To wonder where your kids are with reading at Reception?

[Putupafuss]

DD started Reception in Sept and is one of the oldest in her class, turned 5 last month. She is going to a local state school which is quite academically focused. Started phonics on the second week of school and introduced the kids to quite a lot of 'tricky' words, as they call them (his, her, pull, put, the, as, and...and so on).

DD has done phonics since the age of 3, but as soon as we finished the stage 1 I stopped that and let her enjoy her time before starting school. Ever since she started school she's revised all the graphemes and digraphs and is very good at writing the tricky words.

Now she comes home with books to read and yesterday the kids got their school diaries updated with how the kids did at reading. One girl came out with a well done sticker and her mum shared that she read a book to the teacher confidently so obviously she is quite ahead of everyone. DD's message said she segmented and blended well (so no mention of actual reading). I thought DD was quite advanced as we do this at home, but clearly the school seems to expect more.

I know we should probably be doing more at home but DD is not interested. We go through the school book and half way through she gets frustrated and bored. Plus the way she 'reads' is just by segmenting at the moment, apart from the tricky words which she usually recognises.

I grew up in a different acountry and we started school at 6 and 7 yo. I find that this is quite a lot for little ones at this age and DD is even the oldest, some kids have just turned 4 in the summer.

AIBU to ask how are your DCs doing with their reading at Reception? And how much reading do you do at home?

I could read before school & was "advanced" for years but everyone just caught up with me.

My dc could not read before school & struggled in the early years, the 5 yr old still struggles.

What I do/did do was read to them a lot, they have tonies/yoto, leave newspapers lying around, subtitles on tv shows & lots of books. I want them to ideally love reading.

I agree, the reason I stopped going further with phonics was that I may teach her the wrong way (especially with English not being my first language).

I also encourage them to write stories & they have a book for jotting down stuff. They often do it in bed before sleep. The youngest generally writes jibberish but he loves explaining to me what it all means 😆

All sounds fine to me @Putupafuss
i’ve currently got my 4th child in reception and he sounds like he’s at the same stage of reading as your DC. And I’m pretty pleased with where he’s at. Of my 3 older kids, 2 were definitely nowhere near blending at this stage of reception, but both did learn to read (although pretty severely hampered by dyslexia). If I could go back to my first child, I would chill the fuck out. Gentle, patient (and persistent) support is what is required, not stress. I‘m not saying you’re stressing! But that’s the lesson I learnt.

Try not to make comparisons.
DD1 made great progress then stalled, now in yr 7, she's free reading.
DD2 was slow, she just couldn't read, and this carried on till yr3, all kinds of interventions, now she's yr 5 she's too is free reading.

That sounds like a great idea 😀. DD used to 'write' stories by drawing little monsters and then words, some good, some not so good. She's not done this for a while but I'll try to encourage it again.

Children can easily learn to read by age 4 with a small amount (15 minutes) of home intervention. I am concerned OP that you abandoned reading with DD to (your words) "let her enjoy her time". What can be more enjoyable and life-enhancing than reading!? In any case, resume home-schooling her on this at once before she becomes another illiteracy statistic.

p.s. forget phonics; good reading is about recognition. I highly recommend the books by Glenn Domann which have been used since the mid 1960s (including two generations of my family).

My ds (5, reception, September birthday) is learning vowel digraphs (ow, ir, or, ar etc) and can blend to read them. E.g. reading words like float, now, girl, turnip, nocturnal, beetroot. They've all been words in his last couple of reading books.
We get 2 reading books a week from school and they ask we read them 3 times.
First time we go through and look at the pics and see what we think is happening and I'll use lots of the vocab that I can see coming up in the book during our discussion, without ds ever looking at the words. Then we read the words.
2nd time he reads the story normally and he remembers lots of the words from last time.
3rd time he's pretty fluent and we focus on comprehension. There's usually questions to ask him at the back of the book.
We also get 2 books with no words each week and ds is supposed to tell us the story. He hates this and finds it much harder than reading the words.
First try I do it for him, telling him a story. 2nd time he has a go with my providing lots of prompts. 3rd time he does the same but with less prompts and gets the questions at the back too.
He was already reading CVC words and knew all single letter sounds when he started school so he gets his own phonics lessons based on digraphs.
He also joins in with the class lessons. As a class they have learnt s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b (think that's all of them).
There's such a variation at this age, so much depends on where they were at when they came into school. They all get there in their own time.

