Reading and writing in reception

[Peonyyyy]

My son has just started reception and he is a bright, funny, sensitive boy who loves books and dinosaurs. We read to him every night and we’re all chatting to him all the time, he asks lots of questions, he doesn’t have an iPad but he does watch some tv.

he told us yesterday that one of his friends goes to a different class for phonics because he’s ’really Good at reading’ and two of his other friends go in a different group, and he stays in the classroom with another group. I also noticed when it was his birthday that most of the children had entirely written the cards themselves.

he recognises letters, numbers and his name and sometimes writes his name independently but he cannot read or write properly yet.

i thought this is what they teach them at school and we support at home. But what I’m hearing more and more from parents in their class is that their kids could already read and write before even starting reception. is this a new thing, are parents trying to get ‘ahead’? I understand some children are very bright and I understand they may start sooner and of course parents shouldn’t hold them back, but this is like it’s a thing that parents feel they have to have them reading and writing before starting reception.

is this a thing? I don’t want to him to lose confidence because he’s not at the same level as his friends and I don’t want the teacher to think he’s not bright, I know it will change a lot and probably won’t matter in a few months when they all catch up but I genuinely didn’t know this was a thing everyone was doing.

Neither of mine could read or write before starting reception. My eldest is an amazing reader and has been since reception. Both are doing fine and either meeting or exceeding targets. It doesn’t really matter if they can read and write before school. Reception teachers really like children who can change for PE, hang they’re coat and bag up and can tidy things away though!

It’s normal to have a few different phonic groups isn’t it? Nothing is fixed, it just means they’re going at the right pace for that child. Some arrive knowing a lot, others won’t have done any phonics at all yet. Mine did but that’s because the school nursery taught them. Either way they all get there eventually- it’s a marathon not a sprint. And my kids would have written a birthday card in reception (it’s great handwriting practice!) but would have copied or I would have spelled it out for them. Not many (any?) can spell birthday at that age.

Some children can read and right before school. I did as a child, my parents didn’t purposefully teach me to, it was just something I did. I cannot say it has made one bit of difference to my life! Most people learn to read eventually and your son will soon pick it up. In my child’s reception class a lot of them could read and write. Mine could write his name, but not much else. He soon picked it up (we didn’t practice at home, just read to him). There will always be children who develop at different times. Stop equating it with being ‘bright’, the teacher won’t think he’s not capable, it’s perfectly normal. If he sits with another group then it’s a great way to make new friends. He will read eventually, please don’t worry or feel the need to compare yourself with other parents.

We was always told not to teach them to read and write ourselves as it would be confusing. The school will teach different methods and ways. They said ideally they want them all at the same stage so they can teach them as a class rather than having to do the separate groups.
But like you I'm finding others are doing this and it's leaving us feeling left behind and damaging confidence.
That feeling of I'm not good at that so young really stays with you but I feel I'm then joining the problem if we do extra at home. It needs to be a either or situation surely.

@MightyGoldBear exactly -we don’t want to start tutoring him every night so he’s as ahead as his peers are. We want him to play and have fun, he has a long road of school and homework ahead of him and we don’t want to make it too intense at this stage. He’s so young!

it feels like everyone is rushing to get ahead and I was just quite shocked. At home we like to read and play and have conversations together. But like you we don’t want him to feel like he’s not one of the ‘clever’ ones. His friend who is ‘very good at reading’ is quite precocious and I worry has been asking Kit why he can’t do it etc. the fact our son chose to tell us his friends all go to different groups and that one goes off on his own to year one because he’s ’really Good at reading’ makes me worry that he’s worrying about it 😢 we didn’t even know they had been split into groups.

thank you for reassuring me that it’s not just me that has noticed this trend!

I made my kids write their own cards. that doesn't mean they knew how to do it independently, they're 6 and I still spell the odd word for them or I let them get it wrong if they don't want help. it doesn't convey their skill set, just my intentions.
honestly, try not to over think it. they all run their own race. Keep doing what you're doing, and he'll find his way

My number one with all my children has always been to keep alive the fun and curiosity of learning. So I never want to make it a battle or a chore to do homework or extra stuff at home. We keep it all fun easy going.
I think for us I'm going to gently support at home but not go crazy. Take my little one's lead. 4 is so young!

It's all well saying they all catch up but sometimes the damage can be done and that thought pattern of I'm not good at school or reading can be really hard to change. Not everyone does catch up easily. My middle child is audhd and we've had many hoops to jump just to get them in school and fully supported to even attend let alone catch up.

