I have just been told off for teaching my child to read

[nomedoit]

I'm in the US. My daughter is 3 years, 8 months.

So today we had our preschool conference and I mentioned in passing that I was teaching her to read. Big frown, pursed lips from oldish teacher. You would have thought I'd said that I tied her to the chair and made her recite Latin. All we've done is about ten letter sounds and words like 'mat' and 'sat'.

Is this a US thing? Plenty of people on mn seem to teach toddlers. Are there any disdavantages?

I got told, very disapprovingly, 'That is very advanced and you should be working on fine motor skills instead.'

Surely you can do both? I feel a bit worried now. BTW, I am not a pushy parent! I didn't teach my son to read but my DD was very keen and had all the reading readiness signs. She loves it.

I think it is prob a bit young, I think the problem maybe that to much formal learning at this age maybe at the detriment to other important skills, playing and emotional development. In quite a lot of countries they don't even think about teaching kids to read till they are 7. Lol at loud at making her recite latin!!

I doubt it was a real telling off.

My DD started reading at 2 1/2 and it was her choice.

If she loves it, just keep doing it.

You didn't say if the pre-school had any concerns about her development/progress (esp before you mentioned reading), so is it right to assume not?

Reading isn't formal learning, it depends how you do it. My youngest brother could read pretty fluently at 3 (proper sentences, not just first reader type stuff), he saw us doing it and was desperate to join in!

I think it depends if your child is asking to learn these things and from you post you mention your child is keen.

My DS who is now 3 yrs 9 months learnt his letter sounds from nursery and now likes to sound out a word when reading to his younger brother ( toddler books) and likes to practice writing his letters and numbers.

I'm just letting him take the lead and play his games and give him the answers when he asks.

I think if your child is keen to learn then go with the flow.

If she wats to do it - then do it. My daughter learnt on her 4th birthday with me at home. She got such a buzz from it but has always been a real book worm. She had no interest in Maths at all and we didn't push it.

I don't see the problem. I wanted to learn to read when I was 3, so my mum taught me. Was Reading fluently by 4. Then I felt it was time to be able to do maths (parents both maths teachers) so my mum and dad taught me basic arithmetic.

To be honest I didn't learn much more maths that I didn't understand already until I was about 8 but my social skills were rather lacking and so school helped with them. Once school realised that yes I could read I was able to read books from the school library that were more interesting.

I probably wouldn't have said I was teaching my DD to read - but maybe I am a coward. Would maybe have said something about her finding letters very interesting at the moment.

My ds is the same age as your daughter and is learning to read. We spend about 5 minutes a day on actually structured 'learning' and he loves it. We do that, and just plenty of reading to him. He loves drawing too, and sometimes practicing writing with worksheets. All at his own request. I have a folder of phonics and writing stuff and he picks out what he wants to do.
If she's ready and enjoying it then what's the problem? The teacher was probably a bit worried that your dd might be bored later on when all the other children are learning to read, or that they will teach her differently to how you are teaching her.

Thanks for all the replies. Taraneth, that is the time we spend, about 5 mins a day and she always suggests it. If she doesn't, we don't do it. Not sure how that is supposed to impact on other things. I just feel a bit cross now that I know I am not the only one! The teacher was really disapproving. I am the parent, I know my DD best and I think children are more likely to be disruptive because they are bored in school, not because they can read.

Sounds like you're doing what's best for her. I was reading at 3, without much effort on my mum's part - she was never told off, quite the opposite actually. I think if she had worried what the school would think, and had not let me learn to read, it would have been quite harmful to me really.

I don't think they're going to disapprove of the skill so much as the method, if that makes sense. I think its just that if the class is learning something together, the teacher may just want them all to learn the way she teaches. I wouldn't worry about it, or being disapproved of. I tend to take on board everything my son's teacher says, but if I feel really strongly about something, I will still listen, but just ignore what she's said in practice.

I am an American now living in America, but I used to live in London. I definitely found that the English start teaching reading and writing at a much younger age than anywhere else and certainly than in America. The danger is that you can make a child feel inadequate if you are teaching them skills that they are just not ready for. My ds went to nursery in the uk where the teacher went on and on about his inability to learn how to read and write at age 3/4. My ds is a rather oblivious child and was not traumatized by his teacher's dissatisfaction with his progress and luckily I wasn't too bothered by it either. I just felt he was too young. Even once we came to the US he was a very late learner when it came to reading and writing compared to the other bright kids in his year. However now at age 9, he is one of the most advanced readers in his year and is a fabulous writer if it's done on a computer.

