 depending on the child's progress.

So definitely 5+
Younger than 5, if above average (but not exceptional for 4+)

For the pp debating category...
/c/ /a/ /t/ /e/ /g/ /or/ /y/
All graphemes taught for Y1 phonics check.

The cate would never rhyme with gate. Split diagraphs are almost always at the end of words (or at least the end of the root word if there is a suffix at the end). There's bound to be exceptions, there always is, but this ain't it!

My little Elpeth could read that at birth

Does the child actually understand what they are reading or can they just read the words? Have you checked their comprehension of it?

Reading it is much easier for some children than actually understanding it

My 6yo couldn't read the word "cat".

If I listened to MN this would be because

a. He's thick as mince
b. I'm the world's slackest parent (the slackness or otherwise of his other parent seems not to be relevant here)

In actual fact, it's because

a. He's perfectly bright, but probably dyslexic.
b. We live in Germany and he won't start officially learning to read until he starts school in September. Nobody thinks it is at all unusual not to be able to read at 6, and all educational materials for this age are set up to assume non-reading.
c. Given a and b, I'm not going to stress him out by teaching him until he needs to. We are working on pre reading skills in a fun way instead.

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I'll bite...I'm a teacher. I've taught children in reception who would've easily read it. I have, however, also taught children in year 5 who wouldn't have been able to beyond a few words here and there.

I would have liked to have seen this book illustrated by children. Or, indeed, anyone. The horrible visuals and the poor wording made this very hard for me to read. But maybe it's a prescribed text for the 'Great Big Competitive Reading County Meet Up!'. Where primary school children battle it out to gain superiority over average children to prove they're suited for something selective?

I mean, why does it matter? My DD was being sent to the year 7 classroom for books when she was in year 3 and read the bookshelf bare before Christmas.

She's 25 now, rarely ever reads, has a decent degree, works in media and has no concept of how much alcohol is enough alcohol. In other words, she's a normal, average to bright young adult who happened to read very well, very young.

My dd could have decoded it a 4.5 but probably with little understanding, now at 6 she would read it and understand. Just got ds 8 to read it and he got stuck on exoskeleton and chitin. I've just looked up the correct pronunciation of chitin and I read it wrong.

My 7 year old would be fine with this and knows the word calcium (Chitin excepted of course, I didn't even know that one!)

If they are year 2 or under I'd say they were fairly advanced with their reading.