I'd rather The school were really honest and say actually this class we have noticed mostly everyone has had extra help or are at this level above so if you feel able to do extra at home go ahead. Rather than it being a guessing game or the saying we Don't need to. Just really clear expectations so it is more of a level playing field early on.

DS’s nursery encouraged reading and writing skills with things like tracing letters in sand. We had a blackboard at home so he would often try writing things on there.
He learned to blend sounds by watching the alphablocks on tv. By the time he started school he could already read and write quite a few words, but we just let it happen rather than actively teaching him.

I think I would support my child to be at the same stage as the other children. If most of the others are actually ahead, then technically your child is behind. But i would be careful that this is actually a fact, 5 year olds aren't the most reliable. I wouldn't want my child to feel like they are stupid and loose their confidence in their ability.

It’s normal for reception to split into groups for reading and phonics, some will be fully reading by Christmas and others won’t so the goal is to develop each child rather then structure the whole class around those slowest to pick up.
It’s not ‘bad’ to be slower picking it up, it’s just different needs.
Some children will know all their phonics before P1 and it will mean they can slide into reading much quickly. It also depends on the setting they went to before, some of it will have been taught by parents but there’s also a big difference between nurseries.

Both of mine could read and write before Reception. And I taught them. But I also taught them to swim, ride a bike, recognise colours, and now that they are older, do their laundry, make their beds, do the recycling, make their breakfast.

I think sometimes it is easy to see 'school work' as 'work' rather than just as something that children learn as they go along. Some will learn things quicker. One of mine took longer to learn to swim. Another one wasn't as confident on his bike. The bed making and laundry is a work in progress. The best way to see this is to see recognising letters, numbers, reading simple words, writing basic letters, as just a part of learning new skills. A little bit, every day, in a fun way (no worksheets) goes a really long way.

So for example I started with blocks with my kids. And showed them how when you join two blocks to one, that makes three. And then I would hide one block, and ask how many were left. Build up to five. Just simple games like that, really help with foundations of learning. And then we would just play with the blocks. Another number recognition game we would play when they were young is I would write out numbers from 1-20 on little pieces of paper and a soft toy would hold each number and then I would hide some of the numbers. And then they would go on a treasure hunt, find the numbers, and put them in the right place. And then we would play some make believe game. And to be honest, I did some of this after nursery or on weekends as I was a working parent.There were weeks we did nothing because I was tired and everyone was sick. I'm not saying this to make anyone feel bad but just that there are simple games you can play to reinforce what he's learning without separating the learning of 'fun' things from what we adults stereotypically see as boring (schoolwork).

So keep doing what you are doing, keep reinforcing what he's learning in a fun way, and it will give him excellent foundations and confidence.

I think you need to stop framing things as being ‘clever’. By wanting to make him feel ‘clever’ you’re also creating that divide. Some children take to reading, some maths, some art, some more practical skills. It doesn’t mean they’re not clever. Some parents like to teach their kids to read, some a musical instrument, some focus on play. There is not one way to do things and I’m sure you don’t mean it, but you do sound a bit judgemental to other parents who don’t parent their children in the same way as you.

I read this book a few weeks ago which might go some to explaining what you've seen. Basically, you're right. Lots of kids are getting lots of support at home giving them an advantage at school.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HMG895WB?utm_source=chatgpt.com

I could read and write when I started school in the early 60s, as could most of my classmates. It was very rare to send children to nursery in those days and teaching children the basics of reading, writing, and numeracy was just something that parents did. I started to teach my daughter to read just before she was four, and she was reading fluently by the time she started Reception in 1997. She could write short sentences and knew her 2 and 10 x tables. I was a volunteer reader in her class for the first couple of years she was at school, and the standard of reading varied hugely. My daughter was one of the better readers, but certainly not the best, and the vast majority of the children could read and write to an extent.

Firstly, it’s good that your teacher is already differentiating in Reception for Phonics.
Yes there will be some that have parents who’ve encouraged them to learn to read before starting school, there will also be some that don’t have a book in their house, sadly. Neither of these things are new.
But the good news is that they’re in Reception and they will make all different types of progress along the way in their learning journey.
I’m an ex teacher and of course DC1 could read a bit when she started school, I thought she was a genius, but we had a very colourful experience of school with her and she dropped out of two universities until getting her 2:1 at 26 years old… I don’t think her reading early impacted that.

The best thing you can do with your son is enjoy books with him and support him to be a wonderful little boy.

