Not to teach my three year old to read?

[Georgimama]

DS is 3.9. My mother is obsessed by the idea that he needs to start reading before he starts school. She thinks if he cannot read before he starts school he will be the only one and will be "left behind". As he is going into a school with classes of 8 I doubt this is likely.

I think trying to teach a 3.9 year old to read is probably pointless as unlikely to be fruitful, and is completely unnecessary. He seems fairly bright to me (has an excellent vocabulary, is able to piece together cause and effect of things he observes i.e some time ago I told him what a contrail is, the other day he looked up in the sky and said "look mummy a contrail, there must be a plane") and not in need of any pushing.

Am I deluding myself? Does everyone else break out the jolly phonics at birth? Am I dooming him to failure before he has even started?

No need to do it. My dd showed no interest in reading at all before reception. Is now reading white books at 5 1/2 so is no way left behind.

Bigdog there is a g and t section in education. You may find it helful posting there.

Ok, before I go and post in the proper section, I'll just respond to reallytired
"What kind of reading test has she had. Surely she is just barking at print. I seriously doult a three or four year old can read books for ten year olds and understand them."
She has had the bog standard one where you read a series of progressively harder words (Burt Test) and they also gave her a list of made up words which apparently test the ability to decode using phonics as opposed to maybe just recalling words from memory. She is also definitely not just barking it out - I teach 15 year olds who pay less attention to punctuation and expression, lol!

bigdog - dd was assessed at nursery to a similar level for reading words and decoding but her comprehension of the text (what will happen next, answering inferred questions etc) was not up to the same standard. I think that's what the pp meant rather than that your dd was just guessing.

Ah right, well the comprehension is there :) Her teacher thought that maybe she was just reading and not taking it all in, but my DD would happily sit there and discuss stories. They have started to give her mainly non-fiction books, so we have some very 'interesting' discussions at home!

I think it is harder to level the comprehension. DD will discuss stories too but the comprehension is definitely behind the decoding as she can read my books but obviously not understand them like an adult.

DS was very keen and was reading simple books when he started reception. He was obsessed with language and letters. He read HP and the Philosopher's stone when he was still five! But he lead it not us, although he was brought up in a house full of books.

His 6th form subjects include English, Latin and French but he hardly ever reads for pleasure and hasn't found a happy ground since munching his way through Ravensgate even though he read the War of the Worlds at 7. His younger sister who was about 18 months behind has, at 13, just finished Atonement and has started on Birdsong tonight and never has her nose out of a book.

I recall DS announcing that it was no wonder that HP ended up in knockturn alley instead of diagon alley because he pronounced the word as diagonally. He was not an easy child.

You are going to be sending your chid to a school where someone has spent years learning how to teach your child to read. You mention classes of 8 so I am assuming you are also going to be paying for said professional to do their job.

There is nothing worse for a teacher than having a group of children where some can read but cannot sit still / take themselves to the toilet / dress themselves / be quiet etc.

IMHO the only thing parents need to teach their children before starting school is the social skills needed to be in a classroom and to learn.

Through singing, my DS has learnt letters and phonics and applies them to every day words too - such as D is for dog / dinosaur then sounds 'd' 'd' 'dog' / 'dinosaur' and can name at least 2 things for each letter of the alphabet if asked.

He's 2.1 and finds it a fun thing to do as we use it as a speaking game when in the car on a boring trip etc. I've not actually sat down with him and tried to teach him to read though.

If your DS is interested then by all means encourage it.

I do actually think it's a good thing, if done in the correct way, such as through singing, which also brings on their speech and teaches many new words (to speak, not read). Done in a fun way like when reading to them I think helps them like books and reading which can come in useful once they do start school.

I wouldn't push it though if they're clearly not bothered or find it boring. I think pushing too much then has the opposite effect of what you want and will make them dislike reading later on.

I don't think it actually matters whether or not they start school being able to read at all. They all learn at some point anyway and all even out as they get older regardless of how much they knew before starting school.

I wouldn't worry, really!

But you already are teaching him to read by having lovely discussions and reading to him and following his interests. That is the foundation of literacy. Words, words, words... talk to him, listen to him, read stories, listen to audio books, do a bit of name & word spotting e.g. finding his name on cards, finding your name etc.

I work in early childhood education and we have ditched Jolly Phonics as it is inaccurate for many letters and replaced it with a phonemic awareness programme.

.... and I just realise this thread is from a year ago so clearly wasted my time and effort :)

I am resisting a VERY childish urge to say that all my DCs read War and Peace unaided before the age of 2. (Fighting off Bad Fairy urges, don't worry.)

YANBU.
My DS (also 3.9) can't read either, he knows and recognizes numbers bu not letters. He was a late talker but now speaks very well ( above average age according to nursery). He enjoys looking at books and being read to.
Reading will come to him when he is interested and ready.

tigerlillyd02 - not wasted effort, it might be of interest to someone else :)

i never formally taught mine just read to them every day

they could easily read fluently by the time they went to nursery at 4 - in fact so well that the nursery teacher pulled me aside during the first week and told me in shocked tones - your children can read! not just read but read properly!

Yes i said, i know, I told you that.

Don't worry about it. School starts at the age it does for a reason - and even then it's (theoretically) play-based. In fact in this country we start formal education earlier than virtually every other nation in Europe.

Incidentally, I used to be a primary teacher, and there were plenty of children who could do phonics beautifully, but when it came to a real book (i.e. not one in a reading scheme, you know the ones without any punchline) they couldn't actually read ...

In my experience, the vast majority of children start school unable to read. They then learn at very different rates. You can give kids a head start at home by reading to them a lot, doing the A-B-C song, doing lots of nursery rhymes etc. (Knowing which words rhyme is incredibly helpful in learning to read.) The important thing about reading them stories is that it means they enjoy books and want to read them for themselves - motivation is the key thing in learning anything.

I agree with people who say it's child-led - if your DS wants to learn to read, then there's no harm at all in teaching him. If he doesn't want to, then leave it. My DD didn't want to learn to read before starting school (I tried teaching her, and she refused) but learnt within a few weeks of starting. I could read before starting school but I think that's because I showed a lot of enthusiasm for it from an early age (too long ago to remember properly!)

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