AIBU to think that children should be reading when they start school?

[horribledinners]

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, I started having kids 20+ years ago, but I, and all my brothers and sisters were taught to read and write by my parents before we started primary school. I taught my two older kids to read and begin to learn to write letters in time for them starting primary education, and would be ashamed if ds3 couldn't recognise letters and be able to read by the time he starts school.

I completely understand that there have been many confusing 'experiments' in education since then, the abandonment of phonics was a tragedy in my opinion; but do parents really think its the schools job to teach kids to read and write and do they not even give an introduction to reading and writing anymore?

I would love to know if this is a generational thing. I know for certain its not a class thing as we were very poor growing up and my Mum would take us out to the bus-stop and make us read out the notices!

Sigh, picks up stick and resumes beating myself at yet another parenting failure...

I know an awful lot of secondary teachers who curse the day phonics became the norm.

Seriously, OP what did you mean by a '4 year old level of reading'?

Why just reading and writing op? Why stop just there? Surely you could teach them a bit more? How about some maths and science.you do know it's your job as a parent, right?!??

YANBU. I dont' think people should be ashamed if their children can't read when they start school but it does surprise me how many parents seem to think they have absolutely no responsibilty for their childrens' education and simply wash their hands of it.
I will be making every effort to teach DD to read when she is ready. Parents are a child's first teachers and I strongly believe that the greatest gift you can give your child is a love of reading

find the idea that you'd be ashamed if they couldn't read slightly strange - what else would shame you - if they get in trouble, if they're not good at maths, if they can't kick ball well? I think by the time they get to ten or so there'll be no diff bt those who could read starting school and those who coldn't

spanishpaella what ignorant comments. Some children will never learn to read, despite being read aloud to from birth.

And why is it 'mother's' job? Are fathers not capable of teaching their children to read?
FWIW, my DH (dyslexic, couldn't read until age of 9) says his reading has improved dramatically since reading to our children aloud.

I could read at 2, my brother was reading (unabridged) Oliver Twist at 4, we can't actually read any better now than DH can.

Why?

In cultures that start learning later (Scandinavia for example where school and letter recognition starts aged 7), they catch up with other countries within a couple of years. What's the point of starting them to read so early regardless of who teaches them?

Should add that my DD aged 6 is an avid reader, never stops. She gets through a chapter book a day at the moment. I hope that she got her love of stories from us as we read to her every day, but never taught her to read. That's what teachers are trained to do so I'd prefer them to teach the correct and easiest way. Also I didn't want her sitting in class bored in literacy lessons (like one of her classmates did for 2 years - DD1 now reads as well if not better than her)

Ok, I say this regularly but my dd is at a selective, highly academic school and pre-prep parents are asked begged not to try to teach their child to read.

If a child is showing interest and the parent supports them great.
Really great. Fab. Wonderful.

But if not, unless you are perhaps a teacher, there is a good
chance that you will teach in a different way from the way your child is being taught at school which could confuse and muddle your child.

Plus there is a danger that, if you regard it as some kind of badge of honour that singles you out as a great parent, you will end up like the parent I saw shouting at her near 4 year old "just try!"

There are loads of very valuable skills a parent can teach in advance of school. Going to the toilet unaided. Listening and responding in turn, not shouting out. Taking turns. Not hitting other children. All good.

Equating reading pre school to being a good parent or not is shockingly ignorant. It is also perfectly possible to read copiously to and with you child and them still not read when they start school.

Yes.

I could read before I started school. My DC couldn't. We are all of us avid readers so I am not convinced that a year or so delay makes that much difference.

YABVU

Normally I try not to play the Oxbridge card because: (1) it can come across as snobbish; (2) there are lots of equally bright people who went to other universities; (3) there are lots of ways of being bright, equally valuable ways, which don't involve being academically bright; and (4) most of what I value in my fellow human beings - kindness, honesty, tolerance, courage - has bugger all to do with intelligence. However, to show OP how wrong she is, I am going to play it on this occasion.

OP: I couldn't read when I got to school. This did not stop me getting a first degree from Oxford, a masters and PhD from Cambridge and a second PhD from a Russell league university.

I read to DS to encourage him to love books as much as I do. I have no intention of "hot-housing" him, because I want him to pursue academic interests (if that's what floats his boat) later in life because he loves them, not because he was forced to. And absolutely the last thing I want to do is to turn him off books because I've pushed him too hard to early.

So by all means be a pushy parent to your own children. But don't tell me I should be ashamed for not following your (rather nutty) example.

Well said Pagwash !

I think YAB a bit U.

Every DC is different. Three of mine could read some words before they started school. In fact DD was a fluent reader well before starting school.
The other three couldn't and really struggled to learn. One of them was statemented because of dyslexia and he eventually learnt to read at secondary school.

All 6 had the same mum and dad, were read to, had the same toys, went to the same pre school groups.

My first DS and DD learnt to read easily it was child 3 who struggled.....lets hope you don't have the same problem OP. I was never ashamed of DS2 but he had a rough time at school and had to work ten times harder than the oldest DC. You are just lucky.

I was able to read before starting school. I blithely assumed my DD would too - she had loads of books, I read to her assiduously. But it just didn't 'take'. DH wasn't too worried - he said he'd been a late developer. She really didn't read fluently till yr 3, it was always a struggle till then - when suddenly it clicked. Galloped through the reading scheme.

She's now at a grammar school; my DH, who infant teachers back in the 60s thought might be a bit - their word - retarded - is an extremely literate PhD.

