to wonder why kids need to be able to read BEFORE starting school

[M3lon]

Just reading this.

I don't get it. Surely if you are in charge of the education system it makes more sense to address the issue of why children that start behind never catch up than to try and work out how to make sure all children start with exactly the same abilities and experiences on day one - which is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, because children develop at different rates, are actually different ages when school starts and have starts in life that you can't make even across the board without some major re-plumbing of society as a whole.

AIBU to think the minister for education should focus on fixing the bit he is actually in control of, and make schools somewhere where getting behind doesn't mean you can never catch up?

Why would you be upset that they want to help those that are behind to read?

That’s a load of absolute crap. If a 4 year can hold a pen, use scissors and colour in then they’re doing ok!
They are all at different levels pretty much throughout their school life, some are quicker than others.
Please don’t worry about it!

Completely agree. I hate the whole ethos of a child ‘should be able to do this by...’ anyway. Life just doesn’t work that way, everyone has different strengths and weeknesses, come from different backgrounds and have different interests.
Its shocking when you read some of the expectations and then remind yourself the children they are talking about are 4/5 years old! I personally dont think they should even be in school at that age but I may be in a minority.
With this way of viewing education kids will never have their ‘playing fields equal. Children learn differently, will always have different levels of ability. I believe that at that age should be allowed to enjoy learning, to develop their own interests and be children.

I think the "read" in the article is misleading. The concern is largely around the gap surrounding speech, language and communication. The pre-reading skills which children naturally build up at 3-5 require children to be able to listen, attend, understdand. I'm not talking about physically read a book, but things like be able to hear that a simple cvc word begins with a certain sound for example or to start to be able to hear and pick out rhyming strings.

I am a nursery teacher and the gap between children is huge, those who live in a language rich environment, who are spoken to and read to have got such an advantage. There are children going into reception, with the receptive and expressive language you would see in a toddler. These children have no send. Yes it is alarming and something we work very hard to help with, but what they really need is for their parents to interact with them.

I agree with the poster above. I don't think he means children are expected to actually read when they start school. But in order to succeed they should have been exposed to language and books from a very young age. It seems many children have not. Shame the conservatives scrapped the sure start initiative as that went some way towards giving kids and families a start in literacy right from the get go. Library closures also can't have helped. Sorry I didn't mean this to get political but it all seems linked to me.

The education system needs a massive over haul and funding IMO. The one size, fits all approach just does not work.

My advanced (genuinely, not just me being a deluded parent) September child could have easily managed school last year and would have thrived.

My friends tiny August child, who couldn’t even speak properly or barely hold a pen was forced to go and is allegedly “behind” could have benefited from another 6 months to a year at home.

The children who started reading at three are bored to death at school.

My DCs did their first few years in the Dutch system where they started on their 4th birthday (often in fact the day after). Their first year or two was spent in a mixed year 1/2. During that time they learnt to learn.

Some children spent just over a year in group 1/2 others spend the full 2 years. They moved on when they were ready. When they got into year 3 they started to learn to read and write based on the skills they had learnt in group 1/2.

I think there is a lot to be said for this more flexible approach.

No way are children expected to read before school.

I could read at 3 and the newspaper at 4. I was one of those beyond bored children at school. It was awful, not helped by the fact that I was basically repeating a year as I’d been allowed to go for the summer term to a reception class in a little village, high achieving school then gone to a less good school in a different area. It traumatised me and put me off school so totally that I was forever more under achieving.

These days there is a lot more support for children, who are far ahead of their peers. Not so 40 years ago. I also understand parents, who want their children to go to School early but unless they are legally permitted to go through the entire education system a year early it can be extremely counterproductive.

I believe that at that age should be allowed to enjoy learning, to develop their own interests and be children.

Why wouldn’t a child enjoy learning to read? Cuddled up with the people who love them most with undivided attention? That’s a beautiful childhood. Children love finding out how letters and language work and they feel great about themselves when they know they can read. And if you want to help them develop interests what better way than through books? My DS want to be an astronomer. I couldn’t fly him into space to get him interested but books and a telescope have gone a long way.

It’s incredibly easy to teach a small child to read and it takes a very small amount of time each day. They are so incredibly capable I just don’t know why you would want to hold them back from something so rewarding and important. I hate this idea that “being a child” has to mean being cut off from so many great learning opportunities. There’s time for parks, walking in the woods, riding bikes AND books.

The children who started reading at three are bored to death at school.

Surely if all children were reading at 3 the curriculum would be adjusted to suit the general intellectual level? Any good school will make allowances for this anyway. There are a million things literate kids can go on with while the others are catching up. Their learning just continues to grow while other kids are on the basics.

Why wouldn’t a child enjoy learning to read? Cuddled up with the people who love them most with undivided attention? That’s a beautiful childhood. Children love finding out how letters and language work and they feel great about themselves when they know they can read. And if you want to help them develop interests what better way than through books? My DS want to be an astronomer. I couldn’t fly him into space to get him interested but books and a telescope have gone a long way.

