I might discuss DS moving up a year with teacher...

[toffeenose]

DS has just gone into Y2 at a very small school. Last year Y1 and Y2 were taught together and DS made lots of friends with children in the year above - his birthday is the very beginning of September and many of them are just weeks older. There are only 8 other pupils in Y2 and many of them are summer born so seem much younger than him. He doesn't really have any friends in his class and has come home very sad, which is not like him at all. The break times are staggered so he doesn't even get to play with his friends till the end of the day.

The school is independent and follows the national curriculum but it is guided by the belief that in the early years, children will come to reading and writing in line with their development, so although they are taught to read, children who are not keen will focus on stories and words but not be pushed to progress with phonics until they are ready. DS is not reading or writing.

I want to talk to his teacher about the possibility of moving him up to Y3 to be with his friends. There are 3 children in the year above who are not yet reading or writing so that is not in itself an impediment to him moving.

Would I be completely mad to put this on the table as an option? The only reason really is that socially in his class he is pretty much on his own as the three children who he was friends with in reception have left. I would be willing to pay for a 1:1 to work with him in class.

I would just be interested to hear people's views.

It would be perfectly reasonable to teach reading later in this country if we could get round the problem whereby schools can get away with a hotchpotch of mixed methods underpinned by a belief that a) reading is developmental and b) all children are different and will need a different method to learn to read.

If we can get to the stage where nearly every child learns to read within 2 years of starting school and those that are struggling are identified and given additional help early then it might work. Otherwise we run the risk of pushing the age at which it's considered a problem if a child can't read back.

English is complex but it Is a phonetic language It's not phonetically regular. The phoneme grapheme correspondence is complex

It's phonetically regular the sound /ae/ is never spelt f the sound /p/ is never spelt j...
English is complex .. it doesn't have one sound one spelling. A sound can have many spelling and a spelling can represent different sounds which makes it more difficult

It's phonetically regular the sound /ae/ is never spelt f the sound /p/ is never spelt j...
English is complex .. it doesn't have one sound one spelling. A sound can have many spelling and a spelling can represent different sounds which makes it more difficult

We can dispute about whether English is phonetic or not - many people would define phonetic as a sound is written in a unique way, which is not the case for English - but it is indisputably much harder to read English than Italian, Dutch, Greek etc.

I think you're talking about phonemic orthography

Pure vowels
Help key Scottish English Examples
/ɪ/ [ë̞~ɪ] bid, pit
/iː/ [i] bead, peat
/ɛ/ [ɛ~ɛ̝] bed, pet
/eɪ/ [e(ː)] bay, hey, fate
/æ/ [ä] bad, pat
/ɑː/ balm, father, pa
/ɒ/ [ɔ] bod, pot, cot
/ɔː/ bawd, paw, caught
/oʊ/ [o(ː)]
road, stone, toe
/ʊ/ [ʉ] good, foot, put
/uː/ booed, food
/ʌ/ [ʌ~ɐ] bud, putt
Well in Scottish English we don't even have /ae/ as in bad for all speakers

I think you're talking about phonemic orthography Yes and English phonemic orthography is much more complex than Italian for example

Just as an aside - this sounds like an extremely small private school with very few pupils - are you sure it's financially viable for the future?

A state school child at 7 who has been taught for 2 years to read and still can't would ring alarm bells and serious interventions.

Have the school tried to do anything?

I was moved up a year early in my junior school, then started senior school aged 10.

Whilst I was academically able enough, emotionally I was still a year behind and struggled a bit with friendship groups and bullying. The fact that I was a year younger made me different to the others and was something which was used against me for years by the not-so-nice kids.

I also had to grow up a year sooner - in terms of fashion, hobbies, music choice etc.

The natural progression meant that I then went to uni at 17 - which was fine, and I didn't suffer from the same issues - but I think I would have benefited from another year with my family and a bit more maturity.

I would not do the same for my children even if they were bright enough.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos

Of course English has a deeper orthography than Italian (for example) but that isn't the same as being non phonetic

Derxa you seem to be confusing the sound /ae/ with the IPA symbol æ which represents the sound /a/

but that isn't the same as being non phonetic You're right because no spoken language is non phonetic. English is highly non phonemic in that there are many orthographic representations (spellings) of sounds (phonemes).

No it isn't ...it has a deep orthography but it is totally phonemic.

many people would define phonetic as a sound is written in a unique way, which is not the case for English

Many people would be wrong though because that's not the definition of phonetic.

