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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think kids learn to read at home

193 replies

homhumherewego · 19/10/2017 12:43

A friend with kids was saying in her daughters class there are quite a few kids learning to read.

WTH?

Isnt teaching reading a parent's job?

OP posts:
EB123 · 19/10/2017 14:03

Lol not sure where the random glasses came from!

Danceswithwarthogs · 19/10/2017 14:06

Not this again.....

HateSummer · 19/10/2017 14:09

Experienced mother of 10 years here:

Stop worrying about whether your 3/4/5/6/7/8/9..year old can read.

The UK has a 99% adult literacy rate. Most likely your child will leave school at 16+ being able to read.

HTH.

mctat · 19/10/2017 14:10

It's actually counter productive to teach such young children anything. Children learn through play and it's incredibly important not to interfere with that for the basis of learning in the future. TBH reception year is also too early. Many countries don't start formal education til 6. Probably why so many struggle later in school.

As a pp said, encouraging (but not forcing) a love of reading and books is all that is needed prior to school.

Littlecaf · 19/10/2017 14:12

mctat. I'll stop teaching my DS to use the potty abc he can play with his poo instead

Grin
saoirse31 · 19/10/2017 14:15

No as someone said its a parents job yes to read to kids, have a few, (or lots) of books at home, and I'd include baby books is for bath, and picture books on that. That's it.

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 19/10/2017 14:18

A friend with kids was saying in her daughters class there are quite a few kids learning to read.

Learning?! To read? AT SCHOOL!!

saoirse31 · 19/10/2017 14:18

Aren't u great to poster who read fluently at 4.5, but what's that got to do with anything?

Amazingly kids r different, every one. Who knew?

Teach ur kids to love reading by reading to them, having books around, reading yourself, going to library, bookshops etc.

Pinky333777 · 19/10/2017 14:23

I think it's a parents job to teach their children EVERYTHING to the best of their ability.
Things like school are there to teach, yes, but still rely on parents support and in my eyes is something to help parents educate their kids.
I don't agree education should be solely the responsibility of school. They're your kids. Help them learn the life skills they need and embrace the help (like our education system) you're lucky enough to have to do that x

I look after children and I've found with encouragement most children are capable of reading at 3/4.
The downside is that if they are, they're ahead of a lot of peers at school and may get bored.
But that's a whole other story about my peeve about the school intake system. I don't know how teachers are supposed to manage children who can be almost a year older than others and cater for their vast and varied levels of understanding and needs.

mirime · 19/10/2017 14:33

Apparently my granddad taught to read using road signs on all the long walks he took me on when I was staying with my grandparents. I remember the walks, I don't remember being taught to read.

DS certainly wasn't ready for that, though he's been excellent with numbers from an early age and now at 4 seems to be doing well with phonics and is choosing to practice at home. He's been read to since he was a couple of weeks old (first two weeks we were in hospital) and you can't away from books in our house, I have a lot of them.

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 19/10/2017 14:38

Stop worrying about whether your 3/4/5/6/7/8/9..year old can read.

The UK has a 99% adult literacy rate. Most likely your child will leave school at 16+ being able to read.

This!!

I didn’t teach my DD to read before she went to school. Why would I do something that someone else is going to do for me (and better) in just a few months time? So she can boast years later that she read fluently at 4.5, as if it makes the slightest bit of difference in the grand scheme of things?

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 19/10/2017 14:39

I have read just about every night to her since she was 2 weeks old though. Do I still get a gold star?

SomewhatIdiosyncratic · 19/10/2017 14:40

I picked up reading early, recognising letters before I was 2. Starting school just before my 5th birthday in the Spring term, my reading books had to be sourced from the junior school. I've always loved reading, and we have a book rich environment...

Except my DCs are different children to me. I quickly realised, I had no memory of learning to read. I didn't know how to actually teach them. I've read to them most nights since being a baby, and they love books and stories, but their age of being ready to read is years older than I was.

DS1 just began to really click late in y1 at 6.5. He loves books and voluntarily studies them, we've talked about things like the water cycle from diagrams, but it's just taking patience for him to be ready to decode the words. It is looking likely that he could be dyslexic.

About the worst thing I could have done for him would be being impatient and pushing before he's ready and turning reading into a chore and a battle before he was ready to process it.

DS2 has just started school and is barely 4.5. He knows letter sounds and names not entirely reliably, but seems to be coping with the idea of sounding and blending more easily than his brother.

Children can't learn before they are ready, and children learn best when it's enjoyable.

WhatsGoingOnEh · 19/10/2017 14:45

My mum taught me a lot of words before I started school, but I couldn't actually read before I started.

