To think people generally assume an early reader has been hothoused?

[Dinosforall]

I've recently spent some time on threads about DC learning to read early as DS has really taken off with it before starting school. I often see 'obviously kids who read before school have been hothoused.' Is this just something people say, or will that be the general assumption? (He hasn't been, he's just picked it up, alongside some early phonics activities at nursery.)

Obviously I know bragging about DS' reading ability wouldn't win me any friends in RL, but I'm not going to pretend he can't if it comes up.

They start kids later where I am, so my son was 5.5 by the time he started school and is a fluent reader. It's only an issue as I feel a bit awkward with other mums - it feels like humble bragging when they ask what reading sheet they are up to.

We didn't hothouse him, but we encouraged him and he quickly picked it up. It was like one day he suddenly just got it, understood the point of all the letters, and then it's just widening his vocabulary.

The school are doing a good job. They are making him learn to spell and write words as other kids learn to read them. I'll be curious how he is in a year when a lot of kids will have caught up.

My sister taught me to read way before I started school and I spent the first few years thinking I already knew everything, which didn't make for s great learning mindset.

My mum hothoused me and I had to help other kids to read and spell.
I read a lot with DD and she chooses her favourites so often that she can recite them but is at a normal level according to the pre school teachers.
I think it's important to read with children but more for the fun of it and to talk about what's happening in the stories than to have them reading by the time they're four.

What's wrong with hothousing your kid?
I listened to the kids read at school. There were two who were neurotic about reading - one exceptionally able and the other turned out to be shortsighted. The genius would scan the text and look up at me and say she couldn't read it, the myopic kid would panicking look at the ceiling and blink tears away. Their parents both had a big anxiety about reading (the genius wasn't far enough ahead). But many of the other kids had been taught to read already, it was normal for that school. I avoid coversations about academic achievements though. If it comes up I change subject.

If a child is a really good reader before school it might make me more aware of possible social communication differences. It wouldn’t cross my mind they had been ‘hot housed’.

The thing is, I can’t see how it is possible to force a preschool child to read if they really don’t want to. If a child is interested in reading and the parent is able to help them then that is awesome.

I have an Indian friend who said that only in Britain do people use phrases like pushy or hot housing.

I will freely admit I hot houses dc1 to read I was unwell and it was part of my anxiety. Totally the worse thing I could ever have done he hates reading now. Dc2 we let the school do their job and just did reading as the requested he’s at the stage that his brother was at this stage - free Reading except he loves it and is totally unstressed by it

Our second daughter was reading at 3. I think she was just more of a sitting down cuddling on your knee kind of child than her sister who ran around all the time. Her sister who got into Haberdashers school at 4 took longer to learn to read. I think the younger one also wanted to copy her sister. At her own school entrance tests they kept having to find harder books for her to read as she could read them at 4. By the way she didn't get in and went to Kensington Prep and then North London Collegiate School at 7 - 18 so the early reading did not get her into her sister's school at 5. They ended up with similar exam results and both are London lawyers so I don't think we can say because one was 1 or 2 years ahead of the other at reading at 4 or 6 that means they will do much better in life.

It certainly makes sense to help children learn their letters and plenty of them want to start spelling out letters (don't use capitals with them d o g don't say DOG).

DS was reading fluently by the time he started at the school nursery. Didn't really cause any problems until he got into reception class where the teacher seemed totally incapable of differentiating for him. I don't think anyone thought I'd hothoused him as he was DC number 2 and DC1 had severe disabilities and uncontrolled epilepsy so i don't think anyone in their right minds would have even considered that i had the time to focus on DC2 to that extent.

An awful lot of 3 year olds can ‘read’ The Gruffolo it’s read to death. Often they’re reciting.

Recitation looks different to reading. It is very easy to tell the difference. Also, it depends on your cohort of kids- very few on the children at my school come across the book before they study it in Year 1. They may be familiar with the TV adaptation.

I didn’t want my dc differentiated in reception. I wanted them learning phonics the same way as everybody else so as not to be disadvantaged further down the line as regards spelling. As I said they learnt to read purely by reading an alphabet book phonetically. We didn’t cover all the sounds and the reception curriculum.Books were handed out according to ability and if they hadn’t have been they’d have used the library.

I think reading a book like The Gruffolo ,which is everywhere, is a world away from picking up any not previously seen book, reading it and understanding it with an ability to answer comprehension questions. Most children in reception have come across it.

Hothoused no, very British yes.

It’s a peculiarity of British culture that sees reading early as a measure of intelligence. It’s fascinating if you ever go into an international school and see the parents from different countries high concern over what they deem important. I was talking to a German family who were extremely concerned about early maths ability for example to measure their child’s intelligence. Reading was seen as something that just comes to everyone anyway.

Reading is important, but I also think with this bias we can lose sight of other skills which are just as necessary for future success.

Good to get a range of perspectives, thanks. What made me laugh was telling one of his nursery teachers that his reading couldn't be that amazing as the DD of one of my limited range of 'mum friends' could read similarly well, and her assuming that this girl must therefore have been hothoused. Even though she knows we don't (no time).

