If your child can read before they go to school, what do they do while everyone else is being taught?

[hunkermunker]

And are books for able readers more interesting than they were when I went to school? I remember reading about flotsam and jetsam on a beach. Ooh.

No idea whether DS1 will be able to read before he goes to school, but he's definitely got an interest in it (and in numbers), can count and recognise words (usually logos) and knows all the capital letters (from watching mucho Countdown when DS2 was teeny ).

I'm aware this is a bit braggy, btw and Not The Done Thing on MN. But I Don't Care.

They read the books they are capable of reading. So if your ds goes into school reading by the times hes at the end of reception he will be reading quite chunky books, whereas someone who wasnt who doesnt get the hang of it so quick will be reading the simple key word books.
They are put into groups after 6 weeks at dds school depending on ability.

A good teacher will differentiate the curriculum to each child's ability. A good reader will be accelerated.

In DS school they quickly establish levels & have graded books. It seems to be carefully monitored so that they get books that are appropriate for their ability.
I found DS was good at letters pre-school too but had more difficulty then translating them into sounds when reading words - thats where the school system comes in.

They just read books that are appropriate for their ability Hunker. Ability in reading varies hugely in reception so it's well recognised 'issue'.

For ds it has just meant that he reads books from year 2 rather than reception and that he works pretty much independently on most things because he can read instructions himself (say if doing worksheets - he doesn't need help for the most part) and if he is writing his 'news' or whatever, he does that on his own whereas most of the other children need help with that too.

Btw, ds1 couldn't read before he went into reception but he picked it up very, very quickly and raced through the books skipping quite big chunks because they were too easy. I know one of his friends could read before he started and he tends to work exactly the same as ds1 (ds1 caught up to him very quickly).

(I could not be arsed to put this politely so I've just said it as it is )

The same goes for writing skills as well. They will be given the same blank piece of paper and some children will be able to write thier name and a few words and colour it in nicely and others will scribble all over it and need to be encouraged to do whatevers been asked of them..meanwhile others are learning to use finger spaces and full stops and capital letters.

Agree with batters mostly apart from my dd got bored after a while and started misbehaving! Despite pushing the school we only got acknowledgemant of her gifted and able status in year 2 and surprise surprise she settled down and now enjoys school.

ds1 will be four at the end of September and won't start school until next September, because his birthday falls just after the cut-off. He knows upper and lower case alphabet and can sound out words by himself, knows all shapes/colours/how primary colours mix to make the others etc, can do basic addition and subtraction. He is currently obsessed with learning about how the life of a star progresses, how planets orbit them and how the hydrological cycle works. He wants a telescope and a planetarium for his birthday. I imagine after another whole year has passed he will be able to do quite a lot more, if the past year is anything to go by.

And NO, I haven't hot-housed him, I'm not a pushy mother and I don't think it's a race, etc etc. It's just the way he is.

I am genuinely a bit worried about what will happen to him when he starts school. He's very highly strung and can get rude and naughty when he's anxious. Whenever I try to talk to RL friends about my concerns, people understandably freeze on me because they think I am boasting. I was bullied and ostracised all the way though school and am sort of dreading having to send him anyway, without these additional concerns.

I've talked to his nursery staff (he does 5 mornings a week) and they agree that the important thing over the next year is to focus on his social skills/manners/behaviour so that he will hopefully have an easier ride when he starts school. Whenever he tells me how clever he is I reply "that's lovely, but it's much more important to be kind and loving than to be clever" and he does seem to be internalising this, I heard him saying it to ds2 yesterday

Do all parents feel as though they are groping about in the dark? Or am I just especially hopeless?

green - how does he know all this stuff?

Most of what he knows - colours, shapes, letters - he knows because he either picked it up from adults or asked directly to be shown it. He learned the alphabet from a million toys/books/songs and then by asking me to fill in the gaps and explain to him what it was for. He started putting together letter sounds and triumphantly telling me "Look, I made a word", or "That says Exit!!" at which point I did start doing some early reading with him, got him alphabet books, easy reading stuff and magnetic letters on the fridge etc. He sulks if we don't let him have his own menu and try to read it himself when we eat out, for example - he wants to read. The counting and adding etc he did on his fingers by himself, having picked up counting to ten from songs, general conversational osmosis and asking questions like "What comes after four" etc. He came to me about six months ago and showed me both his hands and said "Mummy, five and five makes ten" and we have been doing basic addition and subtraction since then because he loves it. The obsession with stars/planets I think came from the Eric Carle story "Papa get the moon for me", which he loved, and led to him asking questions about the moon and sun, and "why does it get dark" etc - he is simply that way inclined. Similarly the obsession with weather systems came from me doing "thunderstorm music" with them on the piano, and we did pictures of rain and lightning etc with paint and glitter. His natural inclination was to bombard me and dh with questions about where lightning comes from and why is hail hard and rain soft, etc. He devours knowledge at the moment and the impetus is not coming from me!

I feel the need to defend myself here. I haven't pushed him or forced him to learn, but I haven't deliberately suppressed him either. Is that bad?

