What To Do With a Three Year Old

[learnandsay]

Hi Folks,

I've been teaching my three year old daughter to recognise words, sentences and phrases. So for those of you who know the Usborne phonics readers will know Big Pig on a Dig and Ted's Shed. She can read those two and also the first two stories (for those of you with long memories!) Elsie Holmelund Minarik/ Maurice Sendak Little Bear short stories.

The reason I say recognise phrases rather than read is because my daughter still can't decipher new words. So, if you show her short she'll tell you it says short. But if you show her shot, she'll say "I don't know that word."

We're working on decoding unfamiliar words. But it's a long process!

Anyway, she loves simple addition which we call add one (or add any number up to ten) using lego blocks and the like. We do the same for subtraction. And for multiplication we do repeated addition. Which she finds very enjoyable. She can also divide by two, because division by two is very easy and she understands the idea of having one left over. In fact she can divide by three too. But that's another story.

Anyway, here comes my question.

My daughter will start in Reception next September. And there I've seen children learning to recognise their own names and to count to five. I don't believe that the concepts of division and multiplication are even introduced until the children are at least a couple of years older. And I haven't seen Reception children reading entire books. In fact I've seen Year One children still reading made up words like foo, goo and boo on an interactive white board.

So, my question is this........

How do I prevent my daughter's education from declining rapidly when she starts school? I can't help feeling that Reception classes are going to facilitate the unlearning of everything that I've taught her. She's still got almost a year to go till then. So she'll have acquired a lot more to forget by the time she reaches school.

What do you think I should do?

PS, my question assumes that she is sent to the catchment area primary. We have some out of catchment primaries which are avowedly academic in focus. But they are predictably oversubscribed. Our catchment school is proud of its parental involvement. But I can't imagine how sixty children's education is to be undertaken if a teacher needs to spend lots of time teaching my daughter things none of her classmates have any clue about! It just doesn't make sense! So, with the best will in the world my daughter can only expect to get taught what everybody else is being taught, (I think.) Hence her education must inevitably regress. (And I'm very much against home schooling children for social reasons. Although I think that in many case the academic results speak for themselves.)

How does this relate to reading? Does a Reception child say "I want to read The Cat in the Hat"? -

• even if the school doesn't have a copy of that book? And what happens if the school doesn't have a copy?

I wouldn't teach my child as you have, I think its much better to stick with pure phonics. However, I'm teaching my three year old to read - because I want to. If you want to teach your child, go ahead. Its true that I have encountered some pretty poor early reading teaching for my elder dds which makes me prefer to do it myself but I think anyone that wants to should go ahead and not bend to ridiculous ideas that by teaching them to recognise and understand print their childhood is in some way destroyed. Sure there are really essential things that a 3 year old needs to learn and reading isn't essential at 3 - but neither is it harmful!

How does this relate to reading? Does a Reception child say "I want to read The Cat in the Hat"? -

• even if the school doesn't have a copy of that book? And what happens if the school doesn't have a copy?

I order one from Amazon for next day delivery

It's a pity more teachers aren't as obliging as you, mrz.

I've got to say my Head often does the same apparently 1-3 children don't own a book so we need to encourage children to love books.

mrz, and other teachers here:

Say the school does have a copy of The Cat in the Hat, but somebody has taken it home for the week. And my daughter and I are reading it at home, (which we are.) So she asks to read more CitH when she arrives at school.

Since the school owns one it doesn't seem reasonable to buy another one. Can my daughter bring her copy from home with a reasonable expectation that it'll reach home again safely that afternoon?

And can she keep bringing in her home copy(copies) until she decides to favour some other book? and so on...

Why doesn't it seem reasonable to buy another? We have multiple copies of lots of popular books.
Lots of my children bring in books to read or for me to read to the class it isn't a problem.
www.seussville.com/catinthehat/activities.html

If a child was really interested in The Cat in the Hat a good reception teacher would use the interest to plan appropriate learning opportunities and perhaps a mini theme for the class. We had a group really into Green Eggs and Ham and did lots of work around the book

i have a 3yr old and if i don't keep him engaged he runs all over the place, climbing up things and jumping around. i keep him engaged with toys though and focus on his behaviour.

there is a lot more to life than the 3 r's. children need a broad and balanced curriculum in every year of their education. they can't just sit at desks all day reading, writing and doing maths.

i take the view that it's better to let schools teach and fill in the gaps. if you do everything in advance you'll have your dd sitting there confused/bored because she's either done it already or school are doing it differently and she is then expected to do it their way, so in effect she has to re-learn everything.