@PapayaCoconut him thinking he knows it all is a real concern for me (it doesn't help that some of the nursery ladies spend a lot of time telling me in his hearing how clever they think he is, even though it is obviously gratifying!)

My ds1 was an early reader. Knew his alphabet by 2.5 and could recognise less common words by 3.5. At school it is about comprehension as well.as reading. When they get older they are challenged on this by quizzes and exam questions. It is not just about reading, it is about understanding the nuances of what they have read.
Some kids are hothoused but mine wasn't. He just liked to read. When he reached year 4 we realised that he had no interest in fiction, only non fiction. He began to skim read and started missing the key aspects of emotion in fiction. He started showing obstinacy in fiction, becoming annoyed and frustrated because he could not imagine how someone felt or find the words describing feelings because the story was not true. It was a story and therefore not important to him.
In year 7 we finally got a diagnosis of dyslexia, dyspraxia, visual coordination disorder and visual perception disorder. We are also 100% sure there is asd in there too.
He can read perfectly well but cannot write things down legibly. He absorbs and recounts facts all the time, has massive interest in research but only things that interest him. Fell on his ass at gcse time but now works where he can use his skills. Never stopped reading but only comprehends if it is a subject that interests him.

It’s fascinating if you ever go into an international school and see the parents from different countries high concern over what they deem important.

This. I have lived in a lot of countries, and I have never encountered anywhere else with such an entrenched worry about summer-born children being disadvantaged. Partly, obviously, because other cultures either start school later, or are far less doctrinaire about specific start times. There's a quite big age range in my son's current class (not UK), and no one seems concerned about it.

I have lived in a lot of countries, and I have never encountered anywhere else with such an entrenched worry about summer-born children being disadvantaged. Partly, obviously, because other cultures either start school later, or are far less doctrinaire about specific start times.

I would say almost entirely because we start them in formal education ridiculously young. I'd not mind my daughter being a year younger than the eldest if starting school aged seven. When you're starting at four, a year represents a quarter of your lifespan until that point- it's huge and puts them at a massive disadvantage, not just academically but socially and emotionally. Also, other countries tend to not to focus on the academic until the children are much older- the kids from Italy starting English school at Year 3 generally come fluent in English verbally but with little by the way of formal maths or writing, contrasted to the British kids. However, a new starter in Year 4 from Italy can generally slot right in to where the British class is, in my experience. They make up such ground over the course of that year because they wait until everyone is developmentally ready to start pushing the academic. There are reasons mental health in our country is so problematic- I blame the early start and the formalised curriculum for some of that.

I think reading a book like The Gruffolo ,which is everywhere, is a world away from picking up any not previously seen book, reading it and understanding it with an ability to answer comprehension questions. Most children in reception have come across it.

Dear me, you're missing the point rather spectacularly- I do know how to assess reading. I am a teacher and have taught for almost a decade. I used the gruffalo as an easily-recognisable example of the type of text I might expect an early-reading child to access. I am not advocating assessing their reading ability based purely on that one text.

My point is that early readers tend to have involved parents and tend to be at least moderately intelligent. Also that there are not swathes of early readers who despise reading, and that children who read fluently aged three are unlikely to be incredibly reluctant readers, largely because they are encouraged to love reading by their parents. In my experience, anyway. Nothing you have said has successfully refuted my points so I don't know what we're actually discussing anymore.

I don’t understand why it’s such a bad thing to be proud of your children- it’s always referred to as ‘bragging’ rather than just a display of pride.

Mine could read and write fairly well when they started school, apart from the teacher mentioning it no one really cared

Completely agree Ethelfleda

My DS taught himself to read before school - we didn't actually realise quite how well until his reception teacher told us. I had avoided teaching him because I was a concerned that I would do it incorrectly. I think that he learnt in way similar to the "look and say" method that was used when I was a child because he then had to almost re-learn with phonics at school, even though he never really used them given the choice. I didn't discuss his reading with other parents due to there being one particularly competitive mother in his class who I had no desire to get into competition with - I just changed the subject when she asked what level he was on. We were lucky to have a really good reception teacher with many years of experience, who focused on broadening his reading rather than pushing him through the levels, including supplying books herself, which worked well given that he is young for his school year and so was barely 4.

@Ethelfleda there are times and places where the mildest, most factual statement of your child's reading ability can reduce another parent to a sobbing wreck. Why inflict that on someone? If your kid is able they will have able friends with whose parents you can discuss the relative merits of Oxford High School and Phil'n'Jim's in the waiting room at the piano studio.

@Ethelfleda I am ridiculously proud of both my sons but to me that is distinct from going on about it to other people, especially where it might make them feel at a disadvantage. Especially on this one since I can't really take any credit for it (beyond supplying my word nerd genes).

DS2 had a reading age of 9 in year 2. It's not that far ahead but he's always found reading easy. He has ASD and struggles in other areas, especially maths, defying stereotypes there.