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?

I would expect most children in KS1 to be able to sound out most of the words (including exoskeleton, which is pretty much phonetic), but possibly to need help choosing whether to use a hard or a soft c in some cases.

I would expect them to get ‘chitin’ wrong, and pronounce the ch the same way as chair.

As a side note, this book reminds me of what used to irritate me about some of the factual reading books in KS1. The text doesn’t help understanding. The child might be able to remember that some invertebrates’ exoskeleton contains chitin, but this is meaningless to them. It isn’t that difficult to write “a hard substance” rather than ‘a substance’. It is a bit pointless to mention it otherwise.

Also, why not use ‘spine’ rather than ‘backbone’? If they are at the verge of being able to select which pronounciation of ‘c’ to use, then they will know about split digraphs, and be able to sound out ‘spine’. If they are ready to learn the word ‘exoskeleton’, then you don’t need to simplify to ‘backbone’.

I was so irritated when DC brought this home. To be fair to them, they had made a pretty good job with the text, but another example of how a little thought and care wouldn’t go amiss.

Children are like sponges at this age and will accept what they are told and what they read as fact, so it might as well be correct and useful.

These threads are daft. My four year old, who’s a very strong reader, would read that fairly fluently. He’d maybe struggle with some names. Whereas my friend’s ten year old would find it hard. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It makes me cringe

It entirely depends on the child, their level of interest in the subject (I.e. have they come across certain words before), and their reading age of course. My eldest read this sort of thing aged just 5 (year 1 as he is the very youngest in the school year), my youngest would have been more like 5.5/6 years old I would have said - end of reception, beginning of year 1 - he has an autumn term birthday and was reading before he started school due to observing older brother learning. However I know several 10 year olds who might stumble over a few longer / more scientific words on the pages shown. They are no less intelligent, just not as ahead with reading. I would say on average a 6-7 year old child would be reading that fluently.

6 and a half to 7?

7 years old .

When a reply said any age all children are different they couldn’t have been more correct! My DD taught herself to read when she was two 🤦🏼‍♀️ using a stuffed caterpillar with the alphabet on his feet. It was my first certainty that she was ND and health visitor took it as a brag 🙄. So for her … 4.

6 months?

Why do you suspect he’s dyslexic if he hasn’t really attempted reading or writing yet out of interest?

My son started secondary school unable to read. (He did catch up). My stepson taught himself to read at two years old and on his third birthday opened a present and said ‘That’s funny, it says “Made in China”, but it’s made in wood’. Kids progress at their own pace.

I'd hope they were in Y3 or lower. Maybe go online and get the Holborn Reading Test?

Or Hertfordshire if you can get it.

They will tell you the reading age and tolerance age of the child in question.

Of course younger children can read and speak such words if younger than 7, particularly if they have read for a while.

About 8?

Because DH is dyslexic so there's a higher chance, but also, he has no sense of blending, can't understand the concept of rhyme, it's a mystery to him what sound something begins with, he will just guess totally random letters, he will repeatedly misspell his sibling's name in a completely illogical way (e.g. Sam = ASM), when he asks me to spell words out for him, he doesn't know when it's the end of the word, he will keep asking "What letter next?"

I have an older child who also was not taught to read until he started school but he could do all of those things much more easily and younger. Without fully being able to read, he could do parts of it, recognise the first sound of a word, when we spelled things out he would mostly seem to know when it was the last letter because it would look right to him, etc. Even my 3yo can pick out rhymes. When we've played games with rhyme to try and help the 6yo, the 3yo gets it more easily.

We have had speech therapy assessments twice (once because of a slight speech delay, once because of a screening program for non-native speakers) and they have both picked up the difficulty with rhyming. The other suggestion is that it could be auditory processing disorder, but both speech therapists thought dyslexia was possible given the family history. They are not qualified to diagnose though.

Random stuff that has made me wonder too but not sure if it's connected or not - he follows Lego instructions upside down and back to front. Keeps forgetting that we read left to right and wants to read things like numbers or diagrams right to left. (e.g. 24 becomes forty-two).

I would say it’s within the spectrum of normal to not be able to do those things at this age, particularly when he has never had formal teaching.