If your dd is picking up reading and is happy, then it's probably fine. The nursery teacher is probably just concerned that you may be trying to get her to do something that most kids are not ready for at that age. And if your dd isn't ready for it, you could turn her off enjoying it when she is. Presumably you know your child well enough to know if she is enjoying it and getting something from it, or just pretending to like it to please you.

Personally, as a teacher, I think that if you wish your child to go to a state school then you should not teach them to read at home. If you do, then when they get to school they will be bored as they will be with children who have not learned how to read, and so the teacher will have to spend most of the time teaching early reading skills. For some children, this is not too much of a problem, other than that they will find parts of the day a little dull and tedious, but other children start to behave badly because they are bored. My personal opinion is that if a child is bright (and a child is bright if he or she is ready to read at age 2 or 3), s/he will pick up reading quickly when s/he gets to school anyway, and it will be a joy for him/her to learn alongside his/her peers. I have also found, and of course this is not true in all cases, that children who have been taught to read at very young ages, can sometimes enter school with other skills, such as the ability to play with other children, or listen to a teacher, missing.

My ds learned all his letters early because he was interested, but as he turned out to be dyslexic it really wasn't helpful at all. If I'd known at that point he was going to have difficulties I would have done letter sounds instead, but not being a teacher I had no idea that it would be a problem. Having said that his school used mixed methods, so he was doubly handicapped.

If I were you I would be careful and research the best way to start, and look for age / development appropriate stuff too. I could read before I went to school, and remember being incredibly bored and frustrated for a lot of the time. My school used a fairly rigid reading scheme, and until I was allowed free reign in the library I used to sit and do nothing during a lot of literacy time, as books that we were supposed to be puzzling out over days took me a few minutes.

I think go with the pace of your child and their interests.

I truely believe that reading is the key to education, so I reckon plenty of reading, putting your finger under each word as you read promotes 'word recognition' and highlighting the 'sound' words as you say them with drama is fun.

I wouldn't worry too much about going through the alphabet, but it wouldn't do any harm if they can write their name when they start reception it's one of the first things they are asked to do for the sake of labelling and that really IS word recognition and the letters are not explained at that point. It's just handy for making sure the right child gets their stuff back.

My ds counted to 20 before he was 2. We lived abroad at the time and I remember phoning my Mum and making her listen to him do it. We thought he was going to be a regular brain box then. However, 6 months later he couldn't do it. He is a bright lad, but being able to memorise things isn't always indicitive of understanding.

In my experience children are going to learn what they want to learn and it's best to go with their interests. Young children don't delineate between work and play in the same way that older children have learnt to do. This means that play is their work, yes, but also that formal learning of things like phonics can feel like play to them if they are interested. If reading is what is fascinating a child they are not going to want to work on fine motor skills or social skills instead unless you can tie those into the reading.

It makes things easier for schools if everyone is at the same level/they have "blank slates" to work on when teaching reading (in the sense of not being used to another method or having bits and pieces of knowledge with gaps) but that in my view is no reason to deprive a child of the thrill of unlocking printed text if that's what they want earlier than they are "supposed" to.

Advanced reading should be fairly easy for a school to cater to surely? my son taught himself to read on the quiet at 3 (he has ASD so very uneven development) and it is a great asset for him now he is 4 and in reception as he can read at school when things get stressful.

then again I'm not a teacher, my mum is a reading specialist, I've been book-obsessed since 18 monts old and I have a hyperlexic child and another word-crazed toddler, so I'm a) biased and b) not an expert except on my own experience so feel free to take my opinions with a pinch of salt

It does seem to be a UK thing - parents seem to be desperate to get their children reading as young as possible, even before they are potty trained in some cases.

In Belgium we have been told not to teach our children how to read (because the schools do a very good job of teaching them altogether) but instead concentrate on other skills such as drawing, sewing, riding a bike and swimming.

