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?

There is evidence to suggest that children learn best through play and formal learning skills should not be taught until later. Some countries don't start formal school until 7 and do just as well. If children are happy with parent-child activity and it is fun it's prob ok but not if it's parent pushed

There are many many examples on this thread of the fact that children are very different at starting school age, even when they have been brought up in the same book friendly environment.

Surely this means that it isn't always the pre-school environment at fault...and that schools really need to be able to teach all the children not just the ones that have hit a certain developmental level by 5 yo?

M3lon you're right when you consider an individual child who may be for example not toilet trained or not able to sit still for 10 seconds or speak in full sentences on starting school you certainly can't say well it's the preschool/parental environment. BUT if 90% of children from a certain environment are behind compared to 10% from a different environment you can reasonably suspect something about the environment isn't right.

Just to be clear I made those number up to illustrate my point about statistics in reality the difference would be musher lower!

*much

DS wasn't interested in reading before he started school. He loved being read to though and his vocabulary was fantastic. His interests were elsewhere and I encouraged those rather than push him in something he obviously wasn't ready for.

His reading is coming along really well now.

But an iPad is a clock, right

Yes and 7 year olds just can't get enough of the analogue clock icon

Has he had a SALT assessment?

They are bouncing almost every request for an assessment appointment around here - of the multiple ones school sent off last year - only DD2 got taken even for assessment according to our SENCO. School just cannot get kids into the system to even be looked at. If you can't afford to go privately (we can't - we simply do not have the slack in the budget to - which will no doubt result in a barrage of "don't have children if financially you're not going to be able to pay for therapy for SEN you hadn't anticipated before they were born" MN AIBU boot-kicking at its finest) there's minimal hope to be honest and that's a bloody soul destroying situation to be in. Add in ye olde "if I work to fund it I can't get them to the appointments I'm working to fund" dilemma as well for fun and games.

As for early intervention - we were on the HV "monitoring" list apparently - this was a phonecall about every 6 months of "oh she isn't talking yet - OK I'll call back in a few months". Helpful. Not.

Yes and 7 year olds just can't get enough of the analogue clock icon

It has to be analogue clocks too now? We all had digital watches in the 80s. Obviously I never realised how incredibly harmful this was.

Analogue clocks make time (as we measure it) make sense when you're a kid. Otherwise why is an hour 60 min long not 100? Why do we have 8 in the morning and 8 in the afternoon?

I teach Functional Maths to post-16 (mostly doing vocational courses).
Very many have problems with calculating time.

why is an hour 60 min long not 100? Why do we have 8 in the morning and 8 in the afternoon?

Not because of the little notches around an analogue clock. 20:00 hours? This side discussion is getting increasingly ridiculous. I think the point that was being made upthread was technology = bad. No, only if it’s poorly used. If parents explain time at home, and then it’s explained again at school, I really don’t see how wearing a watch or not will have any impact whatsoever. Unlike the fact that apparently a lot of people seem to think it’s not important to teach children to read because that stops them being children. 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you're referring to my post Iwas I added the watch example because it's part of the growing lack of input from parents that I notice more and more. I'm referring to the parents of can without SEN that never record reading in their child's reading records, never get their chn to complete homework, don't help their chn to practise spellings, number bonds, lines from a script etc etc. They also often talk of having very gadget under the sun, go on fab holidays etc but no watch or books. That's my observation.

Typos, sorry but it gets my goat. I agree that the expectations of chn are too high but many reach them with the right support. As someone said upthread, a knowledge of letters and sounds, then reading is so important in the curriculum. At the end of year 2 chn are expected to read texts and answer questions on them without support (unless SEN)as part of SATs.

For anyone interested in the reasons why we use base 60 for time instead of base 10:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/
(Just one of many explanations to be found courtesy of Google including videos.)

Once again, Polkerris, I agree with everything you say. There are swathes of households where parents have had negative school experiences and/ or struggled at school who either don't have the skills / motivation ( and many, many times where I work, the money) to make learning/ reading a priority. There is also the factor of some poor parenting skills - the old vicious circle again.

This can be addressed , in part, with excellent, cheap nursery provision for all. I also, wholeheartedly agree with the OP that it can't stop there, there needs to be smaller classes, proper training of ALL school staff on HOW children learn ( not just the what) and an atmosphere of learning when it is right for the child. They are all, indeed, different : My eldest son is a super high achiever ( couldn't read before school but was v quick to learn, now 14 and finds everything easy), my middle son, definitely above average, and my youngest who is 6, can't read and is very much below average. He will read and achieve when he's ready, we don't stress.
I am a huge believed in school at age 7 ( with full-time Kindergarten from 5 after nursery) sadly I don't think it will ever happen.

I heard that a 1/4 of all five year olds can not read at the end of reception year, but given that they are assessend in may (when dd was young anyway) then 1/4 of all "five" year olds are actually still four. (June to August birthdays)

Some dc have ability that is not given wings due to home for whatever reason.

At 4/5 and nearly 6 neither dd was remarkable at reading or writing or speaking.

But once they clicked.. They soared. Dd has reading, spelling age etc way above her age and always noted on her use of rich language but you couldn't possibly tell that at 4.

The really big deal for pre-school children is vocabulary building. They should be hearing words in conversations and learning to use them. There's a lot of evidence that they don't do this nearly as effectively from screens as from people. Reading and writing are MUCH easier to learn later if you already know more words. Kids with poor vocabulary are obviously going to struggle with the later skills.

You don't have to be big readers yourself, or have lots of books at home, let alone teach them to read. But actually talking to your child as much as possible makes a HUGE difference.

Totally agree bridgetreilly.

DD has never gotten on with phonics, but I guess we did something right as she can read very long words (from context) even while she struggles with the very short ones.

She'll plug in 'sympathetically' or 'mysterious' for instance, but stuff up on 'saw' v. 'was' etc.

I think there is something very wrong with our education system if someone makes the observation

And if children reach Year 1 unable to read simple words, they rarely catch up, "the gap just widens

When by shear geography a lot of the rest of the educated world, children of that age haven't even started formal learning but here in the UK the child is already written off.

I went through this 10 years ago and could see what was on the horizon. I could see schools getting rid of anyone who they felt let the school down. In ds's class the only other child who was struggling still at the end of year 3 they left as well as ds because they made our childrens lives hell

I have no issues with the DfE highlighting the importance of early communication skills, or the benefits of a supportive home environment.

They all learn in their own time. Unfortunately some children don’t have the same social environment growing up, therefore it will be harder for them to make progress. I read to my daughter every night until she was about 11. She couldn’t read before she started school nor could she cope with phonics. However through reading every day with me, she was able to learn words by memory; her reading progressed rapidly once we ditched the phonics. She achieved 10 A*/A at GCSE.
We need to support the children who do not have access to regular reading at home. I’m a lone parent btw.

This isn't about parents teaching their children to read, it's about parents spending more time talking to their children, reading with them, giving them the skills they will need when they go to school. If they can read a few words it's a bonus, but the most important thing is the ability to communicate clearly (and that doesn't mean talking in full sentences, nobody actually does that!)