My son can recognise letters and sounds but is not really blending them yet. But he enjoys learning and the first thing he tells me after school is what sound they've learnt! He's not 5 yet. He can however, do simple addition in his head up to around 15! Eg 10+5, 9+3.
They all get there, some pick it up easier than others. As long as they are happy and enjoying the learning, I wouldn't push it too much. Let them do it at their own pace, the last thing you want to do is make it a chore that they don't enjoy.

Im a P1 teacher and sounding out is perfectly acceptable at this stage. Yes some can immediately recognise the words but the skill we've been teaching is blending so if your child is doing that it's great! I have a not insignificant number who are still trying to remember the sound without me doing the jolly phonics action for them. And yes to thinks suddenly clicking and taking off! You and your child are doing a great job!

One girl came out with a well done sticker and her mum shared that she read a book to the teacher confidently so obviously she is quite ahead of everyone.

Obviously!
When dd1 was in year R on the second day I heard a parent say to her dd "tell Mrs X that you'll be the best at reading because you've done it before so you need the best book."

They put them into groups to read together halfway through the spring term. Mum wasn't too happy that her dd was in the second group. And more than half of the top group hadn't been reading before school.

Just keep reading with her and to her. Give her lots of praise when she reads a word from a cereal packet. When you're reading to her encourage her to join in when she knows a word-point to the words as you're saying them.
She'll get there.

My first, amongst younger in the class, was towards the end of reception before her reading started to kick in. She is still a bit behind her peers.

My second, started reception this year. Freakishly early reader. She is reading at year two level. She pretty much taught herself. Agree about phonics, i think they are not helping her as she has taught herself to read by recognition (she seems to have a really good memory). They did help with number 1 tho.

All kids are different. They learn differently and at different rates.

If she learned by recognition, how is her spelling?

My son started reception in September and we were told the expectation is that they can blend by Christmas. Try not to compare, there will be huge differences in age, what they've done at different preschools, how much help they get at home, etc. If the teacher is concerned they will let you know.

They all get there in their own time
Unfortunately they don't (have you seen the current literacy figures?) and parents really need to step up and take responsibility for this instead of leaving it to the school.
The critical period for brain development and function relating to reading is already starting to wane by age 4.

Also if it makes you feel any better my daughter started reception in 2019 (so her reception year was badly affected by covid), she couldn't read by the end of reception but is now reading two years ahead of expectations and is a real bookworm. They all get there

Both my DCs are dyslexic. I was an early, self-taught reader and have always loved reading so we did bedtime stories from babyhood and have a lovely collection of books, many of which chosen for their interests, but the reality is it's hard going for them.

DS1 has suddenly got a reading age of 15 at nearly 12 (y7) I thought the teacher must have jumbled his pupils up! 😂
He made classic dyslexic errors from the start, was often too exhausted to read and it was frustrating having to wait for him to be old enough to be diagnosed. He does read for pleasure, but they're quite niche interests and he's generally not a fiction lover.

DS2 is less motivated to read because of the difficulty and especially when reading aloud where the whole range of skills involves jumbles up, but we use audio books and the Educational Psychologist said that is perfect for developing his skills as his comprehension is significantly above average, and the richer the text, the more it feeds the visual way his mind works rather than getting lost on verbally decoding basic texts.

What really matters is a culture of reading for pleasure. If they're tired, don't battle it; read to them, take turns, use audio books. The range of "normal" is wide and progress comes in fits and starts. If reading is low pressure and fun, most children will get to where they need to be with patience and catch up with the early readers.

There are many children with poor literacy and they're unlikely to come from families interested enough to post articulately on MN about it. They're more likely to have parents who also have poor literacy (often undiagnosed SENs themselves) and poor access to stimulating books and seldom read to.

It's great being able to read early and enjoy books, but it's a weak indicator of long term success. Don't worry about progress, just enjoy together.

DS is in Reception and will be turning 6 next month (we are abroad). He'll start English phonics in January. He does know a few sounds but I haven't pushed it. So far, he's learnt the Aa in his second language and they are on number 10, I think, in Maths. Lots of fine motor skills activities, arts and crafts, sports and social and emotional stuff going on instead. He doesn't officially need to be at school until next year, when he'll be in Grade 1 and 6.5 years old.

Even if you assumed your daughter was terribly advanced (and don't we all secretly assume this about our kids 😆), surely just one single child being better than them isn't cause for concern?