To think you do have to do more than read with your child?

[areyousurre]

I’ve read a lot on here and other resources that all you should do with primary aged children is read to them / with them, and I suppose I’m questioning that a bit.

I’ve always read widely with my children but I’m not sure it’s made any real discernible difference in terms of language development or progress academically. And I now feel guilty that I haven’t done more!

I’d be interested in hearing what people honestly think. I don’t mean I’m going to stop reading to them but I do think I should be maybe doing more.

Once they can read a bit if you have an animal (hamster/dog/cat) you can convince them the animal likes having stories read to them. They are usually happier to do that then to read to mum. And you having read to them all those years has reinforced the idea it's something you do to people/animals you love. Which probably means my son loves the cat more than me. But the point is it got him to practice.

This thread is living proof that selective education is divisive and unfair…..

He's way too young I think for tou to be worrying about where he is compared to others. Just read him stories he likes, finds exciting etc and as others have said, talk to him, take him to museums , parks etc , anywhere and everywhere!

As an English Lit lecturer hopelessly trying to keep the discipline alive, reading really is enough but you need to make sure the content is decent. School reading books suck. My DC read them because they have to do a quiz about it afterwards in order to change the book but they’re boring as fuck.

7 yo DS loves reading, so much so he stays up way too late and I often have to tell him off for it. All I did to encourage this was read to him daily from birth and take him to the library often. Made it fun I guess and chose fun books to read. Oh and I read a lot too so I guess I’m modelling good habits, our house is full of books.

His reading age is above where it should be, he’s read literally all of Dav Pilkey’s books, all of Jamie Smart’s, all Wimpy Kid, some Jacqueline Wilson and he’s making his way through Tom Gates now.

I have a 5 yo with SEN who is technically ‘non verbal’ - he doesn’t reliably use language to communicate but has a wide vocabulary and loves reading and can read well. He was held back for a while on reading bands even though the books were way too easy for him because he couldn’t read the stupid alien words I have no doubt were a Goveism. He kept wanting to correct them to real words because his brain is usual and logical in that sense and he couldn’t fathom why there would be a ridiculous word like stroy - he read story, for example.

So phonics is ok but not every child needs it to read fluently. Some just go straight into reading from the off and that shouldn’t be held back because they don’t want to sit making noises at the teacher or reading made up words.

Does DS see adults reading in the home? Dads reading can be quite influential on DC

Teacher here. Reading is the most important thing we can do with our children because it impacts every area of their learning. But this is not just reading their decodable books but you reading to them to foster a love of reading and stories. Other things you can do are play board games, go out and visit places of interest. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking worksheets are best they aren’t! If you must do maths get them to spot patterns whilst you are out and about, count and help you to find the way to places. Play is the most important thing children can do so get them off their screens and using their imagination as much as possible and keep this up until they leave primary. Good luck.

We did a thing at ds’s school where all the male teachers-especially the PE teachers-always made sure they were seen with a book in their bag or in their hands or were seen reading over lunch. It actually sparked quite a lot of interest among the boys. Mostly in Terry Pratchett!

No more so than anything else, surely?

Money gives you a head start in life; that isn’t new. But so do many other things. The level of education your own parents have, appearance, disability or non disability, birth order, size of family.

I think as a thread it’s at the risk of becoming quite repetitive as a lot of posters are endlessly repeating ‘reading is the most important …’ reading with your child is undoubtedly so but to get to that point they have to first learn to read! With that said, I’m not worried or anxious about DS’s progress. I’m just wanting to support however I can.

And ha - the idea of doing anything relaxing like reading with ds and his two year old sibling crashing about is a nice thought but is just that; a thought 😂

Love that

Thankyou Rainbowdottie, what a brilliant post x

I've read your replies but not the whole thread.
The things you could do are

Take them out. Teach them what the plants and trees are. So many kids grow up not knowing these. Pick some and make a nature table and label them - nettle, clover, daisy, plantain, cleavers.

Get them a little case they can carry around. Let them choose words to go in, big words, little words, their name etc. then they have ownership of the words they know. They may not be reading but they will be recognising.

Make a little game. Anything like "run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man". Write each word on a postit and leave it out for them to find. Play hide the word, which do you think is missing? Obviously they know from the order. Then take two out and let them put them back in the right place. Let them make you guess too. Eventually you'll be able to muddle them and they can put them in order. Put them on the floor or even on a wall just out of reach so they have to jump!

Lots of games but only play as long as it is fun for them.

Fridge words, bath letters they can make words from.
If they make nonsense words attempt to pronounce it.
If they ask what a word says, tell them. It's possible they've had a good guess and are checking for themself if they are right. Asking them would make them feel tested, but telling them helps them steady engaged and curious.

Orchard games, especially the rhyming ones.
Zingo game.

There's so much you can do with play.

