At what age?

[shadycharacter]

Forgive my ignorance, but..

My 3.4 DS is sitting on the floor "reading" to himself. Obviously he is just telling the stories from memory and by using pictures, but was just thinking, when should I be trying to get him to concentrate on actually reading and recognizing the words?

He can recognize his name but he cannot write it yet, tbf it is a 9 letter name. When should he be able to write his name?

What about wiping his own bottom, should he be doing that by now?!

How about tying laces?

Also at what age do children usually start adding and subtracting? I don't want to overwhelm him but since I have all day at home with him (other than the 2 days he's at preschool) I feel it's time to structure things a bit more and do some academic learning as well as playing. I realize he learns through play but not things like reading and writing, or does he?!

All of my mum friends have children below 2, so I don't really have anyone to compare with!

Hi

I think the asnwer is, when they're ready.

I actually wouldn't structure too much, but if he is in the mood, and wants to sit with a book, read with him and play games as you do so - work out what the characters are thinking, find words beginning with a certain letter etc.

As for number, it's really lots of games at that age. Snakes and Ladders, counting games, etc. We do lots of number games in the car.

Some rough idea - my eldest is 7 but reads 9 to 10 year old books now. He didn't read until he was 5, but could recognise his letters etc by 4.

He started adding up etc by 5, but could thrash me at most Board games by the time he went to school.

He still can't tie his laces:)

Hi

I didn't really bother with structure. We had an alphabet puzzle and read lots to her. We counted lots of things - some of the counting books are great.

Pre-school taught her the alphabet - starting with singing the alphabet song together. And she learnt to write her name at pre-school.

Once she started school, the phonics was very structured and taught in a particular way and I then found the phonics flash cards someone had bought us came in handy to back up the level they were on at the time.

There were a couple of dcs who could read before reception class but they still had to go through all the phonics lessons to ensure that they'd learnt to sound out and blend letters, rather than memorising words I think.

Wiping bum - around 4 but definitely before starting reception class as there's not many staff to help with these things then.

Tying shoelaces - mine can't do this - although we have velcro shoes and she's 5.5 now.

Just go along with what he's interested in really I would say.