It’s incredibly easy to teach a small child to read and it takes a very small amount of time each day.

For some children. One of mine learnt to read that way, the other two really struggled due to undiagnosed SEN. They all loved stories but reading was more accessible to some than others. More support early on would have been useful.

Agree with pp that it is a shame that so many sure starts and libraries have had budgets slashed.

The title and body of the article seem not a perfect match - I think they're generally referring to children and their language development, which is true.

They should have some understanding of letters and sounds before they start school, and a constant stream of conversation with increasingly diverse words.

It’s a pre-speech briefing. It sounds like a breakdown in communication. He might mean he wants kids to start reception recognising phonemes (although I hope not, it’s not necessary - mine could but moving abroad has opened my eyes a bit) but I doubt he’s aiming for them to be blending words. I think the speech will be about the issue raised by 3littlebadgers. Although I’d like to know what the plan is - it’s not easily solved...

Misleading headline for sure. I don't think he meant reading properly;
'Education Secretary Damian Hinds says it is a "scandal" that some children still start school unable to speak in full sentences or read simple words.'

My 4yo starts in Sept and can recognise his own name and write it. Can read simple 3 letter words like yum and yuk with help.

We read together every day and always have done. We visit the library at least once a week. It's free and enjoyable, so I just don't understand why more parents don't do it?

I don’t think the article. Is suggesting that children learn to read before starting school, but that they develop early language skills which are a precursor to learning to read. It used to be that 4 and 5 year olds knew lots of nursery rhymes, were read stories every day and knew how to handle a book, knew that the print carried meaning. They could tell fairy stories like the 3 pigs by heart because they were read to, they could hold a conversation because they were talked with all the time etc. I see children now that come from homes where there are no books, they have such poor language skills that they can’t form a complete sentence, they don’t know any rhymes or stories, they can’t name colours or simple shapes and all these things can’t always be caught up because language development makes connections in the brain which needs to be optimised long before a child is 5 for them to be sufficient for future learning.

👆🏻that!

I have to say, I agree with him. Children should be able to read simple words by 4, if only because they have seen those simple words written down in books so often that they read them by sight recognition. It's very sad for me to think that some children live in homes where nobody reads to them, buys them books or encourages them to open a book.

There seems to be a particular mindset on MN that reading = a chore. Can't get on board with that. I love it and always did love it.

I agree the difference can be startling. DN chats away, speaks in sentences loves a story, she's about to turn three, my cousin's son is a couple of weeks younger and only just about says mum and a few other simple monosyllabic words. One is engaged with in conversation regularly and has had bedtime stories etc from a young age, the other has a lot of screen time and a primary care giver who is often on their phone, never had a bedtime story let alone any other type of exposure to books. I'll let you guess which is which

Children develop this between the ages of 3-5. In the UK a very early age at which formal schooling starts (summer borns are only just 4) means that a quarter of kids roughly speaking are simply too young. The gap between just 4 and almost 5 is developmentally speaking much larger than between just 6 and almost 7 (the age much of Europe starts formal schooling).

I think children should have some basic literary skills by then.
But surely most children do?
My 2.7 year old knows the alphabet and that C is for Cat etc. She can count and recognises all letters and numbers. I feel like I haven't consciously taught her but she's just picked it up through play and songs we sing. So many of the toys granny have bought her have numbers or the alphabet on. I feel like that's pretty normal.

The concern is about speech and communication. Some groups of children have significant delays in these areas compared to other groups that cannot be explained by sn.
I also think that speech and communication provision for those who have sn, isn't good enough.

You get back what you put in. Simples.

I agree that we shouldn't be trying to get kids below the age of four to read or write anyway. BUT I do think it's right we do something to help children who are vulnerable to falling behind in education even before they start school. By helping I don't mean some kind of educational boot camp but just expose them to the kids on of experiences other children have (getting to enjoy books and being read to, time outside to climb about, exposure to a wide range of vocabulary and language etc.).

I fear the problem will get worse - I see so many young mums glued to their phones these days, not even speaking to their toddlers, let alone reading to them. My DD was reading at 2, and started reception class at 4 with a reading age of 12. She wasn’t bored at school - it was a little village state primary, and the head teacher used to read Dickens with her, and the local high school sent maths books over for her by the time she was nine. I’m sure many more kids are capable of reading quite early - books are a joy for life, and youngsters love imaginative tales with plenty of illustrations. Why wouldn’t you read with them? Mine always begged for one more chapter, and I loved to snuggle up with them and lose ourselves in some magical adventure.
Reading is so vital as the key to everything else - you can’t access knowledge in any field without it. Neglecting it completely, until your child starts school, surely puts them at an awful disadvantage - they have to waste most of the first year just playing catch up on the basics.

My ds started school the day after his fourth birthday, having been born 7 weeks premature. There was absolutely no way he would have been able to read. He could just about recognise his name. He’s just finished year 1 and can read freely, got 100% in his yr1 phonics and will read anything pushed in his direction.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with encouraging kids to try to read before they start school but in a lot of cases it’s impossible.