Learning to read - does it make a difference...

[SoupDragon]

...when they do it? I always thought it was important to learn to read early. Certainly I could read books by the time I started infant's school just before I was 5.

DSs go to a school where they don't teach them to read. I mean, they must be teaching them to read somehow but it's not the "learn these words" sort of way. DS1 couldn't really read anything when he finished reception - I doubt he would have managed the "words they should recognise" list. Ye half way through year 1, it's clicked and he can read virtually anything, making a very good stab at very complicated words too.

I was always of the opinion that they should learn to read very early because that's what both DH and I did. I don't remember not being able to read at all and therefore don't remember learning so I don't know how it worked (although I believe Sesame Street played a part!!) I trusted that DSs school knew what they were doing and it seems that they actually do - their methods work.

So, does it actually mean anything that a child can recognise the 50 words at the end of reception? Does it matter if they can recognise them at the start of reception? I'm beginning to think not.

DH is keen to start DS2 reading before he starts in reception whereas I think it's more important to concentrate on making reading appear a fun and useful activity - I don't want DSs to think it's a chore.

This is meant as a discussion really, I'm not after advice I'm just curious. I am truly amazed at how the reading suddenly clicked with DS1 and how he can read even difficult words very soon after really starting to read by himself.

From personal experience I think it depends very much on how things are handled by the school. I was a year ahead and "top of the class" in most subjects for most of my school years. then we moved area and i went to a school which insisted i had to be with my peers and it was horrendous. I was left on my own with a textbook for the best part of 2 years and lost all intrest/motivation. Because I was teaching myself I didn't always geasp things fully before moving on or avoided topics that i didn't find easy-peasy. When I moveds schools again they found some glaring deficiencies in my maths! Those 2 years were completely miserable as I was bored rigid and picked on by pupils and staff for being "too bright" (and i wasn't a show-off, but everyone knew I did different work because I was ahead).

Erm... Of course it's not "necessarily a good thing"! I can't believe anyone would think that. Crikey!

No, kbear, I think it's a bad thing. And I've had one of each. Dd1 has spent her primary school years being alternately bored/stroppy/argumentative, and getting hysterically upset whenever she couldn't do something immediately.

Whereas ds is in the top 25% of his class but not outstandingly good. He copes well with the work, but needs to make an effort to do really good work, and has the added advantage of getting encouragement and input from kids who are more able than him. He came home the other day all excited about negative numbers (he's in Y1!!) It turns out that another boy in his group had told them that it is possible to take a larger no. away from a smaller one and gone on to explain at some length what would happen if you did. Fantastic, and something that has never happened to dd1.

Chipmonkey, yes, there are words that don't conform to regular spelling patterns, but a large proportion of English words can be decoded with a relatively small number of rules IF the children have been taught the sound-letter combinations and the rules that apply to them in a structured and coherent way. I'm an academic linguist, so I do know what I'm talking about. Read Diane McGuiness's book if you don't believe me.

This child's mother thinks its fantastic and whilst we are all proud of our children's achievements I think she can't see the problems and potential problems ahead. At DD's birthday party, the other girls seemed a bit bored with this child who kept on saying "I know" and "this is how you spell it" etc when we were playing some games and doing some craft stuff. This mother is forever storming into school with special requests about how best to accommodate her child's special requirements!

...and I realise you can't change this child's academic abilities and you wouldn't want to but I wonder how they manage this in a class of 30. I imagine they can't provide LSAs to help out.

Frogs - didn't know you were an academic linguist. Have you encountered "Thrass chart" and if so what do you think of it? DD2 has been taught this method of reading in school and is reading well but her spelling is often poor. Don't know if there is a connection though.

I didn't know you were an academic linguist either! Tell us more!

Interesting point about the spelling Yoyo. DS1 just "learned to read", ds2 has been taught phonics in a very consistent way. He's a superb reader (almost 6 now), very similar to ds1 at that age. But he is not a confident speller, and will tend to spell irregular words 'phonetically' rather than knowing and remembering how they are actually spelled.

Hmm... I'm not explaining this very well am I? He can spell the high frequency words (what, are, you, etc.), but with less familiar words at this stage ds1 would 'know' (=remember? but without having 'learned') how to spell them. DS2 doesn't, and seems more hung up on writing the sounds he hears.

