Why on earth shouldn't you teach reading if you jolly well feel like it?

[learnandsay]

Is it really all that bad?

[Badvoc]

Yes.
But not all schools are good, are they?
Ds1 was branded by his old school...very similar to frames experience.

[insanityscratching]

Dd had a positive experience she entered a foundation unit with a statement and was quite rightly in the least able group as her development was at least a year behind at three. She went through the ranks so to speak even if she did only ever attend part time and left foundation stage firmly at the top with an EYFS score of 113.
There is lots of movement between sets at dd's school dd has mostly been top set but did go into second set (an all girl group) for a couple of terms when her confidence was low which seemed to work wonders.

[Dromedary]

Yes, my DC1 was basically labelled as thick by her (totally newly qualified) R teacher, who passed that judgement on to the Y1 teacher. It made a big difference to DC1 that I taught her to read over the summer holiday before Y1, which immediately signalled to the Y1 teacher that the R teacher had got her assessment wrong (the Y1 teacher said as much to me). If a child thinks that they are thick, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a teacher who is not particularly good or experienced may just take the easy option of treating the child as thick. My niece had a "difficult" teacher in Y1 she was scared of, and my DSis thinks that this played an important part in her literally never becoming a keen or even fluent reader.

[exoticfruits]

You can't stop them if they want to. DH just picked it up by himself aged 3yrs. Go with them, some are ready and some are not. - there is no point forcing it.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Surely you can provide a wonderful, varied, rich (and lots of other adjectives) reading experience for your children, but you can't actually teach or instil a love of reading, can you? Your children either love it or they don't but at least they can do it.

I think instilling a love of stories and story telling is what we are talking about here and I think almost all children can love that. It goes right through our culture in tv, film, computer games, gossip...and right back through history.

I think that by developing this interest through books you will encourage readers. that seems to me to be a priority at preschool.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

My experience of primary school teachers is very different from the image painted here by some posters. I am beginning to think that I have been very lucky. All nurturing and no damaging judgmental teaching.

My children feel very confident about their learning even though, for my dd, learning to read was a bit of a struggle through reception and year 1

[teacherwith2kids]

L&S, you would be surprised by how many 4 years olds are not 'conversed with' by their parents. Stuck in frnt of the tv, yes. Given one word orders, yes. Witness to conversation between adults, yes. But talked to and listened to directly for long periods on a daily basis - not as universal as you might think.

IME, btw, the children who are most sucessful at reading in the longer term are those who have long associated books and reading with pleasure. Those who have always been read to, from books rich in language and imagination and pictures. Those who have a store of rich vocabulary in their heads through being talked to / sung to / read to. Those who have had lots of chance for imaginative play, including wordplay. Those who have been able to develop their spoken language with adults and with children who want to listen to them and talk to them. Those who have developed a habit of enquiry and questioning etc etc

If instead of some - or even all - of these things, a child has an experience of being sat down with phonics or letter cards or flash cards, or with boring 'learn to read' books without proper stories, then they may seem to make better 'initial' prgress with reading because they have been exposed to the mechanics, but that 'advantage' is built in very shaky foundations.

[teacherwith2kids]

As an overall response to the OP, I would say:

If the CHILD wants to learn to read, no parent should stand in their way, and are very welcome to facilitate this in any way they choose IN ADDITION TO continuing to give their child a rich diet of being read to.

If the PARENT wants to teach the child to read but the child is not fussed either way, then don't.

[teacherwith2kids]

(To clarify, I mean a pre-school child, not a child already embarked on learning to read through a appropriate teaching in school. I am all in favour of all parents supporting a child who has started to learn to read in school, though it helps if - as most schools do - some kind of information is provided about what the school is doing and how to support it.

[BooksandaCuppa]

teacher's post of 20.35 is one of the best I have ever read on mn.

[RaisinBoys]

Well said teacherwith2kids

[sittinginthesun]

I agree. Says it all, really.

[storynanny]

Me too, I totally agree with teachers post.

[learnandsay]

Congrats, teacher on an illuminating revelation that's partly saddening and depressing.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

And me too!

