What do you think about teaching pre-schoolers reading?

[Caththerese1973]

Hi
I was just curious what people thought about teaching pre-schoolers to read. My daughter is nearly four and just about to start to kindy, but I've never tried to teach her to read (beyond singing the 'Alphabet Song' they used to show on Sesame Street when I was young - what a shame they don't do that anymore! I STILL have to sing it to myself sometimes so I can remember whether 'o' is before or after 'p'....). I have read a lot of stories to my daughter, and she can write quite a few letters, but this is all off her own bat, or maybe her daycare lady has shown her how to do some letters - I've never shown her how to write a letter except for the letter 'H' (the first letter of dd's name). I don't think she knows which letters they are, either: she's just become very used to seeing printed words because of all the story books.
I was inclined to think it best NOT to intervene and try and teach my pre-schooler to read, as I really have no idea how to start, and fear that whatever approach I take might just confuse her when she starts proper school. But the other day I visited my aunt, who is a retired primary school teacher, and she has actually taught her 2.5 y/o how to read a little bit, or at least how to recognise a few words (eg 'Mum', 'Dad', 'Nana', 'Hi' etc). My aunt suggested I should try the same thing with my own child, as she seemed to think it would give her an advantage. Also, according to my aunt reading is not taught as effectively as it used to be, and in her view, if one wants to guarantee a child's literacy in later years, it is best to start very young. We live in Australia and the there is indeed a big problem here with childhood illiteracy here (I know most Mumsnet posters are from the UK: the school system might be better there).
I'm not at all a pushy Mum, or determined that my child has to prove herself a genius, but like any mother, I naturally want my child to learn to read and be reading at an age-appropriate level as she gets older (sadly, many kids in Australia are well below the age-appropriate level reading-wise).
What do other parents think?

I back out of the thread now...

'try to teach' sounds like imposing something on a child, which I wouldn't.

On the other hand, I asked my Dad to show me how to read when I was three, and he did. I still remember the feeling of having been given the key to the kingdom: my big sister was an avid reader, my Dad was too, and I loved stories - it was like secret code and fun for me, so teaching me was the right thing to do, IMO.

I'll take my lead from the dds on this...

And FWIW, he didn't have a 'method' in particular - just the sounds letters make, and how to put them together. I think I learnt lower and upper case at the same time.

Ds wasn't given a book by his school until well into reception, by which time he had learnt all the JP sounds and used their first books with decodable words. I'm talking about at home. Where he has access to books. And picks them up. And starts to read them, mixing his decoding and his guessing to pretty good effect. Do we limit our children's access to books?

oh dear! put my foot in it, I guess. All these intense types with their views on teaching children. Need to take cover!

btw, so I don't get into trouble like whatsername: I love teachers; my parents, grandmother, sister, were/are teachers & I also teach. Whew. going off to open up the sauvignon. Leave you all to slug it out.

Sorry. My post was in response to frances5 BTW...

If your child is receptive to it then being able to decode all the words around them can only facilitate communication with and enjoyment of that world. And it means that they can join in things much earlier that they like e.g. Top Trumps, board games. Also they take great delight in reading street names, bus signs etc. which previously were inaccessible.

I have only two notes of caution: 1)do not push it when they seem bored or want to stop or you will put them off reading. 2)make sure you start with a method compatible with the one their school will use. The majority use jolly Phonics. Most advocate NOT teaching the alphabet as it is confusing in the realy stages. Most of all, have fun.

Yes, there are a hundred ways to skin a cat. And yes, the MOST IMPORTANT thing with the reading is to HAVE FUN.

Lullabyloo, one more thing we have in common!