Thanks mrz
bookmarked seussville.com
Anything by Dr Seuss is tops in our house at the moment. I'll keep that in mind. Surely lots of the old stories are rich for activities, Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, The Wind in the Willows. The Jungle Book. I'm not too familiar with modern children's books. Does the Gruffalo have the same amount of educational potential? I don't know, maybe it does.

Naturalbaby, I've been reading studies on primary school children. One of them shows children counting into sets of ten and leaving any necessary remainder over. Several of the children could already do the sums in their heads. And yet they all did the exercise just as the teacher asked them to do it. What this researcher concluded was that the children seemed to naturally differentiate between doing a sum and doing a sum the way this teacher had asked them to do it. It seems reasonable to me. When you're asked to hurdle at school most kids don't reply, "I can already run a hundred meters, sir. Why do I now have to do it with these gates in front of me?" They just get on with it. That seems to me to be my daughter's approach to life already. She's quite happy to do things differently if somebody else asks her to. I think she'd complain if I kept asking her to do things she'd got used to doing in one way in another way. She'd probably consider that to be unfair.

But the whole reason that I want her to go to school in the first place, instead of home educating her, is because life is all about being asked to do different things by different people. That's what life is all about and school teaches that. That's why I'm to all for it, even if academically it does a worse job than many home educating parents.

I'm as irritated by the pushy or braggy parent posts as the next person...but i am surprised by this thread. I think the OP's question was quite reasonable, actually. And all this "just let her play" stuff...as if a child can't ENJOY reading as much as anything else. There is a world of difference between this and another recent post in which the mum was asking about Mensa for her three-year-old! The idea of not encouraging a child who already has some reading skills to continue to develop those - it's daft.

OP, keep doing what you are doing, and if the school isn't quite so focussed on the same skill-set as you, keep in mind that you'll still be giving her that at home.

Oh my goodness. It sounds like your dd is bright, but if she is, then, she would not really need formal teaching of addition and reading skills so early as she would have picked up a lot through her play and everyday experiences.
Most able reception children will be well on their way to addition and already be able to count and recognise numbers to 10 or 20 when they startschool, without the teaching that your dd seems to be needing to do this.
If you push too hard she will probably be already jaded by her 'home teaching" when she starts. Also, I wouldn't underestimate the rest of her Reception class, although they may appear to be less "learne-ed" than your dd at first, you will probably find that they learn rapidly and catch up and even overtake your dd pretty quickly, especially if they have had lots of positive experience of play and learning and are already socially ready for school, which it sounds like your dd may not be.

The best thing any parent (or teacher) can do for their child is to help foster a positive attitude to learning. Research indicates this is far more important that early reading/writing or maths to predict future academic success.

Yes, The Gruffalo does have as much educational value as Winnie the Pooh and company. So does Hairy Maclary, anything created by Pamela Allen and a wealth of other picture book characters. In regard to the reading, have a look at advice contained in Reading Magic by Mem Fox. Breaking the code (ie phonics) is only one part of the learning to read journey (what is it about poms and phonics?). Children also need lots of access to book language through good read alouds over and over and a solid knowledge of the world through conversations and experiences. You can give your child these things in lots of ways - walks, visits, baking, crafts, role play in all its forms, messy play, dressing-up, dancing, singing, instruments, collections, gardening, keeping pets, mini beasts, den building, playing with big boxes, small world play, letter writing, listening to recorded stories, water play, the list is endless. Now is the time to be starting those experiences and conversations, as well as introducing real world maths - money, time, distance, measurement - through real life activities.

We have a 5 a day policy (books/stories that is) as a minimum but lots of songs rhymes and story making.

I like Lynley Dodd's books and I'm also a fan of Nick Sharratt, Mick Inkpen and Giles Andreae but there are lots of fantastic children's authors and a wealth of books to share and love.

I'm not against teaching children things if they want to learn them before they are supposed to be old enough (I refer to this by the highly technical term of 'answering questions') but I do think that if you are teaching your daughter to read words by sight rather than phonetically, then you might be setting her up for later problems - when she gets to school, literacy will be phonetically based and she needs to know the things everyone else will know and not miss out on them. If she thinks she can already do it all because she can read words by recognition she may not really be prepared to engage with what the others are learning and benefiting from. If I were you and wanted to support the reading thing, I'd start her with some of the online resources about phonics that you can find - there are lots. Jolly Phonics etc have loads of resources available for free including songs that you could sing together which I think most three year olds would probably enjoy, or there are paid things online though I personally wouldn't pay because there's lots out there for free. Or, you know, write some funny words down and teach her how to decode them. My DD is five now but would have found voo, zig, bozzer or jank hilarious at three. Actually, scratch that, she'd probably love them now. I might do that with her, actually - I think she would find it really funny.

