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?

GreenTulips he has been tested for Dyslexia and may other things always negative.
My own theory is after a lot of research, that the cognitive part is not fully developed till age 7. (That's abstract thinking). So a lot of children are forced to learn something without understanding... some succeed others fail. Problem is, by the time they develop that ability a high % of kids have turned their backs on learning. It would be so much better to start school at 6/7... the success rate would be so much higher.
Also, the whole thing about phonics... English is not a phonological language... unlike German for example. This can be very confusing for children who don't h have fully developed their cognitive ability.

^^lljkk

I'm in the irked shock corner. Hinds is being quoted from the text of his speech “It is a persistent scandal that we have children starting school not able to communicate in full sentences, not able to read simple words,” Hinds will say. ^^

I was irked too to read this. Yes I get the importance of parents. Yes I get that the concern is to get the best start for kids. But reading simple words was the metric used. No way could my boy do that when starting reception. He has been read to every night. He talks twenty to the dozen and has a good vocabulary. He went to nursery 4 days a week from age one. None of this is sufficient to overcome the fact he was only just 4 when he started school. He is the youngest in a very old class - one third born before he was conceived and just two other summer borns out of 30. What he has learnt this reception year is that he is not as good as the other kids at school.

He had a play date with a friend 3 weeks younger this week. She starts reception this September. It makes me sad to compare them both and think about where he would be if he was starting reception now too. It’s all been an uphill struggle for him and for us. With the attitude of his school, I can totally see why parents want to exercise their right to hold summer born children back a year. Comments like that of Hinds drive this too. No acknowledgement of age/developmental differences what so ever.

I am a teacher and have never met a child who can read before they go to school. The whole reading process takes years but the initial first stage (i.e. Learning sounds and revising them and reading them in words) takes around 6months. Then you also have sight words. I would be sceptical if anyone tells you their child can read before they go to school.

lozster, I wouldn't worry about your son. It sounds like he's had the best start he could and I'm absolutely sure he will soon catch up. Early years baseline assessments are based on a huge range of statements covering lots of areas of development, of which reading is just one and pre-literacy, which it sounds like your DS has in spades, is very important. FWIW, my 2 older kids were also summer borns with good speech and lang development but no reading when they started, while lots of kids 'knew' their alphabet & all that crap. DS1 is now doing 4 A levels and is predicted As and As. DS2 is doing GCSEs and is able to get good grades if he pulls his finger out just a tiny little bit. How well they're 'reading' after reception (as cherish* has said, the reading process is long and complex) is not particularly significant and your DS will catch up and find his place very easily.

The school my DD is going to encourages learning by playing. They only sit down with them for "learning" 10 minutes a day to do numbers, or letters, and they take them aside so it is one on one, they do story time where the kids sit and the teacher reads to them, the rest is playing and drawing etc. During the second half of the school year they start to encourage them to sit and learn ready to move up to the next stage of school. I think this is fab, my DD can't wait to start school, if she had 2 wait another year or 2 it would be hell, she is so ready. I'm not, but she is.

@cherish123 depends how reading is defined. I do think some children start Reception being able to read, although probably only simple CVC words.

My 3.5 year old can read RWI red ditty books (CVC) and reads about 10 words (cat,dog, Mum, dad, said, it, the etc) by sight.

This like you say has been a slow and steady process though with her playing Montessori initial sound games when she was 2 and steadily learning the set 1 initial sounds and (Ch, sh, th) blends.

She has another year before the starts nursery so she probably will be reading simple stories by then if she makes progress.

I am also a teacher so have simply done a few things with her Little and often. Not because I want her to be a genius (she certainly isn't precious like some children who have the reading ages of 10 year olds at 6 that I've seen).

I suppose my point is that she is from a middle class advantages background. If you put my daughter into a household where there were no books and she wasn't spoken to in full sentences etc then her outcomes would be worse. Surely this is what the original article is stating.

The way things are these days,seems very odd to me. When I had my first child in 1971,he could read at the age of two,and soon followed with some simple writing. He could speak really well at that age too.
There were no gadgets and techno things in those days, no distractions at all. All the mothers around me then,all wanted their child,or children,to have a decent grasp of some simple reading and vocabulary skills,before they started school. Its all good for the child,and am sure most teachers would appreciate this

I am a teacher and have never met a child who can read before they go to school. The whole reading process takes years but the initial first stage (i.e. Learning sounds and revising them and reading them in words) takes around 6months. Then you also have sight words. I would be sceptical if anyone tells you their child can read before they go to school.

I think it’s really sad you are sceptical about this. My own DS could read just after two. And I mean read full sentences as I wrote them, such as, “the red dinosaur flew to the moon on a rocket”. He hasn’t started school but at 4 can read anything.

I talked to his paediatrician about how his kindergarten teachers found that odd, and she was shocked. She said all her kids were reading before they started school.

I also recently went to look at a very posh primary school and we were shown a graph of how many children start school there able to read. It was some 60% of the class. Make what you will of that, but the fact a teacher is sceptical about the ability of small children to read is deeply concerning.

All the mothers around me then,all wanted their child,or children,to have a decent grasp of some simple reading and vocabulary skills,before they started school.

And in some cases so they can amuse themselves while you get a cup of tea.

There are many assumptions that a child who cannot read obviously comes from a family where there are no books. That they don't come from a nice middle class family. That all children if taught would be able to read and write.

