Why is MN so obsessed with reception reading?

[skiphopskidaddle]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. It doesn't matter if Johnny is on red and Amy is on lilac as (a) different schools go at different paces and (b) children develop different skills in different order.

I can't quite believe the number of reception reading threads I've seen this week along the lines of "what colour book is yours on?". I'm going over to the behaviour/development board now to check for obsessive posting about when children learn to walk. Cos it doesn't matter either, in general.

Yes, children need more than a quick filling in in Reception. No they do not get this even in a good quality nursery or Reception class. If they did, they would not fall behind in large numbers in reading, and other subjects that demand reading and comprehension of a wide vocabulary, after age 8-9. The reality is that it is children's vocabulary and language exposure and not teaching them to read (by any means) that will determine their success in reading in the long run. Yes, they would be hobbled by not learning to read ever, but that skill alone will not guarantee success for them in school. It is language and vocabulary at the outset of school that determines who will fail and who will succeed -- demonstrating that early years attempts at filling in of the gap are inadequate. That is not just my opinion. Research has demonstrated that again and again.

Written media provide the richest reading experience of all, hands down, on that we can agree. However, most children will never read material that could widen their horizons to the extent that it could. They hit a wall at age 8-9 while others forge ahead at that stage. The dividing line lies in ease of comprehension although to some extent the persistence and resilience of individual children themselves will make a difference. Those with a wide vocabulary and a so-called intuitive grasp of language (which actually comes from constant exposure to it from the youngest ages) experience reading success while those who find it difficult and frustrating and slow generally do only what is necessary in order to do ok in school and gradually give up reading for pleasure or knowledge.

Try learning Russian by reading without vocabulary or knowledge of syntax, verbs, grammar, etc., MaizieD. See how far that will get you when you attempt to read something that demands a wide vocabulary and exposure to complex sentences; when the rules of oral Russian are internalised it becomes much easier to comprehend what you're reading.

When teaching children who are English language learners to read you will be more successful in the long run if you teach them to read in their first language either before transitioning to English or simultaneously with English reading. 'Effective Reading Programmes For English Language Learners: A Best Evidence Synthesis' illustrates my point. When teaching children reading in any language, longer exposure to good quality oral language bodes best for their success. The paper I linked to (which is a synthesis of good quality research, as opposed to the report of a single experiment) states clearly that best evidence strongly indicates that ESL children's success in learning to read English (including success at later stages of school) can be predicted by the quality and quantity of their vocabulary in their first language (along with the recommendation that reading in the first language plus reading in English, or English following hot on the heels of the first language should be the approach). The implications should be obvious to you, but here they are -- language and vocabulary are essential foundations of learning to read initially and progressing to development of higher level reading skills.

I didn't consciously teach my 3-4.5 year olds to read. They surprised me, and I worried about them whether they would be bored in school, whether they would neglect maths for instance, when the time came to work at something that might not come to them as easily as reading did, whether someone would misguidedly make some sort of big thing about it and have them thinking they were freaks of some kind. Children need to know how to learn, to experience logical thought and learn how to approach challenges in a methodical way phonics teaches those skills in spades. I worried that my children had missed out on that 'learning to learn' experience. I didn't have to. I recognised that children learn in a myriad of different ways.

I disagree mathanxiety good nurseries and reception class provide language experiences for children so they not only develop a rich vocabulary but become skilled communicators. In the school where I work we have had 2 children fail to get to a reading standard we see as necessary, which incidentally is higher than the government targets, in the past 12 years (both left us to go to special schools).

And I can think of three in the last fourteen or so years - all three with a diagnosis of autism, one to a special school after us and two to SILCS.

Boys struggling with reading at age 11 -- map.

'In 962 primary schools fewer than 60% of pupils can write a proper sentence using commas..'

'Thousands of boys start secondary school barely able to read' and thousands of girls do too. '...the statistics have cast doubt upon the success of government schemes to eradicate sub-standard reading skills among a minority of children. Over the past decade, the previous government spent more than £25m on early years education.'

So it's very obviously not just an isolated few who have some sort of extraordinary problem who don't learn to read.

And reading involves comprehension, not just decoding.

Luckily in Feenie's school and mine (where children get good phonics grounding) we have no such issues in reading (including comprehension) or writing

Mathanxiety says: When teaching children who are English language learners to read you will be more successful in the long run if you teach them to read in their first language either before transitioning to English or simultaneously with English reading.
I wonder how does this square with Welsh-medium schools, where many of the children do not have Welsh as a first language, but learn to read in Welsh first.
As I understand it, they learn to read English almost as a by-product, but does this mean they don't do the English phonics?
(Contrary to appearances, Welsh is easier to read and spell, as the letter/sound correspondances are more regular than English.)

'Warning over reading standards as children shun tough books'

'Books in the home boost children's education'. It is interesting to note that the two subject areas of books in the home that appeared to have the biggest impact were history and science, where writing style and vocabulary are both different from the sort of vocab and style in the average reading curriculum at primary level.

'Children to be taught how to speak properly' 'Anna Wright, director of children's services at Reading Council, said: " Children from poor homes have smaller vocabularies, which don't contain many abstract ideas. This makes it more difficult for them to make connections between words and to move to abstract concepts and to higher-order thinking about causes, effects and consequences."

'Eradicating word poverty; building word wealth' This article doesn't seem to appreciate the possibilities of 'show and tell' in the hands of the right teacher, but here's a quote anyway:
'...even early years teachers are battling to make up for a poor linguistic start in life. By the age of just three, according to the [Rose] review, children from impoverished environments use less than half the number of words spoken by their more advantaged peers.