[AbbyR1973]

I agree with teacherwith2kids in the first paragraph. There are many children who basically ignored by their parents and experience substitute parenting from a small (or large) square box. I would also agree that forcing a child to do flash cards etc and being coercive about reading before they are ready could end in a reading aversion. Every word of the second paragraph is true about valuing conversation with your children, (family mealtimes at the table become more important in busy families) and sharing a love of all forms of literature are invaluable but...

The problem is the end of the post which sort of seems to suggest (I imagine Unintentionally) that children who come to school having been taught some reading by their parents have been subjected to the third paragraph without the 2nd paragraph. The 2 things are not mutually exclusive and the whole lot can happen at once. I don't happen to believe in flash cards but since my sons showed an interest in what words on the page meant and the building blocks of reading are letter sounds and phonics we started with some of that. "Reading Books" can be useful in the early stages because of the limited/ graded language alongside other books/ reading signs etc
The child's desire to read undoubtedly has come from being read to at bedtime because it is a special time together. Just because they can read now doesn't mean that bedtime story has to end either. IMO learning to read (as in child reading to parent) is separate from the bedtime story and in our house we do reading either before or after tea before we get ready for bed downstairs and bedtime story upstairs in their beds. Actually DS2 3 years 9 months would without doubt make his feelings very clear if he wasn't allowed to do reading in the same way his old brother at school is.
Early reading with a child that is interested and ready is not about coercion or being a pushy parent it's a natural development of sharing that love of all things literary.

[learnandsay]

It's not all that problematical because the third paragraph begins with (if) if it's not the case then it isn't.

[AbbyR1973]

Yes learnandsay I read it back and then the posts teacher had made above it clarifying exactly that point after I had posted. There does however always seem to be the idea that if you have a child that can read early it is only because you have spent hours drilling them. Sorry for misinterpreting a bit :-)

[exoticfruits]

I agree with teacherwith2kids - nothing more to add.

[learnandsay]

Repetitive and bad aren't the same thing.

Old MacDonald and the Seseme St ABC song are repetitive. I'm not sure when repetition becomes drilling but I'd imagine it's when it stops being fun.

[simpson]

I get the impression that a couple of (competitive) mums who have DC in my DD's class think that I strap her to a chair and make/force her to do flash cards.

This is obviously not the case and if a child is ready to read before school (or nursery) then they are ready iyswim and they pick things up very quickly.

I do agree with the poster who said that reading to your child is just as important as listening to your child read to you. It's about making books fun.

I taught myself to read (at a basic level) even earlier than my DD did (I was not yet 3) but I did not progress as quickly as she did and I remember being very bored/frustrated at school with how slow other kids read (we used to all read a chapter quietly then discuss it, I guess I was in the equivalent of yr3/4 then).

[learnandsay]

I don't think what other mums think is all that big a deal. Plus there could be a healthy dose of the green eyed monster mixed in, anyway. I'm always being made aware of what I think of as normal might be really abnormal! (But in L&S world) it's all about what's best for the child. If she's a clever kid who has figured out that the squiggles in these books mean something, as my one year old has, and if she responds to letters then go for it.

[mrz]

I think it's pretty normal for young children who share books with an adult to quickly work out that those squiggles mean something and to imitate the adult by turning pages and "reading" the book to siblings/friends/toys/available adults.
We have a Five a Day policy (we try to share five books with the children) and even those children who live in homes without books pick up the idea in next to no time.

[Badvoc]

Yes.
My 4 year old can read simple cvc words like mat and cat, but he can "read" books from memory that I have read to him.
Last night he "read" duck in the truck.
It's amazing what young children can remember.
He "reads" it pretty much word for word, and even uses the same tones as I do!
Although my dyslexic ds did that too, so I know it doesn't mean he will be a good reader...

[motherinferior]

I've been chortling about the 'my ONE year old is virtually reading' post since yesterday. While obviously feeling parental inadequacy on the part of my own children.

And this, my friends, demonstrates exactly why I feel an emphasis on precocious reading backfires, in so many ways.