Are lots of pre-reception 4 year olds reading ?

[flowerpowersd]

My DD is 4, she starts reception in September.

I've been speaking to a few parents who said their child is so ready for reception.

One today told me that their child was ready because she was already reading.

My DD likes phonics and can recognise some words, is making the first attempts at blending sounds and ' reading '.

Should I aim for her to be reading by the time she starts reception ?

Is this quite common that children can read this soon and is this what parents mean when they say they're ready for reception?

Another mum told me her son was also reading and he was not even 4 yet at the time.

Should I invest in some very basic reading books and try to teach her so she can ' read ' when she starts reception ? Or can my DD also technically 'read '?

Or when people say they can read, they actually mean they can read books for their age independently?

She's been going to preschool nursery so far. She loves it and I'm not sure I would say she's ready or desperate to go to reception, although I could be wrong.

if she enjoys it, why not? every child learns things at their own pace. don't feel pressurised. but if she is interested, don't hold back earlier.

not sure re the Teachers having to unlearn bad reading techniques etc though, not had any such issues in our extended family. quite are very early readers.

my little brother, the cheeky bugger that he is, pretended he couldn't read, because he didn't want to do the extra work that entailed. soon got found out when my mum spoke to the teacher. think they were more impressed by his machiavallian tendencies than the reading

Why on earth shouldn’t she if the kids are ready and enjoying it 🤷🏼‍♀️

The ages of kids in reception will span a year. What's that, about a quarter of the lifespan of a child who has only just turned 4. So the kids who have been 4 for most of a year can be expected to have developed a lot more and got some more skills. Believe me it evens out by secondary school. The most annoying part of having a summer born child is realising that your child is achieving way more when they reach the same age as the 'older' children in the year were at that age, but in the academic year are more likely to be sitting on the less 'academic' tables in primary school.
Plus, you can always console yourself that the kids of boasting parents may well have peaked too early, which is pretty gutting if it's in primary school. I am not being mean, this is really what happens to a good proportion of the kids who are very advanced in primary. Sometimes it's simply because they are the oldest, or have older siblings who they have learnt alongside at home, or their academic skillset suits primary school more than secondary school or higher education. It's a long game and things change for better or worse for everyone.
As pps say, forget about teaching your DC to read. Make sure they can feed themselves, go to the loo, socialise them, talk to them.
Make the most of the time before primary school starts.

No, there’s no benefit to being able to read before you start reception, kids need to be able to go to the loo themselves, put their coat on, do their shoes up and listen.

I was buying a book for children age 7 - 9 in well known bookshop recently and the woman behind the till told me she had read the entire series by the time she was 2 🤔because her mum had taught her to read at 2, I think she thought I’d be impressed but she was just working behind the till in a bookshop so…..

Because her child is 3.5 and there's so much else they could be doing than learning to read.

I never went out of my way to teach any of my children to read, but I read to them an awful lot and they picked stuff up. My youngest child ( of 3) started nursery being able to read so well he was put on colour staged reading books with full sentences while the others were still on books with no words, just pictures to talk about. He was always ahead of the game in that respect throughout his school life, and his teachers in nursery were quite in awe of his ability. I honestly never set about 'teaching' him, he just worked it out for himself!
Most schools have some sort of formal phonics teaching - ours uses Read,Write,Inc - which works pretty well for the majority of children. Just make sure you practice with her when she starts to learn, and keep reading to her as well as getting her to read to you.

I taught myself to read before I started school and wrote lists of words, I think I might be ND so possible hyperlexic:
Hyperlexia is a condition where preschool children display an intense early interest in letters in a way that is very advanced for their age. They can decode words accurately, but without understanding their meaning. It is most common among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – with approximately 6-20% of children with autism demonstrating hyperlexia.

DS has ASD but wasn't hyperlexic, he couldn't blend before starting school but was one of the first to be a free reader. Just read lots to her to foster a love of reading and listen to her read everyday when she brings home books from school. Join the library too (for when the school books get really tedious!).

My two boys are 8 and 5, neither could read at all when starting school.

All school expected was that they could count to 10 and recognise their own name written down.

As someone else mentioned it was far more useful that they could zip up a coat, put on their shoes on the right feet etc.

My eldest could sound out letters. She could do words like cat, dog and duck etc. I would have said she could read. She was top reading group in reception and over a year ahead on the Oxford reading scheme.

It wasn't until my youngest went in actually properly reading (his sister was reception in lockdown so he watched all her homeschooling) that I thought, yeah, my eldest wasn't reading. This one is reading. Teacher had him free reading from the start.

It's not JUST about the decoding though, it's allll about comprehension. You need to focus on what they call VIPERS
Vocab
Inferences
Prediction
Retrieve
Summarise

My friends fancy private school has just gone back to VIPERS because they were too focussed on decoding and moving the kids up a level and it was causing problems with comprehension further up the school.