The books he is being given sound really boring. We liked us borne phonics readers - "fat cat", "big pig on a dig" ( he finds treasure!) , "Ted's red shed" and songbird readers.
Read lots of books with rhyme and repetition - they can learn them by heart so they know what the words say if they follow along, "The giant jam sandwich" and Julia Donaldson.

If the schoolbooks are turning him off then offer him something more exciting.

I have to be wary of mixing up methods, though. I don’t doubt his teacher knows what she’s doing. It’s more in terms of making that time to practice the phonics he’s learned and apply that knowledge to the books we read (for pleasure) so if he comes across words like soon, moon, loom we can practice that ‘oo’ sound.

I do know to take my child out and talk to him. Some posts are more than verging on downright condescending.

And - sorry. That came across much more harshly and rudely than intended. But I do think given I have explained I’ve spent a lot of time reading with him it can be deduced we have done the farm visits and the trips to the park and so on. His broad knowledge is fairly good (given that he is only just five!) but I worry that if he struggles at school it’s because I haven’t done enough proactively to help.

Apologies, I was trying to be helpful. They were just suggestions written very quickly while I was in the bath. All things we did but we didn't worry about teaching reading with any particular order or structure and my kids could pick up almost anything and decipher it by the time they were 5.

Helping them understand the words that they want to understand helped them more than plugging away at a set of phonics words they were losing interest in and building confidence was the more important thing.

Good luck.

I realise you were trying to be helpful and apologies if my tone was a bit harsh. It’s definitely not aimed at that post per se; there have been a lot of similar ‘have you thought about going to the park’ type replies which I expected to a point but they do become a little tedious

I do think ds isn’t necessarily one of those children who absorbs things in the background and naturally picks them up; it probably has to be quite explicit.

I'm unclear if there are actual issues or not.

My DC inherited my dyslexia and dsypraixa - went to school advanced - good vocab reading a few words very excited about books - they slowed then struggled in early years something schools weren't keen on discussing or acknowledging.

We ended up working though Dancing bears then the spelling program apple and pears - quite a few other spelling programs later including ones on suffixes and prefixes and their meanings - we also did more fun things teach your monster how to read - load of trips to libraries, did reading chest filled house with every type of book comics, grapahic novels - easy read dyslexic books - audio books - veru good for sustaining read interets and expanding vocab.

We also ended up having to help with handwritting and maths - cookinga nd baord games as well as mathfactor and bbc matsh games - and topic work. Some kind just need more practise in basics than others.

They also did swimming lessons, browines/cubs/guide/scoutes days out to every thing nearby - so they've done country houses castles mususmes - scienece msusums art galleries theater productions- science kits cooking scratch coding then more complex. We've watched documentaries on every topic - encouraged crafts - DD2 recently started telling me many of our routine histroical enegieering conversations aren't normal by her friends standards.

Every child we had real fears they wouldn't be readers and worse still they'd struggle to read - they are now adults to late teens - all read for pleasure - which according to every one else had nothing to do with us and would have just happened .

Different kids or same kids at different schools with smaller classes and fewer other kids with underlying problems we wouldn't have had to do anywhere near as much support at home. My biggest regret was listen to others and not stepping in earlier with eldest - early you step in less you have to do to catch up and less aware they are and less resistance. I know many say kids catch up and I did that - but DC peers ones that did were like my DC they had outside or some additional support often unseen and unacknowledged because it not happening in school.

You could try some fun things like reading games - like teach your monster or nessy another one - but if you think there are actual difficulties I would highly recommend dancing bears 10 minutes a day - https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/learning-to-read/ - links to the reading placement test.

Very least if you do some work with them at home it can become clear where the issues for them are - which were often missed in DC busy large classes. If there nothing well it's either fun or just 10 minutes and it won't hurt.

Mathsfactor for maths was great my my kids as they needed very clear instructions and lots of practise before moving on - which they weren't getting in school. They also usually enjoyed it as well.

@areyousurre if this is of any consolation, I am an avid reader, we have a house full of books, I read to my DC pretty much every day when they were small. Neither of them reads with any enthusiasm as adults, but they both went to uni and have good jobs and as far as I can tell they are indistinguishable from other adults of their age who do enjoy reading!!!!

I know at the time all this stuff seems terribly important. I remember sweating over all this myself, but ask yourself if you can identify adults in your life who were read to as children?! No probably not. But I bet you can identify the adults in your life who have dysfunctional relationships with their parents!

I honestly think we should enjoy our children's childhood more and relax and have fun with them more. I think feeling loved and cared for is going to trump being read to or fed kale regularly every single time.

I hear you OP. I've got one in reception so know where you are at, but I've also got a Y4. It took me years to get my head around primary school, they do so much stuff and its hard to work out whats important and whats not. It becomes a lot clearer as they get to KS2 why they did what they did in the early years. And some stuff never makes sense!
Its also easy to find hints on what to do to help your child, but in reality every child is different and will respond to different stuff.

