Hi fellow mums/mums to be
I’m looking for parenting advice on what to do about a 4 year old (almost 5) who is very resistant to learning. I’m trying to teach her how to read, and she’s doing ok, but it’s really hard getting her to focus for 3-5 minutes. She either zones out, or zones in so much that she asks numerous random questions.
she also tries to get my attention by pretending not to know things. I often have to level with her and say something like ‘look mummy is really tired today, can you just stop this and read it, she will read the page without an issue.
The Oxford reading books for her age group are very shorty. It could take us 3-5min to read the book but her lack of concentration means it can take 15-20minutes. If I were to follow her guide and stop when she stops showing interest, we would not get past the title. She has zero interest in learning anything.
Any advice on how to deal with this would be much appreciated.
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Parenting
4yo resistant to learning
Izzymay · 03/08/2022 11:35
Izzymay · 03/08/2022 19:59
I have to say I’m astounded at how judgemental and sanctimonious some of you sound. You don’t know me or my child and you’ve assumed a lot. I have a bright girl, and 4 going on 5 is a perfectly normal time to start teaching children how to read. And when I say start I don’t mean reading bleak house. I mean phonics, and simple 2-3 letter words. Some of you are talking to me as if I’m a Victorian mum who is forcing a 1 year old to read love and war. Calm down.
If you are principally against teaching your child at home and taking an interest in their education, that’s you life, enjoy. Other people exist on this planet who don’t do things your way. I know weird. But we exist. So if you don’t have anything useful to say, and your only opinion is quelle horreur a 4 year old learning. Take your sanctimonious drivel and place it .. someplace not on this thread. Thanks.
Izzymay · 03/08/2022 15:27
Hi everyone thank you for all your advice.
She’s not home schooled, she’s enrolled at local primary school. But schools in our area are not very good, so parent participation is always required.
A lot of you mentioned she might be too young to learn. But she’s already learned a fair amount. I don’t feel like it’s an ability issue, because she will act as if she can’t read - then I will tell her ‘please don’t annoy mummy today I’m tired’ … then magically she will read fine. If it was a lack of ability to read, she wouldn’t be able to do it no matter how much I ‘level’ with her. So that’s what makes me think it’s an attitude/behaviour issue. I feel like she’s trying to get my attention by being difficult.
Ive tried lots of different ways to teach all same result. I’ve tried apps too - it over excites her.
Someone suggested going with the flow regarding her questions if it’s about the story. I’ve tried this too. And honestly it’s a lot, because she’s using the questions to distract from reading. So there’s no end to the questions. She will just keep generating new ones. One night I tried this we spent 8 minutes talking about Chip and Biffs shoes 😆
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Pinkflipflop85 · 04/08/2022 09:00
Please don't start reading story books aloud to her with you sounding out the words. This is a terrible idea.
Read them properly so that the story is engaging, so that she can learn about fluency and expression, so that she can talk about what she has listened to.
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