This "word poverty" is serious because of the fundamental relationship between language and thought.'

My DD was 4.3 years when she started learning phonics, not 5 mrz.

I am sure good early years settings do manage to teach children to read etc but what is startling is what happens when these children get to secondary school. Surely there is a link between what happens at primary school and at secondary school. Isn't 42% the average of children achieving 5 GCSEs? It just goes to show that starting EARLIER than Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Sweden, Finland, etc etc (too long a list)has NO long term educational benefits at all.

So why not just forget the phonics, forget the reading books, forget the numeracy and ICT and the countless strucured activities and let the children have 4-5 hours of play from ages 3-6 and then start at 6 with lessons and formal learning? At 6-7 then can learn to concentrate for longer periods of time which is more beneficial in terms of learning. Then you wouldn't have to repeat everything all the time. 9-2 every day with perhaps Friday off.

magdalene - as has been explored already on this thread and others, not all languages are equal when it comes to learning to read. The spelling of eg Italian or Spanish is entirely regular; the spelling of English is very complex. Hence it takes a lot longer to read in English. Which is a good reason for starting to learn to read a little earlier if we want children to be at a similar reading/writing level to their peers in other countries.

then how do you explain the fact that other English speaking countries start at 6 or 7?

Which English-speaking countries are you thinking of, magdalene?

US and Canada and Australia.
Also look to the Cambridge Primary Review written by educationalists (not ministers or parents wanting to get rid of their children for free to accommodate working hours) which states that children should start formal education at 6

Australia - depends which state you live in. Compulsory education starts in Y1 but free, universal, full-time pre-school education means children begin at rising 5.

Can you please remember that systematic, structured synthetic phonics has not been the 'guidance' for the initial teaching of reading in EY/KS1. Children going into KS3 now will have had the mish mash of mixed methods promoted by the previous National Literacy Strategy.

It was grave concerns about the (non)effectiveness of the NLS (in that it did not, after an initial improvement, greatly affect literacy levels) which led to the Rose Inquiry & Report and the radical change to the guidance on the teaching of reading which schools are supposed to have implemented in Sept 2007.

There are now two points to note:

First, that any children who have been taught as recommended by the current guidance, from YR, are currently only in Y3. It is another four years before the effects of the change in guidance can be expected to be felt at secondary.

Second, it is very obvious, from posts on this forum alone, that many, many schools are not teaching reading as recommended in the guidance, so the effects will be diluted.

It could be, if long term results start to improve, that in the future there might not be so much emphasis on an early start to reading.

Pre school education in Australia is that like kindergarten malaleuca?

I don't understand this rush to learn to read! Do the children need this skill at such an early age or do they need how to behave in a class of 30, learn how to concentrate, learn how to resolve friendship issues, etc etc

I suggest there were lots of children in your daughter's class who were 5 when they started to learn phonics magdalene ... and you always had the option of waiting until the term after she was 5 before sending her to school

Hopefully magdalene young children will learn many important skills when they start school.

Yes, there is the option but it is rarely taken up. My DD was the only child to go part time in the first term, and even though she was not of compulsory age, her teacher kept pressuring me to have her go full time like the rest.

So you lot when are we meeting up?

Welsh (and Irish too) are much more straightforward wrt letter-sound association, tis true. The paper I quoted cited research based mainly on Spanish-speakers (but there were references to SE Asian-language-speaking children) -- again, Spanish has more straightforward letter-sound correspondence than English, whereas the SE Asian language speakers might be dealing with pictograms. However the method the research identified as best was to teach reading in the first language first and then to transition soon to English, or to teach reading simultaneously in English and Spanish (or other language).

The Cambridge Review opposed what its authors saw as a far too early start to formal education, and exposure to the expectation to learn to read.

The idea that English learners have to start earlier in order to master a more difficult language is contradicted by the experience of children in the US at any rate. Could it be that it takes longer in the UK because it is attempted far too early and therefore it only 'clicks' (unscientific term there thrown in just to annoy the evidence-based brigade) at a later age, the age when children in other parts of the English speaking world are only setting about learning (and doing it relatively fast)?

I was hoping that someone from a Welsh medium school would join the thread and tell us whether they have to re-do the phonics with all the complicated English sounds when they start teaching reading in English.

Also, whether the incidence of "struggling" with reading (in either or both languages) is higher or lower in Welsh medium schools. Though I daresay it would be very difficult to analyse statistically, because there will be so many other variables.

The literacy rate in the US has many educators in search of answers about this problem that has plagued our country for decades. Instead of decreasing, the numbers of literacy has steadily increased over the years. This raises a lot of questions about our education system, how it is ran, and why there is such a problem with illiterate people in our country.

Consultation report on literacy in Irish-medium schools that might be of interest Choccyp1g. It is noted that reading in English can be supported by first reading in Irish, but the question of what to teach first is still up for grabs.

"I was hoping that someone from a Welsh medium school would join the thread and tell us whether they have to re-do the phonics with all the complicated English sounds when they start teaching reading in English."

Oh yes, I would also be extremely interested to know how learning to read in English works for DCs taught to read in Welsh first.

Bonsoir, did your DD start reading in French first?

She would have started learning to read in French first had she not had private English tutoring. As it was, she has been learning the two side-by-side, though obviously not entirely in parallel.

She's at about the same level in reading in both languages right now, though her English vocabulary and expression are a lot richer than her French vocab and expression.