Have you taught your pre reception child to read ?

[HelloDolly]

Our school asked us not to do anything with the children, ie letter work or reading, so the children all start from the same point.

I personally think this is awful, my daughter knows 21 letters without the pictures and I had fully intended to get started with basic words this summer but don't know what to do know.

I would make sur youn are teaching her with the same method the school use, then go for it! They cannot expect you to hold your daughter back because they want to start teaching from a certain point. They will just have to deal with it!

Think that is a bit of laziness on behalf of the school tbh.
My DS more or less taught himself to read so there wasn't much I could do about it. His reception teacher is really pleased to have somone coming into her class who's so keen!

How can you stop a child reading? - if you read to them regularly they will ask questions, and if you answer them they will learn to read.

I've never heard of a school asking us not to count with our children, obviously varying numeracy is okay.

Ignore the school, HelloDolly. They have a real nerve trying to tell you what you can or can't do with your own child in your own home.

And yes, I taught all three of mine to read before they were in reception. And I didn't even bother checking in advance what method the school was going to use.

Even if the school does succeed in ensuring that all the children start from complete ignorance, they will diverge quite fast anyway, I'd have thought.

I deliberately didnt teach dd1 to read (not that she was that interested) thinking that it would be good to let the school do it their own way. When she started reception, EVERY other child could read a bit and dd1 was WAY behind - its taken her until the end of year 1 to catch up.

I wouldn?t push a pre-reception child to read but I wouldn?t hold one back if they were genuinely interested in letters and books.

I also had a child who more or less taught herself to read before she started school and it would have been ridiculous to try to stop her. It would have meant hiding all the books and never letting her see the text when I was reading to her. The school were only too pleased to have readers in reception.

I and dd's nursery taught her to read before reception.It wasn't a problem for her or the school.

I had a friend who works in education, she used to get really stressed because her little boy spent all his time on the climbing frame when he 'should be learning'

they're four ffs.

dd knew her letters when she got to school but no words; she's doing fine in reception and is in the top half of her class.

I'd just have fun this summer, lots of cutting and sticking and painting and nature walks and trips to the park and all that stuff. she'll have plenty of time to learn to read next year, stop stressing

i meant 'on the climbing frame at nursery school'

DD used word cards that we mad so she had a good foundation before going into P1 (reception). 2 years of nursery gave her a good start too and they used whole words, numbers and a bit of letters but mostly whole words.

I taught ds1 using the Jolly Phonics programme. His school doesn't teach reading via this method (the one thing about the school I was unhappy about). I started in the July before he went into reception.

I ought to add, he was already reading simple cvc (consonant, vowel consonant) words eg cat, dog pig, so I considered he was ready and needed a really good system like JP to make the most of his enthusiasm for reading.

If she's interested go for it, the school can deal with it. Why should you hold back and divert a child from something they are genuinely curious about - if it was putting clothes on or riding a bike we'd encourage them why not reading or writing?

What's the Jolly Phonics programme, puff?

HD what an odd thing for the school to say seeing as most nursery pre-schools teach letters before Reception. Like someone else said, so long as you make sure you're using the same basic system as the school will use, what's the problem? At dd's pre-school there have been various notes to the parents about using lower case letters and capitals appropriately, plus a printed page about how to encourage them to form the letters when they write them. I think dd, 3.8, can now read and write about 20 letters and can put them into words if I tell her which ones make up the word, i.e. c-a-t.

I assume what the school means is don't sit down with your child and try and teach them to read in a structured way, using a reading programme. Presumably they have in the past had to do a lot of undoing of wrong methods, well-meaning errors etc.
You could check with the School HelloDolly - they might be happy to give you the name of the programme and give you some pointers.
And of course they can't stop parents enjoying books with their children, or children picking up on or asking to be taught letters or words.
I am very glad I didn't do anything formal with ds as I was taught using the now unpopular Whole Word Recognition method with flashcards so was a complete stranger to the Synthetic Phonics method used at his school.
He arrived loving stories and books but unable to read a word at 4, or write, and is now a fluent, confident reader at seven. It really, really depends on the individual child so I'd go back to them HD.