My DD's in Reception. I think if I'd pushed it, I could easily have taught her to read at three, or at least do some basic putting together of sounds. However, actually I am quite glad I didn't though my mum was constantly on at me to do so. What I did do was play a lot of games with her so that her knowledge of the sounds letters make and her recognition of them and ability to write them was very very secure at the start of Reception. She honestly enjoyed this, people. I never made her do it and she never ran about tearing the curtains down if I wasn't tying her to the kitchen table. It was games of the kind of thing like running off to get me a magnetic letter L from the fridge and I'd time her to see how fast she could make it there and back. Or letters on the floor and I'd yell out a sound for her to jump on as fast as possible - she also yelled them out for me to jump on and got to tell me if I was right. I don't think I'd have liked to see her sitting down adding dots up at three. More fun to give her a cup of raisins and tell her to share them out between three toys equally or give four to as many toys as she could. Or find out how many there were by putting them in twos. How many sets of two? How many raisins altogether? Sets of three? Sets of four? Can you make them into a square? Or a rectangle? Obv this was once she could count reliably and had a decent idea of what counting really means. Also, you don't have to draw any conclusions from the sets or squares or rectangles, I don't think. I rather liked seeing my DD drawing her own conclusions. Sometimes they were a bit nuts but that's part of the fun, really. And raisins are edible so you can get rid of some and try the whole thing again with a different number.

She's doing really well at school. She's not bored. She finds the academic work fairly easy but she's learning enough new things like modern ways of doing maths (which I had no idea about and certainly wouldn't be able to teach her as am too ancient to know about them) that she is at that lovely point where she is both learning new things and enjoying being good at it, which is a really nice place to be for anyone and is certainly setting up good associations for her future experience of school.

Anyway, my point is that sitting down at the table adding dots up or learning words by rote is a bit boring and maybe you could do some more enjoyable learning games with your child? I'm sure there are masses of things that she would like and you would like and how about making some of them physical games so that she can burn off a bit of the energy that makes her want to climb on you and pull the curtains down? Also, walking is good for that.

I'm not too familiar with modern children's books.

Er, this is bonkers. Are you sure you have a three year old? Why don't you get her a few?

Yes, I would second what ddu says. 3Rs are great, but children need something to hang their knowledge on and perhaps most 3 year olds are busier developing that something than learning to read/to add up etc.

I see nothing wrong in teaching young children to read as long as it is not to the detriment of the rest of their development, and this is the tricky thing I think. When you are 3 your mind is wide open, your brain primed for developing in all sorts of ways. You need space to develop, to relate to the big wide world in your own individual way.

There is much to be learnt from simple interactions with other children, with adults, from simple experiences that can be hugely enriching. Normally the more formal learning needed for reading and maths comes later when brains are less busy with the other stuff.

Is your daughter in school nursery then if she starts reception in September? Just wondering as my son was in school nursery last year and they did actually teach him phonics there, and he learnt to sound out and blend a bit as they are doing more systematically in Reception now.

Why don't you go to the library and let her choose some books? Bit odd you don't have modern children's books?!!

OP - The most likely reason why no one realised your sister couldn't read until she was 11, was because she had a set of stock phases she'd memorised and managed to fool people she was reading those stock phases.

Super, super posts the last six or seven. Thanks awfully, mrz, delphine..., haberdash.. I'm not going to write everybody's login.. But the last posts were tops. I'm really greatful for the info. I'm going to write the authors' names down.

Why am I unfamiliar with modern children's books? Because I'm old! Well, oldish. We've got the Gruffalo, and quite a bit from Julia Donaldson in general. We go to the library once a week and get eight books. But I tell you what the problem probably is. Julia Donaldson books are probably a few months above my daughter's reading ability. But she'd be able to read some of them already with practice. She certainly couldn't read Beatrix Potter, Kenneth Grahame, A. A Milne and the like. But those books are so lovingly written that she can listen to them and interact with the characters. A few weeks ago she created a lego-scape on the floor and told me proudly that it was Wind in the Willows. Now we often build the WitWillows on the floor and we have to follow her instructions because we adults don't know how to build it.

But I have never been introduced to much longer, more advanced, more character-developed, modern children's stories. Until this thread I'd never heard of them being discussed either. In truth I haven't looked out for them either. I just naturally turn to the stories I loved as a child.