I remember with my eldest they spend so much time on phonics and it's pretty amazing how it all comes together. I remember they were still watching phonics videos in lockdown so that would be late spring term so plenty of time is allocated to learning to read.
My youngest is starting school in September and although we look at a lot of books she isn't anywhere near reading yet.

My DD was not reading at all before school. At the end of reception her reading is great in my view. Don't worry about it. It sounds like your DC is doing brilliantly. Also, take what the other parents say with a pinch of salt. People have very different ideas of what is "reading".

DS (starting in September), incidentally, is sounding things out more because he wants to be like his big sister. I'm much more worried about him managing school emotionally than I was with her. Reading is not the focus for school readiness.

Thank you for sharing this - I was an early self taught reader (and musical instrument player); had read Austen’s complete works and most of the classics by 11. Only now my children are both diagnosed - and their assessment clinicians suggested, unprompted by me, I get a formal diagnosis too 🤣- that I now now I am on the spectrum too. Had not heard of hyperlexia, but it may explain why I am doing a PhD in literature/creative writing! My youngest wouldn’t read a book with gun at his head, so clearly didn’t get that bit of ASD 😭

Share books, stories, nursery rhymes, games like eye spy, phonological skill games like what's the first sound in cat (c), what's the last sound/middle sound? Rhymes great as later on they can see/hear that cat rhymes with bat (and you can read the same sounds in both). Give lots of examples, she may not come up with her own rhymes yet. It;s a skill.

Being able to have finely developed hearing skills for sounds is a key to phonics. Sound walks - I can hear a dog/siren/crunchy leaves/the wind/rain. All of these help her think about and tune into sounds - which then helps with sounds in language.

Lots of talking, chatting, singing and age appropriate vocabulary/new words (tell her a word then explain the meaning) and things like gross motor and fine motor play e.g. play doh to support learning to write... plus the practical stuff other have mentioned.

Dressing up, imaginative play. Also lots of RL experiences like going to the seaside or a wildlife park. Reading depends a lot on real life experience, so the child can relate to situations.

She'll get plenty of exposure to phonics at school and they do it systematically. They will very likely give you info on how to support her at home with pre-reading and reading skills.

We enjoyed Geraldine the Giraffe on YouTube as a funny phonics resource. There are millions of great phonics resources on YouTube. Miss Phonics is good - when the time comes.

For now, relax and enjoy playing and chatting, sharing books you enjoy and singing and going on mini trips to explore the world! Have fun!

How so ? I am dyslexic and " see and say" is the only way I could learn to read

DC1 no interest in reading by themselves before school and has never really enjoyed practising with us at home but loves books and was reading long chapter books aged 7. I was going to say if they enjoy reading fine to do some with them but I wouldn't see it as necessary and also I wouldn't be confident in the best way to teach reading. Probably just reading them lots of books is the best thing to do

The majority of 4yo won't be reading when they start reception. Keep in mind some may only just turn 4yo in August before starting reception.

However, many children will recognise their own names from pegs and draws, self registration etc and probably their friends names too. Some may be showing interest in learning early phonics.

Some children naturally love books and will absorb words by being read to. The most important step is pre reading which is looking at pictures in a book and recalling and predicting the story, being aware of written words on the page and knowing they have meaning so developing thir curiosity in wanting to know what they mean, as well as simply fostering enjoyment of a good book.

My friends daughter could read fluently before school. Like, anything. She had the attention span to read longer chapter books.
My dd couldn't blend even three letters. You know, 'c-a-t', what does that say? 'potato'. That kind of thing.

They can both read now. It's ok if your child can't read before school . Of course, if they want to learn, teach them. But most kids I think can't.

Mine are dyslexic but no they didn't really know any letters before starting school

Library visits - yes. Get her interested in choosing her own books. What does she like to read about, look at pictures about? School readers can be a bit dull so having plenty of choice is a great gift for any budding reader.

This is very true and happens a lot!

To answer your question OP - Honestly? I very much doubt very many children starting each reception class can read. Take with a pinch of salt.

It's probably better if they can't
I was a very early and fast reader who could understand and it caused me nothing but issues at school
Being told I hadn't read things properly, I was lying, sitting bored because I had already read the book when being told to read the first 2 pages
Even now I use the library because a chick lit type novel takes me less than an hour to read

@Neurodiversitydoctor sorry I meant that it means reading by sight rather than the phonics method - or rather learning to read the "wrong" way - as the school put it as it when obvious my daughter had mostly learned by sight recognition than phonics.
Personally - I don't think which way matters if you get there in the end.

This

Don't worry about reading. There are far more important skills to learn before starting Reception.

This - if you were to watch my 3 year old (tomorrow!) DD at bedtime you’d think she could read - in fact we’ve read the same 3 books* every night before bed and she knows them completely so it looks like it’s reading but it really isn’t.

*other books are available but she’s just so very attached to the hungry caterpillar now 😂