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Preschool education

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When can we start on books?

10 replies

EvilEyeButterPie · 14/10/2010 15:40

DD1 is now blending her sounds into short words, and I have some basic reading books all ready (I do Usborne, so I have this set and quite a few other picture books all ready for her.

I don't want to start too early and put her off, but at the same time I don't want to leave it too late and miss the best window for her, given that she is so keen.

The first words she would have to read in that scheme would be "tap tap tap" so can I maybe start seeing if she knows that word out of context, or is that the wrong way?

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piscesmoon · 14/10/2010 23:06

How old is she? I wouldn't rush if she is very young. Go to the library and have lots of fun reading together-if she is ready she will pick it up anyway. (I am assuming that she is under 5yrs) You can't 'miss the best window' she will learn in her own time.
Do a lot with letters-play lotto games etc.

FreudianSlippery · 15/10/2010 08:15

Marking place :) (it's mathsmadmummy here)

EvilEyeButterPie · 15/10/2010 09:13

She is 3.5yo. I know it's not a race, and it doesn't matter in the long run, or at all academically, but it feels mean to deny one of the greatest joys in life to her just because she is under 5, if that makes sense?

I know both me and DH were reading by this age, and we are pretty much decided that she will start school next year, so she won't really have time to learn then, unless she is lucky and gets a school that fits her well, and the idea of sitting after a full day of school with a tired child saying "c - a - t" just doesn't seem as nice a way of learning as full days playing with words and books like I can offer now. I understand that if she wasn't ready, it would be best to wait, but I suspect she is, and would hate to make her stick at this level for no reason other than her age- that is one of my worst fears about school, that she will be pushed or held back simply due to when she happened to be born.

...or am I talking nonsense? (Be gentle!)

OP posts:
piscesmoon · 15/10/2010 09:55

Very gently Smile you are talking nonsense. (However do pick your school carefully). School differentiate the work and she isn't going to be saying 'c - a- t -they do actually make it fun!
If she is ready you can't hold her back. DH was a fluent reader at 3 yrs but no one taught him-he followed the words when his parents read to him. I can't remember learning to read, but I remember vividly picking up a book with no pictures in the infant class and finding that I could read it-I was a book worm from then on.
At the age of your DD the joy of books comes with sharing with an adult so she isn't missing anything.
By all means teach her to read, if she shows an interest, but be child led and play games, sing rhymes etc.

FreudianSlippery · 15/10/2010 14:13

BP I thought you were HEing? what did I miss? hope everything is ok x

DingALongCow · 15/10/2010 14:57

When DD was that age I had to same dilemma, reading is such a joy for Dh and myself and I rejoiced when we saw signs of this in DD. In the end I left it and didnt buy any special books. Instead we went to the library 3 times a week and I would read anything she wanted whilst we were there + lots to take home (she liked this, she was always begging to go). I taught her the odd word like 'the' and 'at' and stopped so that she could read them if she wanted when I was reading a book to her. I also helped her learn the phonic alphabet and we read signs and things while we were out and about. There is a lot you can do without starting her on a reading scheme.

Once she went to school everything accelerated, she had the basics but school has consolidated it more than I could have imagined. She has a reading age of 8 at 5 and devours books. The school started her at the bottom- pictures with one word but were very good at moving her quickly so she has zipped through the reading levels very fast. At home we provide her with all the reading material she wants.

EvilEyeButterPie · 15/10/2010 15:00

I was going to, but we have decided against it (for the moment at least)

The financial situation atm is just too precarious :( If one of us loses our job, we will really struggle, and with the cuts, we can't justify not trying the kids at school at least.

OP posts:
FreudianSlippery · 15/10/2010 15:39

oh that's a shame :(

I remember how excited you were about it. but, at least they will have the chance to try it. we're sending DD to school as well, I miss her even at preschool but she's flourishing there.

she is interested in reading but she won't be an early reader (though DH and I were both reading before 3) - she's just not built that way I think. much more into numbers like her mum :o

piscesmoon · 15/10/2010 17:27

As long as you foster a real joy of books the rest will come. The library is the best resource-choosing her own books. There is no point in learning to decode if they don't have the joy.

vesela · 17/10/2010 11:38

DD is the same age (3.5) and loves anything that involves actively playing with letters/phonemes (me writing things for her, trying to write herself, writing on the computer, playing with magnetic letters).

We live abroad and so I'm teaching her to read in English, on a slow and gradual basis. She's always been interested in letters and sounds, although like anything else it tends to go in phases. She's at the same stage as your DD in that she can hear the sounds in CVC words and, going the other way, can blend them together. So I bought her the first Songbirds set to see if she was interested, but although she was enthusiastic about "some books I can read by myself", something didn't click - maybe because they don't seem like books as she knows them (the Usborne ones are different on that count, obviously). She's more interested in picking out occasional words from her actual books - she finds it especially funny when they're elongated words such as "Aaaaahhhhh" and "Sssshhhh" and Muuummm" from Charlie and Lola.

So I stick to the writing and drawing-based things that she enjoys. Basically, if it involves felt tips and a pad of paper, she likes it. Something she enjoys a lot is when I make up those "join the word and the picture with a line" games, the sort you find in activity books - five or so three-letter words, then draw five pictures next to them in the wrong order, and she works out what the words say and draws a line to the right picture.

(Last time she said "It's my turn to do one for you!" So she wrote "ioa" - about the only three letters she can write. Then she said "What did I write? - Eeeyore! and did a picture of Eeyore.)

We seem to do a fair bit over breakfast on weekend mornings, as it comes up - e.g. today she started wondering what made ball and suggesting "b, then u", so I wrote down all the words ending in -all I could think of.

She goes to a Montessori preschool (in Czech) where the philosophy is - if they're interested, go with it. They do Czech literacy things with the older children and they have no objection to the younger children joining in - they wouldn't if they weren't interested, is their way of looking at it. (Also, Montessori herself said that children are interested in "writing" before reading, and I think there's a lot in that).

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