Ds and dd both struggled with reading and writing.

Both have dyslexia, ds has dysgraphia.

It didn't matter how many hours I read to them or pointed at letters or tried to show them which letter made which sound it wasn't going in.

Dd finally clicked with reading at the age of 7.

With ds a couple of years later things had changed.

Ds was expected to complete the homework set even though he could neither read what he needed to write or form the letters he was supposed to write if I wrote it out for him.

In the end he would spend every playtime and lunch time staring at a piece of paper because he couldn't complete his homework.

The blank stares given by the teacher who said he had to complete it because it was part of the National Curriculum ended up with me taking him out of school completely.

It has taken years to repair some of the damage.

School now seems to be about teaching those that can and if your child has any form of learning disability they can just go away as your they are going to spoil the schools league tables.

My youngest couldn't read until he was 6 and in year 2.

He had been going to sure start daily since he was 2 months old, could speak and understand, was read to daily one to one at home and by nursery workers, did phonics in reception etc. He never understood how to blend.
If you asked him to read he would just say "I can't read".

Then suddenly one it clicked for him and overnight he could read everything.

He went straight into reading chapter books etc.
He got decent results in his year 2 sats and everything is good.

Playing games such as Minecraft actually helped with his reading, spelling and vocab and these were a major factor in inspiring him to want to know how to read and write, and giving him a practical reason for doing so.

Oh and to add my house is full to the rafters with books, I'm an avid reader myself. My children didn't use libraries much because I would just buy books. My mum's also a teacher so bring loads of book packs.

I ended up giving all the songbird and ort books away v without even using them as my ds never needed them.

cherish123 there should be a multiple kids a year who start being able to read to varying degrees (level 1 BC&Ks to Shakespeare) Have you just been ignoring them?

@derxa

Sorry, missed your question. Yes, GP referred DS2 to SALT at 18 months (no words). They diagnosed him with “minor speech delay” and discharged him without treatment.

Reception teachers raised it with us as a problem after a few months in school and we’ve been doing private speech therapy weekly ever since. No diagnosis of anything underlying wrong though and it’s certainly not down to a lack of books at home.

Our personal situation doesn’t detract from the point being made about the importance of closing attainment gaps, it’s just not necessarily down to parenting failure or lack of effort.

Around 10% of households in the UK have no books and a much higher % of UK children do not have a single book of their own and are never read to.

I can appreciate that there are is a small % of people who are in such a bad way that even a dirt-cheap charity-shop is unaffordable, but I am pretty sure it does not apply to such substantial proportions of the population.

I think some people just don't think books are important.

I agree @14All74. I could read simple words and sentences by the time I went to school. So could my brother. We are from as working class a background as you can get!

There were always books in the house and our DM spent a lot of time working on our reading skills with us. I appreciate children develop at different rates, but it’s not rocket science surely?

nailak Mine was the same age before he could blend. He was reading well by then, high 20s on PM readers. Some children are just not ready at 4.

I'm surprised by the expectation on this thread that children should be reading before starting reception. My children's preschool experience was at the excellent early years unit of their primary school. The preschoolers there weren't taught to actually read, but were taught the skills they needed to learn to read In reception. The teachers focussed on confident and articulate speech, enjoyment of stories, language games that taught them how to break down words into phonemes - things like rhyming and I spy - games that helped develop their focus and concentration. Very few of the children there could read when they started reception. Other children would arrive in reception from nurseries and preschools which had taught reading and writing more formally, but those children who had been taught in nursery didn't have an edge over the ones who hadn't.

Neither of my children could read or write when they started school. They are both well above average at reading now, although admittedly DS is all about logic and science and had little interest in reading or writing fiction.

Nearly every child in my Year 2 has an iPad and many have xboxes and 4 have mobile phones but only 2 have a watch.

The iPad I isnt the problem - it's getting them to use it properly

Spelling games maths games Oxford owl audio books

Loads of educational stuff - teachers need to catch up and catch on

Get them to write about the games they play - you'll get loads from them

People are still getting too hung up on "should be reading" thing. It's more about recognising at that stage. Most children starting school can recognise their own name written down. They recognise "Tesco" or "Asda" or "McDonalds" or other words by sight. This sort of thing is what nursreries and pre-schools are encouraging with putting names on pegs and sticking days of the week on calendars.

My eldest could read when he started school (although we're in Scotland so he was 5.5 rather than just 4). And proper reading too, with decent comprehension. No idea how he did it as I certainly didn;t teach him. The other two couldn't, but certainly recognised their name when written and the names of their friends, siblings etc.

Like it or not, there are loads of parents out there with very low levels of education and very low language skills. Children growing up in a house where nobody values education, nobody reads, nobody is interested in books and there is no discussion or chatting between parents and kids are going to start school far, far behind in literacy. Those type of parents perhaps aren't on MN, but that doesn't mean they don't exist!

The iPad I isnt the problem - it's getting them to use it properly

To be honest, this is why I am not tempted to get one. I have no doubt that they can be useful tools, used in the right way, but ensuring that the device is used in this way sounds like it requires a lot of parental supervision and boundary-setting--I just don't have the time or energy!

Of course there ra lots of great uses for the iPad, I mentioned some sites upthread but most are not interested unless guided by parents. They play Fortnite!!!

Nearly every child in my Year 2 has an iPad and many have xboxes and 4 have mobile phones but only 2 have a watch.

But an iPad is a clock, right?