Do you think this will pass?

Some schools still have a very long way to go to support those who can already read. In reception dd1 was given work appropriate to her ability but there seemed to be no logical follow on when she moved to class one - it seemed that every time she moved class she had to "prove herself" again. The "discussions" I had with teachers...she was bringing home pre-readers from school and reading "The Secret Garden" at home for eg.
Still in Y6 she hates group reading because a few of her group don't get it and are painfully slow. Similarly ds hates group reading - though dyslexic he is v bright but ends up with baby books with little content. Funny I can always find good books at home (big thumbs up to Barrington Stoke publishers for anyone in the same position) and Phonographix, though dull (for me), works wonders. He's been out of school since October while we've been abroad and his reading has improved so much more quickly than while he was at school. For the sake of his education I don't have the heart to send him back.

I don't think it matters when they learn to read as long as it isn't too late - I mean, in the UK system, unfortunately if they're not ready to learn at 4 or whatever they can end up feeling really discouraged by 6 - whereas in another system they wouldn't have had to be forced before 6, IFYSWIM. I know quite a few children who have just taken off around 6 and caught up really quickly, but they can spend the first couple of years feeling 'left behind'. Actually I feel that DS1, who learned to read in reception because he couldn't avoid it (ie they taught it to him and he picked it up), learned before he was emotionally or intellectually ready for it, and this perversely turned him off. Teachers etc kept saying "Oh, you're really good at this - here's something harder", but he was 4 and didn't want to read anything harder - he wanted to read easy Biff and Chip books and have lots of books read to him. It's only now, at 6.5, that his own desire to read has caught up with his ability, and that he is finally seeing reading as a source of pleasure rather than a chore. DS2, on the other hand, is interested in sounding out words now at 3.5, so I have encouraged this as long as he is keen.
FWIW, my brother, an able mathematician, taught himself to read with "Peter and Jane" style books at about 3, but never enjoyed fiction and rarely reads as an adult. I didn't learn until I went to school, but haven't stopped reading since, studied literature and consider book buying my most active hobby.......

Roisin - DD2 has no problem with the high-frequency words either! She knows all the combinations of letters that make the sounds, eg. ou and ow, but doesn't seem to have an intuitive sense of when to use them. DD1 has always been good at spelling and was taught to read in a rather haphazard way. I think DD2 is reading at about the same level as DD1 did at that age but she doesn't have the voracious appetite for books that DD1 had.

Her teachers think her spelling is fine and that she gets things wrong because she is in a rush to write and has lots to say, and her vocabulary is quite advanced. I am keeping a close eye on her at the moment just to see if there is a pattern in the way she misspells words.

I agree, SoupDragon - that's why I think starting them at 4 is too early for many children. My older son could do it, but didn't want to, whereas some others aren't ready to at all, just like DS2 still isn't ready to pedal his trike even though most of his contemporaries have been doing it for ages. Fortunately (for DS2!) no-one apart from me really cares about the trike riding, but the reading is such a big part of early school now. Of course I know there are some children who want to read before 4, or who just pick it up anyway, so it's great to encourage them if they want to.
I also think 4 is way to early for handwriting for many children, mine included, and that is also a big turn-off - persistent remedial handwriting exercises from DS1's Y1 teacher were really counterproductive for him.

it's not so much the when that's important, as the HOW that matters.

Some children pick reading up easier and earlier than others. SOme struggle and it wouldn't matter how early they began, it's getting the teaching method right that's crucial.

However, reading as an auditory and a visual activity but it is the auditory side that is the most challenging. All babies are born with superb auditory skills - they have to be able to discriminate all the individual sounds of our language in order to learn how to speak and comprehend it. However, this ability diminishes as the years go on, so that by the end of childhood, if this skill hasn't been reinforced, it can lost forever.

That's why if the auditory side isn't developed with regard to reading then it can be lost and the struggling reader will only have a visual memory to rely on and if that is weak, then reading can forever remain a struggle.

There is also much debate about early years education and how 'formal' it should be. It has been shown, though, that while children in the early years learn best through child-initiated activities and play, that rigorous phonics teaching can be multi-sensory and fun and a perfect example of best early years practice rather than the drill and kill that people can perceive it to be without any better knowlegde.