Hi Honey

Message withdrawn

Re. D.s's love of nonsense poems
Was in post office earlier when d.s began to loudly recite his current favourite
starts-
Help Help there's nothing right
I can't find my ears and my pants are too tight!
Brought about looks from several dear old ladies in the queue.
Honestly the things people teach their kids these days

well, so many people seem to have very precocious children! I must admit that beyond regular story-reading, I haven't pushed my dd to learn how to recognise words or even letters or numbers (she still can't count to 20 - must take after her mum - ie, crap in the maths dept). She has learned some letters from daycare, and since today was her last day at daycare, I complimented my dd's carer on teaching my little girl some letters. But as it turns out, it's been a home-schooled six year old who has shown her most of them!
One poster asked why there was a problem with childhood illiteracy in Australia. Most people blame the schools (there's a lot of stuff in newspapers along these lines) but to be honest, I just think mainstream Australian culture is not at all orientated towards reading right now. Sports is the great thing here. Most people's houses have only a handful of books. I'm a university lecturer in literature (but practically retarded in all other respects - eg, can't do long division anymore, even if I was about to be taken out and hung - that's what over-specialising does to you!) and my place is full of books and even when I'm not reading to my dd, she sees me reading all the time, and even mimicks me - eg, sits down with a book with no pictures and pretends she is reading it. Unlike many of the people who have posted, she doesn't totally know her alphabet, I'm unsure whether she knows what letters she is writing as she writes them (eg, dd will often come up to me with a bit of paper on which she has written something weird like 'shoomz' and ask me what it spells: the other day she was experimenting in writing down names for her fantasy little sister - some of them were quite nice, actually! Like 'Asha', which I thought very pretty, and should I be lucky enough to have another kid, I might even consider that one!).
It might be different for some people's kids, but my girl doesn't like being pushed into things, so I think I'll leave the reading thing until she starts proper school. She was quite late to talk and I think part of the reason was I got worried about it and badgered her all the time to say things. I think it's lovely that she loves stories as much as she does (she's really into 'The Snow Queen' right now - I have a lovely illustrated Hans Cristian Anderson anthology) and hopefully the interest in the stories will mean that she won't learning to read tedious when the time comes. That's the thing that worries me about pre-school reading lessons: what if the kid gets bored and switches off at school? Could be potentially problematic. Basically, when the time comes I'll be happy if she keeps up with the age -appropriate level, and even she doesn't, I won't panic. But she won't be starting high school without being able to read, like so many kids here do. If there's problems further along the road (God willing, there won't be) I'll get her extra tuition etc. As I always tell her her, 'yes, you're very clever, but you're also a nice person, which is much more important!'
Sorry if this all souds a bit 'Pollyanna', by the way. But it is how I feel.

Yikes! Being the conscientious mother that I am (not), I finally got around to taking a look at 4 y/o dd's kindy handbook (kindy starts in two weeks). I was confronted by a writing style called 'modern Victorian cursive', which is supposedly what these four year olds are going to be taught.
Is it just me or does this all seem a bit premature? I showed it to my dd and she promptly started wailing 'I can't do that!'. I tried to explain to her that no-one expects her to know how to write yet. Then I felt a bit crap because dd, who does know a few letters, always writes in capitals, and the kindy handbook advised 'encouraging your child to write in the lower case'. I was quite impressed that dd had picked up a few letters on her own: now I feel like I maybe ought to correct her and show her the 'little alphabet'.
I know one of my uni students last semester wrote everything, ENTIRE essays, all in capital letters and it drove me crazy, so I can see the point.
But is it a point that kids really need to have drilled into them at FOUR? Who was the poster that said in Sweden they start reading/writing at 6, and Sweden has one of the highest rates of childhood literacy in the world?
I suspect that trying to get children to write when they are barely out of nappies is not only unrealistic, but also counter-productive, since by the time they are capable of really learning, they are likely to be bored and frustrated already by the whole literacy thing. Nonetheless, I guess I'll still be sending my dd along to kindy this year, since everyone else is...

In the UK we have little choice about when our children start school. In an ideal world children would start reception when they are ready. The English system is particularly tough on summer born boys who often don't have the maturity for school.