Kids should learn to read when they're ready; for some that's at home, for some its really not until the 6-7 considered normal on the continent.

nigel - a love of reading is promoted in many ways. Being forced to learn to read before you are ready isn't one of them. If a child wants to read, is eager to learn, go ahead and encourage them, otherwise leave them be.

I read to dd almost every night for the years before she went to school, and we did letters and such - but she learned to read at school. Not only that, but I got told off by the school because I was teaching her incorrectly and was told to stop. She's 14 now, and has always been 2-3 years ahead in reading age.

Ds isn't bothered about being read aloud to. He wasn't really interested in learning letters before he started school, he's 6 now, and has the reading age of a 7 year old.

Makes no difference.

I could read before I started school at age three. There's a family story about the teacher seeing me with a book and asking if I liked the pictures and me putting one hand on my hip and announcing in very offended tones that I was "reading the real words!"

LO is two and a half and can't read yet, however he loves books, has memorised a lot of the stories, and can sit and recite them to himself while he looks at the pictures. I've even heard him saying the stories to himself when he is in bed and doesn't have the books. I don't think he will be long in learning to read but the most important thing to me at the moment is that he sees books and reading as something fun to be enjoyed. The learning will come with that without him realising, but if it takes a little longer for him that for me I don't mind.

I've always loved books and it was my mum that helped me to read and to love them from a young age. She got that love of books from her own mum, who read to her and her sisters. But my Mum born just after the war and she didn't start school until she was seven. And she couldn't read when she started, despite this love of books that runs in the family.

I think as long as you are reading to your child, they will learn to read in their own time and there isn't really any 'should' about things like this.

My parents spent a lot of time with me trying to teach me to tell the time, but it wasn't until I was almost nine that any of it made any sense to me and I worked out how to do anything more complicated than the hour and half hour. Yet some of children who weren't reading as well as I was picked up telling the time much more quickly. People just do some things differently and at their own pace.

Why on earth should a 4 year old be able to read? Read WHAT ffs? Bills, signposts, newspapers? They are 4

YABU if you apply this to every mother and child. We didn't want DD to learn to read before school - we think it would be boring waiting for everyone else to catch up. I was a v advanced reader (it just happened that way, nobody set out to teach me) and I used to get bored. My DD can show you Burma on a map of Asia and name most of the countries on the map of Europe though. Does that mean that I don't have to be ashamed of myself? Phew.

I think as long as kids love stories of any kind, from books, made up, whatever, that's the most important factor in their wanting to read. The rest is down to individual ability. They will get there eventually, most of them. I think it's unhelpful to kids to be pushed when they're still v young. What if they're not ready?

I think OP needs to be clear about the level though - do you mean the early years curriculum they follow at nurseries is appropriate in your view? Or do you mean tomes of Dickens?

I think it's good to be able to say the alphabet and count to 10. In any language. Reading is great, but how many kids have been put off it by being pushed?

I'm incredibly proud that my DS (3 on Sunday!) knows his letters (phonetic sounds and names and is starting to blend them) which I've actively taught him - through Dr Seuss ABC etc. He's also good at suggesting rhyming words for ends of couplets which he's picked up naturally through lots of story reading. He was ready to learn though - if he wasn't then I could have read the same books to him and he wouldn't have learned he same skills. It would never occur to me to be ashamed of him though - everyone learns differently.

I did have an odd moment the other day where I thought 'oh but I could read by his age' (Janet and John books by 2.5 - not War and Peace). It felt very weird to think how he and I were at different levels by the same age. Sorry think I'm explaining that very poorly. But anyway, my parents did the flashcard thing where they labelled everyday things in the house so I learned letter names and word recognition only.

There's no right or wrong. If children learn to read or write before school then they'll have more time to learn other things when they get there, if not then hopefully they'll learn when they're there.

I've said this before on MN, but a good teacher will differentiate and give children different things to learn if the already know the basics, whilst others are being taught them. A weaker teacher won't be able to do that as effectively - in which case would you want to entrust your children's learning of a fundamental skill to them? I'm very skeptical of teachers being 'cross' children have already been taught a skill - how can any learning be a bad thing? Unless you've taught them 'cat' says 'cow' or something wrong. A good teacher will say 'fantastic, you are so clever to write your name. At school we usually use a capital letter just for the first letter, then we write the rest of it like this, so lets practise that together.'

'In cultures that start learning later ( Scandinavia for example where school and letter recognition starts aged 7 ), they catch up with other countries within a couple of years. What's the point of starting them to read so early regardless of who teaches them?'

No it doesn't.

I don't think you're being entirely unreasonable - certainly letter recognition, decent mark making skills and the ability to write their own names I think probably would and should be achievable for most children by the time they start school, but...

There is nearly a year's age difference between the oldest and youngest children in a Reception class and that is huge at such a young age, never mind taking into account differing levels of natural ability and family/parental input.

I think as a society we should be ashamed that we do not do more to promote adult literacy as imho it is adult input that is really vital wrt a child's enjoyment of books and ability to read (at whatever stage they may be ready), and is often sadly lacking.

Yabu. I could read before I went to school (age 2.5 according to my mum ). My brother struggled till he was 7 when he suddenly got inspired.
We've got good degrees, we've got post-grad qualifications, DB3 is most successful academically. It makes no perceptible difference.

Now if you'd said children should be reading before they started secondary school, I would have agreed with you and that is where the functional illiteracy which affects too many adults comes from.

Not sure if it's a generational thing - I am 33 and could read when I started school.

The teachers used to sit me in the corner with the kids who couldn't read and I'd do their word tin with them (picking words out of a tin for them to read).

Not much fun for anyone really!

I hope DS will be able to read some basics before he starts shcool, but I'll not be ashamed if he can't.