BTW too teach pre reading skills it doesn't have to be formal sit down sessions.

When doing nature pictures you can label things, cutting and sticking can involve words as well as pictures and when out and about point out lots of signs. All this helps towards reading and understanding language.

When I say we used cards, it was as a game. I printed off a selection of words, DD looked through magazines to find suitable pitures of DADDY, CAT, HOUSE etc. DS helped by drawing simple pictures of the word on the back of one set of cards. Lots of matching games. The favourite was to lay out all the picture cards and load up a little truck with the words and drive it through the pictures delivering the words to the rght picture.

I didn't with my older two. But they were both in school nursery which had been teaching them letters with RML phonic scheme. But they are both summer babies and young for the year. I waited till they started Reception in January aged 4.5, and then started practising at home. Dd1 in particular caught on v. quickly.

I wouldn't be offended by the school's advice, though -- they're probably trying to guard against parents feeling they have to make their tinies do their letters and putting them off for life. It can get v. competitive, and you do't want to go there, really. Also, if the school are doing a phonic scheme, they may feel that parents teaching eg. whole words or letter names may undermine that. (Not saying that you would, but they might be concerned about it).

HelloDolly - the school asking parents not to do anything is a complete nonsense anyway, because children will come in at different levels anyway - they absorb a lot of information about letters/sounds/print without any formal teaching. Also, there will be children who have had some nursery education and they will have knowledge from that, plus things parents have done with children before being told about the school's wishes.

Any school saying children will all be at the same level when they come in to school is v naive IMO.

Yes still lots of debate about phonics and whole word. A combination of both can be used succesfully too.

Jolly Phonics

Totally agree with your second para Frogs. Dd can probably read "Walker's Crisps" and "Boden" (her choice for cutting and sticking already) and I know she recognises the Dr Who logo, but it was obvious from our pre-nursery get-together last week that a lot of the parents have been trying to teach the 2/3 year olds to read already...and were beating themselves up in a mock-modest way about how little Bootsy can "only" read his name
I am a great believer in fun stuff and chatting rather than workbooks/specific methodologies. Better left to the professionals

I can sort of understand what the school is trying to achieve, but saying it wants all the children at the same level coming in, to do whatever it is the school does, is as I said, naive and makes the teachers sound as though they are rather misinformed about early child development (I'm sure they are v well informed in reality).

I've taught classes to read using a variety of methods (depended on the policy of the school I was working in). Tbh, I found what the children had being doing prior made little difference in terms of teaching, because a teacher will always need to differentiate the teaching to accommodate varying levels of ability.

The school may ask that but if they go to nursery, the nursery HAVE to work to the same early learning goals as the school (reception class) and have to prove this to OFSTED. As all children get 5 sessions free i.e. half time school for at least a year, almost all children will have been given to some extent pre reading/writing teaching.

This is a big bug for many nursery/nursery school teachers because we are oblidged to work to the same learning goals as the teachers but when they come to attending school the teaching refuse to even look at the work the children have achieved and reassess it all themselves. Thereby devaluing the work of the nurseries.

MaryPop - Good point.

I can see why schools might not want children to be starting on a method which might be confusing if the school uses a particular approach like phonics - and I think they are putting the childs needs first, in that case, rather than being 'lazy' etc.
I am surprised people jump to a negative conclusion about teachers over everything, tbh. Schools do teach reading with a very well-planned methodology and structure, whatever our opinions about it. I know that i am an amateur in the job, and have simply supported what the school was doing.
DS could not read before he went into reception, after two terms, he can read lots of sentences of a wide variety of simple words. All the school's doing, with me doing the back up excercises we were asked to do...some of the time

DD showed an interest in reading so I approached her nursery which is attched to her primary school and asked what should I do. They advised Jolly Phonics and gave me some resources that they use in nursery with them. Dd could never sit an read a book (although she has memorised a few!) but reads names and objects that are familair to her and a few words like he, she and the.