In the UK we so start school way too early. There is no doult. Most children to to nursery at the age of three and nurseries have to follow the national curriculum at the age of three! I believe that they are even bringing in a national curriuclum for babies!

It is not always fair to compare learning to read in different countries. Some countries like Finland have simpler reading code than English. The problem with English is that it is a mix of languages like Latin, German (Anglo Saxon), celtic languages, French, Greek and the kitchen sink. Children in English speaking countries have a tougher challenge.

In the UK there has been a big return to phonetics. It will be intersting to see if it does make a different to literacy levels.

I think the phonetics system is pretty sound. It's how I learned to read, and most Australians of my age - in their 30s - have not had significant problems, which is more than can be said for many children and young adults in Australia these days. There seens to be a new emphasis on 'word recognition' in Australian teaching right now, which doesn't make much sense to me. I mean, 'word recognition', at the end of the day, seems to amount simply to recognising a word based on its SHAPE. When I was taught to read, phonetics, rhymes and very simple little story books were the thing, and it did work. I can still remember the moment when I realised I could actually read...that is, when I managed to read a simple story that wasn't familiar to me, and I know I managed this by working out the words phonetically, rather than 'recognising' them. It was a great moment in my life, actually, right up there with having a baby, in fact. My mother and I were looking at a new book about toys and I laboriously sounded out all the words and ended up reading the whole thing myself (over the course of about two hours - poor Mum!) But she was over the moon, and so was I. And from that point onward my reading ability just exploded.
Inevitably, kids do tend to want to recognise words rather than have to work them out phonetically. I can recall being corrected by my Year 1 teacher for routinely pronouncing and writing the name 'Susan' as 'Sunsan'. And I was doing this because 'Susan' and 'Sunsan' LOOK quite alike.
I think phonetics are pretty much the way to go, and even though I still think the education system here is absurdly ambitious in trying to get 4 y/os reading, I would appreciate any info about phonetic reading DVDs etc.

The teachers aren't bad, they have just been pushed by the governant to follow lots of incorrect strageries.

For example encouraging children to guess from pictures instead of sounding out words. English is represented by 44 sounds and there are variations on how these sounds can be written. When a child knows how these 44 sounds are written then the whole world of reading and writing opens up to them.

We found that the Jolly Phonics Handbook was an excellent guide on teaching children to read. Jolly Phonics also does a CD of songs called Jolly Songs and a DVD with Inky the Mouse as fun way of learning letter sounds. The website jolly learning will give you details of where you can get it in Australia. Certainly Amazon sells jolly phonics products.

We also used Jelly and Bean books as they have a controlled vocabulary so that children are only given words that they know how to decode.

This website is free and your daughter might enjoy it. starfall

Ofcourse people dont decode words they know well. However a child will come across lots of new words and in the early days they need a way of reading words they have never seen before. Even adults have to resort to decoding when studying a new subject with new words.

Thanks Frances5 for Jolly Phonics: depending on how things go at school/kindy, I might look into it. I agree that the teachers themselves are not necessarily lame: both my parents are highschool teachers, and it's a fact (at least in Australia) that teachers are obliged to follow what ever teaching method the govt foists upon them. A lot of teachers are disgruntled at the moment because they are no longer permitted to grade their students, as such, but have to do this thing called 'learning-based outcomes', which involves aseessing the student on the strength of how much progress he or she has made as an individual. In other words, parents are no longer allowed to ask: 'well, how is my kid doing comparison to the rest of the class?'. Obviously old-fashioned grading can bring with it an unpleasant competition and pressure, but on the other hand, I think parents are entitled to know if their child needs extra help at home or with a tutor in certain subjects.
I was very much disadvantaged in maths at school, in part, I think, because of a well meaning teacher who had been trained in the 'Steiner' method, which encourages teachers to allow a student to concentrate on one particular subject, if that student has a particular talent for it. I was considered to be 'gifted' in reading and writing: consequently, when the rest of the class was learning maths, I was allowed to sit down the back and read a book instead if I felt like it. This led to some weird situations. In high school I was in the 'gifted' class for English, English Lit and other humanities subjects, but in the remedial class for maths, phsyics and chemistry. The school really didn't know quite what to do with me! And I STILL can't do long division to save my life!