Er, phonics? The funny thing is I'm phonics mad! I really, really disagree with the whole word reading method. But the thing is my daughter just doesn't process words in soundbites. She simply won't do it. Even if she knows the components, she started out with poo moo loo tee hee dee wee and such as her first words. So she was familiar with oo and ee long long before she could 'read'. Does that help her decode words with ee and oo in them? Nope! Believe me I've coaxed, coaxed and coaxed. Will she divide words into sounds? Nope! Does she gallop through the books and stories she knows the words to? Yup. Does she figure out similar words in other short stories in books she already knows? Yup. She just does it that way. That's the way she does it. Do I want to spend time trying to take that away from her? No I don't. If that's the way she likes to read then that's the way she likes to read.

The funny thing is she loves to 'spell' words like ballerina. She sits in the back of the car and says it's spelled ba-ller-i-n-a and so on and so on with any word you care to mention. She'd sound out the syllables of Severus Maximus if you asked her to, quite happily. But if you wrote that name on paper and asked her to 'spell' it, ie sound it out, (which she calls spelling) then she wouldn't do it. She'd say 'I don't know that word.' Remove the paper and she'll sound it out perfectly happily.

I think reading is both simple and complex. Doing it is relatively easy. But understanding how we do it, explaining it, or understanding why different people do it differently I think we still don't understand.

errrmmm. Does your daughter have a good memory and is just remembering the stories? Just a thought because my son has an amazing memory and can/could recite most of the stories we read to him from about 3 (he's now 5). That's a bit different from reading. Of course this is not to be dismissed as memory is part of reading but not really the same. It's too dodgy to read him "reading books" first these days as he will just remember them rather than de-code/sound out/read them!

I find my kids love both the old and the new books. They are stimulated by both. I love it when they play games stimulated by the books.

Yes, you're right. There are different ways to learn to read. Schools generally use phonics as this is the most proven method that works with most kids, however brains are brilliant things and find many ways to do things. There are always stories of 3 or 4 year olds who manage to teach themselves to read.

Um, brilliant memory? I don't think it's brilliant, but she does definitely have a memory for story texts. But I think most children do, especially if it's their favourite story. It only lasts for so long though. She used to be able to recite practically the whole of Where The Wild Things Are. But we haven't read it for quite a while and she can't do it now. I think she's a natural word recogniser. When I read chapter books to her at bedtime she pulls the book over and says "look, there's off, and there's on. And there's another off. I found the word look," and so it goes. I really believe she just has a bent for remembering what certain words look like. If so, all power to her, I say. I don't think it's the best way of going about things because you'll always come across words that you don't recognise. But that's the way she does it.

By the way. She had some friends over and we've got books lying all over the floor. One of her friends picked up a Little Princess book I Want My Dummy. And started to pretend to read it. I said "would you like to read that book?" she did. So I read it aloud to her slowly and she repeated each word as I said it. (I didn't ask her to do that.) But there's clearly a proto-reading going on in some children. I think the child would have been happy if she could have read the book herself.

And today my partner was reading a library book with our daughter. It was about the days of the week each with a special meal, you know, roast beef on Sunday and fish on Friday, you know the meals. Anyway, when asked what meal was on which day our daughter got the answers all wrong. So I said why don't you let her read the words?

So we all read the words together at first. It's a cumulative story like the twelve days of chiristmas song, so it's mostly repetition. But within a couple of pages the child could correctly predict what each meal was going to be by 'reading' the text and she got all the meals correct. (It's a really simple book mind you.) But I've seen how being able to 'read' the text really does help them get the most out of these kinds of books.

I'm not an expert phonics teacher but your child sounds quite typical in the sense that 'sounding out' seems like a slog if you are used to other quicker approaches and children not used to sounding out are generally resistant, because it seems like more of a slog for them. Parents then say phonics doesn't suit them, but that is just a misunderstanding.
This is because it doesn't mean the methods these kids use are best for them. Its easier to get kids to eat biscuits than wholemeal bread but if they are used to the latter, kids tend to be perfectly happy and its much better for them. Imagine your child had always been given biscuits in their lunch box and then you claimed 'wholemeal bread just doesn;'t suit their tastes'. Thats the sort of equivalent going on here. If your dd had been used to phonics from the start its most likely she would have taken off that way and now be willing to sound out unfamiliar words. I speak from experience of using both approaches with my children - they don't mix well!
On a positive note it sounds like your daughter is actually aware of the way words are broken down even if she is unwilling to do so. I'd guess (though not an expert) that she does use her 'phonological awareness' to some extent in her reading and will therefore be OK.