Reading is important, basically the whole purpose of primary school is to teach them how to read, write and understand it. Its the foundation for everything. But also reading/language is everywhere. Everything helps. You need to work out what gets your child interested and go with that. You'll not know yet what will spark an interest, but when it happens its magic. Hold it lightly, be creative and do stuff that interests you as well as him.

As far as understanding where your DS is at, its worth reading what you can find about your schools phonics programme. I also found some books about primary education for parents in our library which I found useful.

Our school expect them to complete the phonics programme by the end of Y2 - learning to read is a long gradual process. They put them in colour coded groups which once you understand what that means and how that correlates to where they expect them to be in each year it gives you a good idea of whether they are ahead/behind of where is expected.

Its still very early days for your DS - like yours mine is learning the sounds, learning to blend, learning how to decode sounds in simple books. Some times mine is up for it, sometimes not.

If he is behind the teachers will have an idea by now and will probably start asking you to do more targeted practice at home - from what you say he sounds pretty normal for reception to me but perhaps a chat with the teacher can help put your mind at rest. Good luck!

I think its too soon to tell for you OP. I'd give it a few years.

With my Y4 I've no idea whether reading at home helped with learning to read and write. What I have noticed is that the books I have read to him have given him information and understanding about the world and many times I've used them as launching points to conversations about interesting things.

I've also had a huge amount of pleasure myself reading to him - I started reading him 'proper' books when he was 5 and since then I've only read him books that I want to read myself.

For example - he's now got a lot of nautical vocab from reading Swallows and Amazons, Treasure Island etc. If we see a boat we look at it and compare it to ships in stories we've read. We've learnt about knots, semaphore, morse code, nautical flags. Thats led to conversations about historical naval battles. We've had discussions about childhood in the past, explorers etc. He loves canoeing, fishing etc. All these things could happen independently, but the books we've read have given us ideas and sparked deeper interest.

I hear this here a lot too. I'm told I was one of these children who taught myself to read before school, apparently by watching sesame street. I was read to as well, but no idea what or how much. We wouldn't have had as many books about as people have now. I also was the kind of child who would concentrate on one thing for a long time and didn't have an annoying younger sibling to distract me. Which factor was more important?

Now having seen the process of learning to read with my kids I question what people mean when they say this. Was I actually reading or could I recognise a few words?

My kids are pretty average. Neither read before school or showed any inclination to learn. The process of learning takes a long time. Perhaps for some it does just click really early, but its taken til Y4 for my eldest to start reading for pleasure.

Make sure he sees you read for pleasure. Make sure you model picking a new book that’s above your comfort level to stretch yourself. Ideally, books about things you have never heard of, written in a language you don’t speak. But things you have no interest in will do. Remember you need to broaden your horizons, so don’t pick things you already like. Be sure it fits in with your overall learning plan for the year that’s taped to your fridge. Keep a list and tick them off. It’s ESSENTIAL that if you come across anything you don’t instantly understand you first STOP DEAD and break it down. If you still aren’t able to grasp it, have someone watch and mark your halting progress without helping you as it’s good for you to work it out. After all you’re reading for self improvement. If an audience doesn’t help, keep trying. Do not stop, get help, take a break or read anything else. Struggle on to build resilience and persistence. It’s not really supposed to be fun. It’s for you to write a report on that no one will read and tick it off a list. If your report isn’t perfect, insightful and original and the book isn’t harder than anyone could expect you to have read, no one will believe you read the book. If it is, choose something harder now.

Or read something you like and is captivating. If you run across an odd word you don’t get or a character you don’t remember, just read on. It will probably become clear or not matter much. At the end of the book, you’ll have read a nice story. Chat about it with friends if it seems appropriate or you really liked it. Choose another that looks like a good read.

It doesn’t matter. He goes to school, let them get on with it. Stop making his whole life into a lesson. Let home be somewhere he can relax and stop bracing to be tested and perform. Ditto for outings and other things that are supposed to be fun. Treat him like an actual person, not a receptacle for knowledge or a target hitting machine. It’s so easy to be caught up in all this angst, and kids CAN feel it. Just let it all go. It’s not what kids need and just makes them unhappy. Isn’t that what you want most for them? To be happy?

Make sure he sees you enjoy reading, hobbies, food and exercise. Don’t make reading and clubs something children do. Or he’ll just stop when he gets a job like adults do. Prioritise relationships, time outside, mental health, moving and eating well. And don’t make it all such earnest and improving hard work (which is my tongue in cheek point above) If you approach everything that way it’s horrible, won’t be sustainable and no one is happy). It’s just what we do. They way to raise children is to be the adults you want them grow into and include them when they are interested. Not to Do All The Special Raising Children Things. And not to PERFORM being perfect adults training perfect children. But to be those adults imperfectly. And if you can’t or don’t want to, how do you expect them to?

(I’m not saying you are a terrible parent, and obviously I’m being sarcastic. But I do think this attitude can be quite pervasive and I think kids do feel it and they DO know, and it does affect them, even when we think it’s low-key)