Thanks Frances5 for Jolly Phonics: depending on how things go at school/kindy, I might look into it. I agree that the teachers themselves are not necessarily lame: both my parents are highschool teachers, and it's a fact (at least in Australia) that teachers are obliged to follow what ever teaching method the govt foists upon them. A lot of teachers are disgruntled at the moment because they are no longer permitted to grade their students, as such, but have to do this thing called 'learning-based outcomes', which involves aseessing the student on the strength of how much progress he or she has made as an individual. In other words, parents are no longer allowed to ask: 'well, how is my kid doing comparison to the rest of the class?'. Obviously old-fashioned grading can bring with it an unpleasant competition and pressure, but on the other hand, I think parents are entitled to know if their child needs extra help at home or with a tutor in certain subjects.
I was very much disadvantaged in maths at school, in part, I think, because of a well meaning teacher who had been trained in the 'Steiner' method, which encourages teachers to allow a student to concentrate on one particular subject, if that student has a particular talent for it. I was considered to be 'gifted' in reading and writing: consequently, when the rest of the class was learning maths, I was allowed to sit down the back and read a book instead if I felt like it. This led to some weird situations. In high school I was in the 'gifted' class for English, English Lit and other humanities subjects, but in the remedial class for maths, phsyics and chemistry. The school really didn't know quite what to do with me! And I STILL can't do long division to save my life!

As long as learning is fun the child is not "pushed" or put off - it is simply an extension of play. The issue of having a bored child in reception if they can already read and add etc. is a real one - my solution is just to skip reception and put them in for Year 1. I know this is not a palatable option ofr most people.

On a slight tangent... DD is 3.7, loves books (DH thinks she's trying out some new learning to read method by absorbing the books in her sleep - she won't sleep without a bedful of books), and she keeps asking me to show her how to read because "i can't read very well" (or at all ).

I don't know how to go about it though really aside from just running my finger along the words as we read (very hard with charlie and lola - you end up with knotted arms! )

Should I do anything else or just leave it at that?

My son could read before he started reception and he hasn't been bored at all. At the start of reception he knew his letter sounds and could blend. He could read a word like "pin" but if it had four letters like the word "spin" he might read it as "pin". His teacher has taken his reading to the next level. My son can now segment words. (ie. read words with more than one syllabul like hotdog)

A good reception teacher will differentiate the learning tasks. Also in reception children vary in age by a year and children are at different levels of development.

Even if my son can read he cannot control a pencil well. He also wouldn't have the social skills to cope with year 1. A lot of time in reception is spent playing, making friends and learning the school rules. I think it would be a mistake for a child however bright or forward to miss reception. It is better to take year one work to the child than take the reception child to year one.

We learned to read before we went to school but my children have varied. They all went to nursery school half days from age 3 and I think in most of those nursery schools they were taught their letters so when they started school at four/nearly 5 they knew the letters and could write most of them and their names. A lot of the other children in that school would have been to similar nursery schools so be at a similar level and then they started all learning each letter from then on but fairly quickly. One of my daughters was slow at learning to read and the other was reading at 3. It was just their personalities and inclinations but none were bored at school but they did go to very selective academic day schools so you wouldn't expect them to be bored in those sorts of schools.

In fact I have found English schools teach reading better now in 2007 than they did with my older children in the early 1980s because we are coming out of the experimental type methods it looks like Australia is still trying. In the 1960s I even knew children taught what was called "ita" - completely wrong spellings as words sound (thankfully not in my school) which they then had to unlearn.

In my children's schools they bring a book home to read with the parent every night and it will be whatever level is right for that child. Some of the cleverest children have much harder books than mine have.