Some kids are just like that! Mine have been I'm deffo not a pushy parent but my kids have a thirst for knowledge, if they ask i explain stuff and they learn.

Greeny my dd is similar, she is very nosey and interested and just absorbs everything she is told. She has been able to write for ages and her reading is coming along well. She will be 4 on Sept 4th and I am concerned that she will be bored at school too. However I think that socially she will benefit from another year of nursery and she is so happy there, I sort of feel it is prolonging her childhood before she HAS to do this stuff, so I am happy about it.

I don't know if they still do this, but when I was 5 they put me up a year at school (so I skipped Remove which I think was the equiv of reception) because I could already read/write/add up etc. Maybe if your ds is so advanced they will do that.

(oh and I am not pushy either!)

I feel like that about another year at nursery too CD - I would hate to think of him going this year really, he is too little and I am not ready to let go of him for full days yet He is still my little three year old in my mind, school seems aeons away!

Apparently they will definitely not put him up a year at primary because it just isn't done in state schools in Devon. I will just have to hope he has a great teacher who can handle kids of different aptitudes. I'm sure there will be other bright kids there and others who are better at other things than ds1 - I still think from time to time about home-schooling him, but I worry about his social development if he doesn't come across kids who are better than him at some things and have to find his place in the world, IYSWIM. But I do also worry that if he is bored and understretched he will end up labelled as naughty, bolshie, disruptive, a "wilful underachiever" - all the things that I remember being called at school

I think you have to remember that school is aboiut much more than learning to read and write. There is so much that's new in reception - learning to be in a big group of peers, developing independence, making new friends, finding your way around new routines, new rules and new buildings. So children who have some of the academic elements in place are at a definite advantage as they can free up some brain space to concentrate on some of the softer skills.

My experience, as someone else said on this thread, is that the children who are way ahead at the start of reception find a lot of children catching them up by the end of the year and certainly by the end of year 1.

Its a pain - mine often repeat a lot of the work but and its a big but I still think its a good idea.
I think teachers and staff treat a reader differently from the start - they VIEW the child as more able even if they are not and therefore the work is more difficult accordingly.
Just be prepared for a lot of tongue biting!

Completely agree with Puddle. My dd is bright (not as ahead as your ds Greensleeves) but she really had to develop her social skills in Reception. tbh I wasn't aware how important that aspect is until I could compare her with some of the children in her class - and realised she was a bit lacking to say the least.

Forgot to say that I was put up a school year from about the age of 6. In the final year of primary I was bored senseless and started to lose the impetus. I struggled somewhat at secondary school.

For the first couple of weeks (until the teacher has managed to assess everyone's reading abilities) your DS may be given books that are "too easy". After that he should be given books at his level. Don't forget that the reading should develop in conjunction with writing (boys seem to be less good at this than girls. My DS1 had read the entire reception set of books in a term - but could then go on and choose from the books kept in the Y1 class.

I do think that social skills are the most crucial thing for ds1 to learn, much more important than anything else. I was watching him yesterday with a group of older boys at the playground I took them to. He prefers playing on his own and is quite shy. Ds2 (2 last week) is much more laid back and much happier approaching other children and socialising. Ds1 isn't as "daring" as most of the other boys - they were all merrily scaling climbing frames and jumping off at the top - ds1 climbed up carefully, looked over the edge and said "no, it's too dangerous, I might hurt myself". He then went up to a group of older boys on the witch's hat, climbed up to them and was saying things like "I'm very good at climbing" and "do you think I am very good? I climb very wel, don't I"? When he didn't get then response he wanted, he ran off and played on his own instead

So I am on balance glad he is going to go to nursery school for another year. I'm not sure how to help him develop his social skills other than by constantly exposing him to other children and trying to reinforce the message at home that other children are good at things too, he is not the centre of the universe, etc I was an awkward, "weird" kid, partly because of my difficult home life and partly for similar reasons to ds1 - I want him to be secure and confident, but I don't want him to be boastful and selfish. I find the whole thing very difficult tbh.

Greeny, much of what you've said has struck chords with me. I didn't have much fun at school and I do worry that DS1 will find the social side of it hard.

It's certainly giving me the collywobbles hunker I don't even like going into schools. I hate to think of him being lonely and feeling like an oddball. I just don't know what I can do to prevent it.

It worries me too. School was something of an endurance for me.

I think once full-time education is over, it's perfectly possible for virtually every type of person to find a niche, make friends and carve out some happiness and a place in the world. I see the whole schooling process as a sort of "trial by ordeal" which has to be got through. I've bigged it up to ds1, how exciting and stimulating and fun it's going to be, and he feels very excited and positive about it, in fact he's pissed off not to be going this year . I couldn't be more grateful to his nursery teachers for giving him a lovely start, they have really taken the time to understand him and his key worker is brilliant with him.

I just feel all churned up inside when I think of him being the weird kid who reads under the desk and has to do all the workbooks twice. I remember being so bloody miserable.

i think the best thing to do greeny is chill! the world is far more accepting in a sort of vive la difference style way!
i have instilled an ethos into mine of - its good to be YOU... I feel it works wonders - other children are themselves - you are you and you are just fab the way you are!