It might be a UK thing because formal education starts so early here, there's just so much pressure to get ahead iyswim. Not that I'm pressuring ds. I don't think I could stop him learning to read if I tried. I think you're right though that there seems to be too much focus on academic studies here rather than practical life skills.

Why should you not want to encourage your child in something that they are interested in? We all encourage our children to walk and talk, but I can't see why some teaching professionals have a dim view on children reading earlier than is "the norm". I have 3 DDs, aged 9, 6 and 2, and the eldest two are bookworms, hence youngest DD sees her sisters with books all the time.

Cue recently the 2 year-old is recognising some letters in books and street signs, and is asking "what does that say mummy?" on an increasingly frequent basis, she "Writes letters" (?!) and tells stories to her cuddly toys. So am I supposed to stop any kind of encouragement because she is too young? At the rate she is going she will probably be reading quite well by the time she starts school. I await the reaction with interest!.

My ds read at three, and we did nothing to make that happen, he was just interested. All we used to do was read whatever book he chose, and followed the words with our fingers while we read.

I think if they are intersted, it's fine. But in many cases it can be more useful to do other things that encourage literacy skills. Like getting them to be able to recognise their name in a variety of contexts and fonts, seeing that print comes in may forms and that it gives us information in so many different ways. Getting them to recognise the letters of their name in other contexts.

The only problem with teaching them too early is that there are many different methods used to teach reading. If what you are teaching conflicts with what the future teacher does, then you are making the teachers job harder, and making it harder for your daughter to learn whilst confusing her.

It can be difficult in these situations. I have had parents teach their children to write their names in all capital letters, but at school they will want the child to use a capital for the first letter only. It's very hard trying to prepare a child for school when the parents are doing what they think is right for their child, but actually they are just confusing them. It is much easier for a child to learn when they have a blank slate, rather than having to unpick other knowledge first.

@sims2fan
I'm also a teacher and I'm afraid I have a different opinon! There is no reason not to let a child start sounding out letters early and some children WILL pick up reading skills easily. Obviously it is only a good idea if it is child led...there's no advantage to pushing them into reading early otherwise. Once they get to school it is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that your child is not bored and differentiates teaching and resources so your child makes progress.

I was in hospital a lot from 18 months until I was 3 years old. I was massively bored so mum started teaching me the basics of reading. I'm an avid reader to this day (am 28). It was a fun game we played in the hospital was all I knew.

|I get a bit cross when people say there's a 'right time' for everything for every child.

There are huge advantages for children who arrive at school being able to read and it only takes a few minutes each day to help them on their way. If your child isn't ready/interested just leave it for a few months.
It?s not generally realised that many (most?) Teacher Training institutes spend zilch amount of time teaching their students about the basis of written English ? the alphabetic code. And so, in the UK ? and in America and Australia ? we have a majority of early years? teachers lacking the necessary foundations to teach all children to read. We've an absurd situation here in my neck of the woods, where the city of Oxford has the worst results in the country for 7 year olds and the 3rd worst for GCSE results. Why? Because Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities refuse to give their students the foundational knowledge they need. So billions are squandered on inappropriate ?catch-up? programmes. This really impacts on almost all children at secondary level ? children who are mistaught are unlikely to be able to cope with the secondary curriculum, are likely to disrupt classes and to end up with low self-esteem leading to a vicious cycle of bullying. These are the kids who have little or no prospects; it?s tragic for them, but their lack of basic education affects nearly all children.

It?s ridiculous to think that teachers can?t differentiate ? fill the classrooms with wonderful books and let those children who can already read, loose amongst the books. Is that difficult? That?s what they did with my dd many moons ago. Instead all this money is now being wasted on ?Catch-Up? programmes and labelling children as problems.

Lot?s of synthetic phonics programmes are excellent for teaching little children ? Jolly Phonics springs particularly to mind. And should anyone doubt that early reading is rewarding, stimulating and fun, have a look at this 7 minute clip

There is self-interest ? but the link is posted here to give encouragement to everyone, no matter which alphabetic code (synthetic phonics?) programme is chosen to teach early reading.

Go for it!

As a reception teacher for many years I loved it when some of the class arrived already reading. You can't make children learn things they aren't developmentally ready to do nor can you prevent children learning unless you lock them away from the world.