I deliberately didn't actually try to teach my boys to read. I'm a RUBBISH teacher and I know I would've made them more confused, and they probably would've ended up hating books! I left it to the professionals. I still read to them every day, and took them to the library every week, but I just am crap at teaching stuff. For example, my efforts to reach them to draw and paint managed to drum any artistic confidence out of them. :(

WhatsGoingOnEh · 19/10/2017 14:47

PS: they're both brilliant readers now, way ahead of their age groups. I spent all my efforts getting them into the best school in my town, then left it at that.

Leomonnaise · 19/10/2017 14:49

I look after children and I've found with encouragement most children are capable of reading at 3/4

They may be able to recognize a few words from a book, that doesn't mean they are 'reading'. They will not have learned the comprehension skills they need to read.

I don't agree education should be solely the responsibility of school. They're your kids. Help them learn the life skills they need and embrace the help (like our education system) you're lucky enough to have to do that

We don't have to teach them to read, they start school young enough, let them have some fun and learn through play(something you haven't mention in your post). Instead I read to my child every night, bought age appropriate books so that when they go to school they are familiar with books, words, pictures, stories etc. I have read with them every day since they started school also as part of their homework. All this is helping no need to teach them to read.

WorldWideWanderer · 19/10/2017 14:50

I'm with the op as well. I do think parents should be teaching reading but I also know that many can't and don't know how to. But at least parents should be reading to children, giving them a love of books and so on.

I taught all my children to read before school, and for those who scoff, it is perfectly possible for children to read before the UK school age of 5 years. Small children can recognise the shape of their name and simple words (such as teddy and mummy and daddy) if it's pointed out to them regularly. My children were reading books by 4 years, just very simple children's books, which they read out loud, pointing to the words. My mother also taught me to read when I was little, long before I went to school....I remember being told off for writing my name on a drawing in reception class; I clearly remember the teacher saying "you aren't suppsoed to be able to write yet" !! I never forgot that comment and it made me determined to teach my own children myself, when I had them.....

orangeisnothenewblack · 19/10/2017 14:52

Mine just naturally wanted to learn to do what I could do. They wanted to read themselves and so they learned at home. They weren't amazingly bright it was just what we did at home in the same way as we played with lego, rode bikes etc. It was no big deal
YANBU, I'm actually surprised that most children don't have the beginnings of reading by the time they start school

Leomonnaise · 19/10/2017 14:54

I'm with the op as well. I do think parents should be teaching reading but I also know that many can't and don't know how to

For what reason do you think this? Lots of posters have said either they or their children could read before starting school and it made no difference a while later when all the other kids had caught up with them.

BitchQueen90 · 19/10/2017 14:55

My DS is 4.4 and in reception, he can't read. He can recognise a few letters but that's it.

We look at books daily and he enjoys listening to a story but he doesn't have much interest in trying to read himself. I am a huge reader and have over 300 books in my home so it's not because he doesn't see me reading. He just prefers more active play.

I'm a single parent and quite frankly at the end of a long day trying to force my 4 year old to do something he shows little interest in yet is exhausting. It will come in time. It's not something that worries me.

Leomonnaise · 19/10/2017 14:55

I taught all my children to read before school, and for those who scoff, it is perfectly possible for children to read before the UK school age of 5 years. Small children can recognise the shape of their name and simple words (such as teddy and mummy and daddy) if it's pointed out to them regularly

Yeah, that's not reading I'm afraid. It's just recognizing a few words from memory.

Lairymilk · 19/10/2017 15:03

I don't think parents should necessarily be teaching children to read.

I do think there is a responsibility to share books and instill a love of reading but it's fine to leave the mechanics to school.

I purposefully kept away from phonics before DD started school because I didn't want to get it wrong. She picked it up quickly and now at 6 is already a free reader so it didn't do her any harm.

Lemonnaise · 19/10/2017 15:11

BitchQueen90

You have the right attitude. My DD was the youngest in her class, couldn't read and she picked it up with no problems and never looked back. I think some parents do it for bragging rights.

opalshine · 19/10/2017 15:12

Leo

It is reading.

Evelynismyspyname · 19/10/2017 15:16

Hahaha ... I guess people mean wildly different things when they use the word "reading"

My youngest and most benevolently neglected child had a load of sight words before starting school - including "obsidian" - is this because I hot housed him in literacy and geology? Or because I let him play too much Minecraft at an age when his older siblings didn't know what an Xbox was? Blush Grin He's bilingual and learning to read in two languages simultaneously with great ease now he's started school age 6.5 :o but on his 6th birthday he had lots of sight words but only knew the sounds/ phonics of about half the letters in the alphabet and no diagraphs, and had only a the notion of blending but rarely bothered, so he certainly couldn't "read" really!