English is phonetic, individual sounds in words are represented by symbols. It is more difficult to learn that other languages because its orthography is complex. All that means is that it takes longer and needs to be taught more thoroughly because it's difficult for children to intuit just through exposure to text.

I haven't read all the replies, but please don't move him up.

I speak from experience here - I was an August birthday and a year ahead, and my youngest sister (15 year age gap) was a Feb birthday and two years ahead all through school.

Academically it was fine - we both did very well; sister got 11 A* at GCSE without any real effort having just turned 14 - but we both struggled socially.

I don't know how linked it is, but my other two siblings - who didn't get such good results but were in the right year group throughout - have never struggled socially, both went through university with no issues at all and have much more stable careers.

My sister and I both had complete breakdowns at university and had to take time out and then go back.

The one thing I would never do, no matter how bright the child, is have them taught outside their peer group. I took it seriously enough to even avoid TTC when there was a chance of a July/August birthday as I didn't want any DC being the youngest in year.

I've met a lot of others who were out of year and the majority would not recommend it.

European languages differ in the extent to which there is a simple sound-spelling relationship - in many languages, you can write a single sound in more than one way (for eg in French you can write the "o" sound in at least eight different ways).

English is slightly harder to learn to read than many other European languages, because in addition to some sounds having multiple spellings, some letter combinations can have multiple pronunciations. But it is relatively easy to write, because verb structures are so simple. Much easier than German for eg - yet German kids only start school at rising 7 and I believe they only do four years of primary school.

I think if my child was going into year 2 unable to read or write the very last thing I'd be doing was looking to move them up a year. And if it were commonplace at the school I'd be looking for a different school.

DD attends a standard state primary and they all learnt to read and write in reception. Obviously to differing standards, but I saw a lot of work on the wall from different children and was quite impressed. They follow the read write inc programme and despite my initial reservations regarding phonics, it clearly works. I would be very concerned that the school doesn't teach properly.

He's not been long in the school year. He needs to learn how to adjust to new situations. It might help for him to meet his old friends outside of school by encourage new friends in class.

My son has an October birthday and was put up a year in primary. He was fine and it caused no problems. I really don't think that being a few weeks younger than the other children is noticeable in any way.

I think the distinction some people are making between children who have not learnt to read and haven't been taught, and children who have not learnt to read and have been taught, is unhelpful. Some children are developmentally ready to learn to read at three and may be able to read individual words even before their third birthday (and, if you read to/with them, it can be impossible to prevent them picking it up), whereas others aren't developmentally ready to read until much later. Some children are ready to walk at 9 months, some at 16 or 17 months, and that's normal. And nobody suggests that a slightly late walker is going to be disadvantaged long-term as a result. Because there is no expectation that all children should be able to walk at 12 months. There's no curriculum that requires being able to walk by 12 months. Over 18 months, sure, there might be a problem, in the same way as a seven- or eight-year-old not yet being able to read might raise concerns, which need to be checked out.

Personally I feel that trying to teach children to read if they're not currently at the right developmental stage can do more harm than good, just as taking all 12 month old babies and trying to make them walk isn't going to help. In fact, I think the whole thing is harmful.

A kid who isn't yet ready to read at 5, in a class where that's the expectation, will fall behind because the curriculum is designed around being able to read okay by age six or so. And that feels horrible. You feel like you're stupid, like you'll never catch up, and you can't follow all the other stuff that's going on. Even though you may be trying really hard, you get no reward (in terms of becoming able to read; I know effort is rewarded in school). So why should you, as a kid, keep trying in school? Trying didn't work!

I think a curriculum designed around children learning to read when they're ready, being given opportunities to learn but not being expected to be able to read, would be helpful, at least for a couple of years. Obviously keep tabs on whether there's evidence of dyslexia, and offer support if that may be the case, but don't make the curriculum inaccessible to these later-reading kids.

"And nobody suggests that a slightly late walker is going to be disadvantaged long-term as a result. "

perhaps because for most children learning to walk and talk are natural developments reading however is not a natural but a man made process.

Reading uses cognitive abilities and processes that were there in our brains long before the development of writing; it's not just something that comes about through application of brain power. It piggybacks on these other abilities so until those things develop, you won't be able to read.

And in some people these develop in a way that makes it difficult to learn to read. Dyslexia isn't anything to do with general intelligence, and I suspect before the invention of writing and the expectation of universal literacy it wasn't a disadvantage because the particular combination of abilities they had might not mesh well with reading, but would work well for other things.