To think kids learn to read at home

[homhumherewego]

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?

Jacques, actually I agree with you. My ds spent a lot of time in hospital first 3 years of his life.
It was kind of inevitable to get interested in things he can do like reading, while he was stuck on hospital bed. Also he really wanted to watch telly, but not allowed to turn the volume up. So he naturally wanted and learned to read subtitles on the screen.

My nephews and nieces all learned to read very quickly round about the age of 5-7. I suspect part of this ease was because their eye-hand coordination had already been developed by the practical learning they had been doing long before that age (baking, using a hammer, cooking, climbing trees, building dens) and their mental world had been expanded by adults who took plenty of time to read to them and talk to them, as well as by spending plenty of time outdoors.

While I don't think there is anything wrong in a child learning to read at the age of 3 (should they happen to want to), I think there is everything wrong in imagining you have seen to your child's education as long as they know how their 3 Rs. Education is a much wider thing than just knowing how to decode writing.

I recommend the Domann books, particularly 'How to Teach Your Baby to Read', which has been around since the 1960s.

Sorry, but that was just a party trick. Showing flash cards to tiny children so many times that they recognised them. What was the point, it didn't give children the tools to work out other words for themselves, neither did it feed into a reading scheme. Seems like a lot of wasted effort to me.

Some children teach themselves before school age. Some aren't ready till older. That doesn't reflect on their eventual achievement.

Hopefully most children can ride a bike by the age of 5 though. I'd be critical of parents who hadn't made a serious effort with that.

Evelyn, I said he was decoding, since he had the decoding age of mid teens when he was tested at the start of school. There was huge gap to his actual comprehension. And I wasn't expecting him to read something just because he can read(decode).
But that doesn't mean he didn't have any understanding of what he was reading. He did read a lot, and did understood what he wanted to read about.

well at 2 demanding to be taught to-read.

oh yes you can meet 😇

Actually, for some children, they don't even need to demand to be taught. They just pick it up themselves from everyday life, and those who don't believe, it's sad(for you) but true.

Beyondthepage

Your definition of literacy is one, but UNICEF disagrees.

"Percentage of persons aged 15 and over who can read and write".

www.unicef.org/infobycountry/stats_popup1.html

Irvine I don't think a single person is denying that some children can read at 2 and 3. What a lot of people are very sceptical about is whether this confers a long term advantage in itself. There is more evidence against long term advantage in teaching reading early than in favour.

A tiny number of children pick it up themselves very early without any teaching at all, but that is no more due to superior parenting than the rare but real child who walks steadily at 7 months. Many but by no means all children read to daily and living in a book rich nurturing, language rich environment would probably pick reading up eventually, but certainly not all on their own before age 7 or so - that's pretty much the unschooling idea.

The thread is about parents teaching reading before school age - which assuming a UK perspective is too early to push most children without risking doing more harm than good in terms of lowering self esteem as learners and putting them off reading for pleasure long term.

I worked out reading for myself before primary school but it did me no real favours.
I had more fun in p1 than those struggling but overall being ahead was a bit frustrating. I was given extension work but I’d rather have been reading at the same pace as my class.
Whenever we had a class book I’d read it all first night then have to spend a week waiting for the others to read it do we could discuss it.

(And it meant I was the narrator in every bloody school play forever!)

yes, Evelyn, I totally agree with what you say.
Tbh, I didn't teach my ds to read in my native language, since he didn't show much interest.
But I wonder, if he had many books in my language and had plenty of TV programmes to watch, he may have picked up on it too.

I taught both my kids to read before they started school. Not the works of Shakespeare obviously, but they could read.

It’s not that difficult for an averagely abled child.

Some dc seem to just know how to read. My dd was a fluent reader at 4. Proper childrens novels which she read for hours. My ds had to learn every single sound and word. They are all different and if a child has any difficulty school has to do a lot of work.

I taught all mine to read and this was because they go to a welsh speaking school they are not taught english until junior school. I have 4 and they all learnt at different ages depending on when they were ready. I feel as a parent we need to be helping our children learn. Teachers have 30 children in a class and does not have the time to teach everyone individually so it needs to be a partnership between school and parents.

The Domann Method certainly was not a "party trick" as you refer to it. It was initially developed to help brain-injured children learn things they were previously considered incapable of, and that idea was then expanded very successfully to teach children with normal brains things that were previously thought impossible at an early age.
And word recognition is how every competent reader reads... or do you really think everyone here is sounding out all the words on this forum as they go along?

Our 5 children grew up in the same book filled home. They all learnt “pre-reading skills” at home. Some learnt to read at school in reception with the greatest of ease, some didn’t. As adults they all read. Children are all different.

I wish people on both sides of the argument would get over the idea that there should be set ages for learning certain things. Some children can ride a bike at 4; others not until 6 or 7. No one tells you what age you have to teach your child to ride a bike. By 8 most children who have been given the chance can ride a bike. Some children are ready to learn to read at 3. Some children are ready at 5 or 6. By 7 most children without additional difficulties can read regardless of when they started. People who home educate their children don't do it by their age; they do it when they're ready, guided by their interest.

I feel as a parent we need to be helping our children learn

Sigh. Once again, as others have said, teaching your children to recognize some words from memory out of a book, is not teaching them to read. Giving your child books from an early age and reading with them every day is educational. Just because some of us didn't teach our kids to read does not mean we aren't helping our kids to learn.

Actually, for some children, they don't even need to demand to be taught. They just pick it up themselves from everyday life, and those who don't believe, it's sad(for you) but true

It does happen naturally for some kids, I agree and that's great if it happens and should be encouraged if the child wants it but it's people putting pressure on a 3yo child to read just because they think it'll make them top of the class that I think is wrong.

My biggest big bear are parents who go 'reading / homework, isn't that what teachers are paid to do' err no schooling is just a part of your child's education darling, give your children a passion for life long learning. I also believe leaving school / uni shouldn't be the end of ones education. Either through a hobby or interest keep it going into adulthood.

It's likely the difference apart from gifted children being in the bottom set or higher. They need comprehension.

My biggest big bear are parents who go 'reading / homework, isn't that what teachers are paid to do'

I have a friend who teaches year 2. She said at her last parent/teacher meeting, she was telling a pupils mother that he was struggling with certain things in class and maybe she could go over it with him at home. Mothers response was "Are you being serious? You want ME to do YOUR job? I don't think so"

What is wrong with these people?

DC1 taught herself to read by 4 - completely self taught although I'd read a gazillion books before then. She was reading at Ronald Dahl level before school. She's still very good at English and reads constantly (she's 11 now). She's not a prodigy but is very academic especially with writing. She's also socially normal, athletic and has friends.

I don't really get why some posters have been mocked for saying that this can happen without hot housing or at the expense of a "normal childhood" or whatever, it doesn't seem like that big a deal to me.

nolonger, that really adds to the debate...

Well, I felt sorry for the poster who'd learnt to read at 4.5 and was being mocked for it with the general "yeah right" tone. I'd consider it within the realms of normal childhood development.

A child who successfully learns to read alongside their peers at school is likely to have a completely different social experience than one who enters school already able to do what everyone else is learning - I can't see how people think that's beneficial really. Totally different if it's the child that wants to pursue learning to read early though imo.