early reading

[kalidasa]

I hestitate to post here because it is much too early to know if my son will be in this category in any formal way, but I thought there might be a good number of people here with relevant experience. DS1 is 3.4 and is apparently starting to read: he's known letters, numbers etc for a while and has also been 'reading' a small number of words he recognises for a bit (so not really reading obviously) but his keyworker at nursery took me aside yesterday as apparently he is starting to 'sound out' unfamiliar words although this is not really something they do at nursery yet. He's also been writing a bit for a while, although they aren't doing letter formation or anything like that at nursery yet so he forms all the letters in really odd ways and seems to be doing it just from visual memory. He often asks us to spell words so he can write them down. He's still in the toddler room at nursery - he'll move up to the school nursery in September, so not reception for another 17 months. If he is actually starting to read is this going to be a massive headache or is this actually pretty common and nursery/reception will have no problem dealing with it? Should I ask the nursery for any specific advice or is this a non-problem? His keyworker is usually rather laconic but seemed genuinely surprised.

Interesting that two of you also had children doing some writing before reading - I also thought this was odd and so did my mother (who used to teach at primary school, though admittedly back in the 70s) - but reassured to hear that it isn't that unusual.

Good point misti that there is a lot of variation in how they work through the stages. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

I just laughed when people used to ask me how I'd taught DS to read! I DIDN'T, he taught himself. Some children will do this and there isn't any stopping them. The only thing you can do is work with the nursery so that there is some consistency in the approach taken.
Fwiw, DS learnt to read at age two and started reception this year being able to read just about anything. They have ways of challenging him by him taking reading/ phonics classes with older classes and by giving him different work in his class. A good teacher will recognise your DC's needs and plan accordingly, DS loves his teacher and loves going to school.

Oh, and just to add that reading is not a race, the majority of people read to a relatively similar level as adults so the other children will catch up with your DS eventually. The only real issue I've had with DS reading earlier is that some of the content of the things he's read (billboards, posters, adverts) has not been age appropriate; not sure what the answer is to that though.

TheCunkOfPhilomena, issue you are talking about made me laugh!
That is so true. Especially when I'm on MN, I have to be extra careful, because there is Trending/Discussion of the day section on the upper right hand corner of the screen, sometimes with very bad language. He will read it at a glance.

the majority of people read to a relatively similar level as adults so the other children will catch up with your DS eventually.

It's kind of off-topic but I'm not sure this is true - a lot of adults have narrow vocabularies and weak reading comprehension (just read a few MN threads for proof of this!). It is very likely that an early reader, especially one who reads spontaneously rather than by following a formal reading programme, will keep their advantage and that the gap will widen through secondary school. In my experience very early readers often remain unusually competent at language tasks generally (my early reader is now 14 and can read and write to native standard in three languages, including one she's had no formal tuition in.)

It all depends on what you class as "taught". Is pointing to words as you read a book teaching? Is watching TV programmes about reading teaching? Is being given a computer game with letter sounds teaching? Different people have different definitions of what constitutes teaching. If you go back 100 years lots of people got no such input and all of them who were not even shown a book were illiterate at until they started school. If they had no schooling and no other form of teaching, they remained illiterate. On the other hand, dd started to teach herself to read when she was just 17 months old when I showed her some words and sounded out the letters. It is just a matter of degree, but I do not think a child who has absolutely no input could teach themselves by two.

Mistigri, yes, you're right but I mean that most adults will be able to reach a level of competency that allows them to get by and communicate their needs. I completely agree about the differing levels of vocab and you may well have a point about early readers being more confident with languages; I think that a love of and confidence with reading is half the battle!

irvine It's so true! DS asked me what domestic violence was after seeing a poster in some public toilets; I didn't want to have that discussion with a just 4 year old.