Reading before school - what's normal?

[jaype]

Hope this is the right board... my ds is just over 4, born early Feb. He's currently at a local primary school's nursery and has been learning letters, sounds and so on but my husband is trying to encourage him at home. However, it seems to take ages if at all for anything to 'stick' with him. Husband spent about 3 20 min sessions this evening trying to get him to spell out then form the word 'was' in a book. 5 mins later he asked to read the book with his dad but had totally forgotten it again. Husband is (internally, not in front of him) getting very impatient with him and wondering if he has learning difficulties! He's our first, so is this normal?

totally agree with mollycherry my dd is 3y8m and very interested and sits practising.Can write mummy, daddy her name etc and are slowly working our way through alphabet phonetically. Elc has some great stuff to help. Some children are very determined and some are more laid back, but just let them decide when and how much and it really keeps them interested. it may seem like ur going no-where and then everything all comes at once. stick with it and good luck.

my dd's is 3.10yrs old and is in the preschool (nursery) and cant read or write atm...not worried as they dont do all that till they are in the primary school (she will be 5 then so thats a big different than being 3). i dont force my dd but she does recognise her own name on paper and thats it

3 x 20 min reading sessions with a pre school child is way too much time, I think your husband's expectations may be too high. Reading should be fun at this age, too. If you put them off it with too much pressure now, they may never enjoy it.

Children can concentrate for their age+2 in minutes. So 6 minutes for a 4 year old. Please please stop with what you are doing- you will put him off learnng for life.

My dd was 5 when she started school and took quite a while to pick up reading. SHe was just not ready for it.

She is now 9 with a reading age of 13 and achieved the same level as a child 2 years older at the end of year 4 tests.

Yes you might come across the odd 4 year old who can read but these kids often plateau later on and others catch up.

"Children can concentrate for their age+2 in minutes. So 6 minutes for a 4 year old."....unless it involves Cbeebies in which case 'children can concentrate for their age +2 in HOURS

My DS is nearly 5 (in Oct) and is starting Recpetion in the next week or so. He has been attending a Nursery 4 mornings per week. He knows a few letters but does not recognise words (apart from Play which is from playing games on the computer.

There is no way he could attempt to read a book. He has many pre reading skills and once in Reception his teacher will build on these.

BTW I am a teacher.

I think your DH is being a bit ambitious and may even put him off the joy of learning to read.

agree with smartiejake.
leave the poor child alone unless you are really keen to put him completely off reading forever.

My DD is at a selective school - some ofthe highest results in the country. They BEGGED us not - absoloutely NOT to try and teach the girls to read !
In fact they barely start reading in pre prep. REception year is to tecah children to attend and concentrate and hopefully to start to love learning.
Please don't kill that excitement to learn off before we even get to September

But Pag what if a child is leading things? Some children really do do this.

What if at 3 they are asking you to spell words out quite a lot, they are starting to sound words out, should you say to them:
"sorry dear but you'll have to wait a year or two until you start school"

There's a huge difference between pushing a child or overly encouraging them and being led by them. I totally agree that pushing a child into reading is a bad thing but if they are encouraging you to help them with it it's a different situation.

I'm not saying that by teaching my ds to read I'm somehow going to make him magically more adept at reading for his entire school career but if he is asking to do it, it's hard to say no.

It seems to have been much more common to teach children to read, tell the time etc before going to school in the past. My MIL put the wind up me by saying she had taught all her children to read before going to school, and I think my mum did the same. So it's nice (for me) to read threads like this and feel that my instinct not to teach ds is right. I sometimes ask him what the first sound is on a word - because he seemed to like it - but I have stopped again because it started to bother him. I think the experience of learning to read at school will be amazing for him. Hope so, anyway.

I think at that age if your DH wants to do something with him, then teaching to recognise his letters might be a simpler way to start. My DD1 is 4.8 adn starts school tomorrow (eeek) and I just couldn't get her to engage in learning letters until she became interested iin it, then she learnt fairly fast and now recognises quite a lot of them.
To jump straight to trying to sound out words, before laying the groundwork is always going to be frustrating, because he probably just isn't ready yet, or interested. It still takes her quite a while to regularly remember a letter too.

Molly - don't worry, dh taught dd1 the alphabet at 18 months - he used the spread the wooden letters on the floor and shout at letters at random and she would find them and hold them up. their little party trick. scary.
mind you, at 8, she's finished the harry potter shelf and is off digging around in all sorts of unsuitable stuff... be warned. i didn't let dh anywhere near the other two, and they've still managed to teach themselves to read before school, presumably by osmosis...

that said, i think they are equally as 'normal' as any other reception year kids - a huge range of ability. i'm staggered how yr R teachers cope!

was?????? try dog or cat or something like that. Was is not a good word to start with on any level.

chipmunk
of course thats not what I was saying !

"some children really do this" Yes I know - as it happens Ds1 was reading well before school - stuff he picked up when I read to him and as we walked to school - signs and street names and stuff.And he used to write me notes .I still have his Evrie dai I wood likee a hot watee botool...

That is not what I was talking about. I was talking about the people who were suggesting sitting their child down to do 'sessions'.

Some kids get it early and love it - others come later and love it. But children who sense pressure ( however subtle or unconcious) may start to hate it.

Ok cross-purposes - I totally agree with you on the sitting down for sessions thing.

Ime you just can't force them into something they aren't ready for and it does sound that way in the OP.