Also, kindly, he seems very aware of who goes out to special groups, does he get that from you? Try not to let him focus on that. They all have a range of abilities and SEND so I’m sure you don’t want him to be noticing when Fred goes out to his 1:1 intervention and thinking it’s because he’s not as clever as me.

Keep doing what you’re doing 😊

its interesting to me that it’s happening so much - myself and my husband both work full time (well I’m almost full time) and we eat dinner all together in the evening, and go out together, see family, do play dates on the weekend. We also have a 20 month old toddler. So teaching my child to read is not really possible in the evenings as it’s quite chaotic with the toddler and I’m usually getting dinner ready.

but maybe we need to start making a bit more time to make sure it’s just encouraged more (in a fun way) I don’t want him to fall behind, I just had been quite naive and didn’t realise other families were doing so much before school. Hard to not feel like a failure tbh 😭 to me the most important thing has been eating meals at the table together, playing together, reading them stories and not too much screen time. I didn’t even think about teaching them to read or write (other than encouraging him to write his name) and when his sibling came along it’s also logistically been hard.

I just didn’t realise everyone else was doing it or that I was supposed to - I just thought they would learn it at school and then we encourage it at home

Most nurseries and preschools do a lot of work on the pre-skills for phonics. So working on recognising letters, looking at books, reading in a group, as well as the social skills of sitting and listening, taking turns, having snack time all together etc.

some nurseries and preschools do proper phonics in the year before school - so starting to work on the sounds that letters make, aswell as doing work on writing and fine motor skills.

so it may be the setting rather than the parents.

Agree with @thisismeithinkorisit that writing birthday cards doesn't prove anything. I make mine write birthday cards but for the youngest I have to write out all of the words on a post-it note to copy into the card.

Everything is not always as it appears. My eldest had a kid in their class that could read fluently by age 4 and was seemingly 'ahead' in everything. Now several years on is diagnosed with ASD and ADHD and really struggling to cope in mainstream school.

I used to work in Early Years and always reassured parents that reading and writing is like learning to walk - some children do it really early, others take their time but, unless there are specific difficulties, eventually they all do it and you can’t tell who got there first.

Interestingly all his friends went to the same preschool and nursery. Some are at different schools now (but came to his party so I saw their handwriting) and the ones in his class is what he told me about the groups.

from what I remember at preschool they did a bit of writing their name, number and letter recognition and lots of reading TO them but I don’t think they did full on reading and writing. From what I remember it followed the EYFS for their age group and was all about readying them for school.

now I think about it a lot of them are only children, have parents who are teachers or have an older sibling. I do thibk having a younger sibling who is a very active toddler does make it logistically a bit harder.

@LizFarrell interesting that book. We do really want him to have as many options as possible by giving him a good foundation. Including getting him involved in clubs, music, sport. He’s always been the type to not want to write in a when we ask, but will do it when he wants to, so we try to be careful about putting pressure on as he doesn’t respond well to it. But we do try to encourage without making it like a chore. But maybe we haven’t done enough

Thank you ☺️

no we haven’t mentioned anything about groups or abilities as we didn’t even know it was happening until he mentioned it. We just ask what did you do at school today, who did you play with, did you go outside, what was the phonics letter today. That kind of thing.

My first DD was dyslexic and I knew pretty much straight away.

We had to work really hard on phonics during Reception. We would have phonics everywhere - in the car, in the bedrooms, in the living room and we played loads of letter games!

Well, guess who could read before she started school the next academic year... Her younger sister who happened to be next to her whilst she was learning all of the phonics.

My DD2 turned up at school knowing all of the phonics up to Phase 4, and was reading mid Year 1 books by Christmas of Reception.

My children went to school nursery and they aimed to get the children to be writing their own name and reading CVC before starting reception and in preparation to be able to write a sentence with support by the end of reception.

How are his gross and fine motor skills?

Children with an older dc may well be sitting with mum while the older dc reads.

my ExH learned to read in reception. His brother who was a year younger sat alongside him at home for reading and surprise surprise by the time he went into school he could read a bit.

having said that, surely your dc is getting reading books home from school that you are expected to read to him? Usually the deal is that he reads to you from the school reading book each day.

That’s a good point above. Our school provides print outs to each child of a story using the phonics they are learning we are expected to help them to read to us (a lot of people called Tim and Tam!) as well as a school book we read to them.

I think also it’s completely fine to have different priorities. Some favour doing crafts or outdoor play, etc. I can’t say I have noticed a difference in parents and family set ups as to who can read well and who can’t. The majority of the children in reception go to after school club (they had to open a separate one just for them as there were so many) and the majority of the children are either only children or have a younger sibling.