What happens if your child can read before they start school?

[SkyWalker95]

I know most kids learn to read in reception, but what if they can already read independently? Surely they have to teach to their ability and won't make them just sit there while the others are learning their sounds right? But what would they be doing instead? I don't really know how primary education works

do ORT in his spare time. Its a bit of an odd thing for child to want to do in his spare time really ds loved the ORT books and was on about level 10 when he started school but didn't enjoy the post magic key ones so he just read his own books. To be honest I don't think that there was an awful lot of reading going on in reception. There was lots of phonics which he found fine as although he had worked out intuitively how to read and could read completely novel words he hadn't been taught phonics. He also enjoyed the maths and did lots of playing and socialising. Most reading seems to be with parents at home, volunteers in school and occasionally a teacher. It is more in yr1 that issues creep in when they do guided reading. By that stage some other children might be at your son's level (if they aren't already). It is harder if there isn't anyone else at a similar level in yr1 but I think in most schools there should be some peers to work with.

^Today 00:06 Herculesupatree

Is this an actual school, or pre-school? I would have thought most children should be able to read and write at a basic level by the time they get to school?!^

No you didn't think that.

Because quite simply the school wouldn't teach it if the expectation was that they should be able to it already.

Prat, maybe she is from other countries?
My country starts school at age6. They definitely start school able to read and write at basic levels, since they do them at kindergarten.

DS was reading Roald Dahl books before reception but he was a sight reader. He learnt the phonics etc at school (the school streamed for this which helped) which was needed to get him writing properly. Some lessons he sat at the back and read independently. He often used to read the class a story at the end of the day and ask them questions to check understanding!

School have never bothered sending reading home or checking reading records etc because they know he is a vociferous reader (currently on the how to train a dragon series - still in reception).

It really does depend on the school; more than that, on the particular teacher you happen to get.

Reception probably won't be so much of a problem because they only do phonics in very small bursts. Year One, when the academic teaching really ratchets up, is when it can get a bit more tricky, but we had an amazing teacher then who would search out the right books for DD and talk to her about them once or twice a week.

As for phonics, it really does depend, again. DD's school streamed years 1-3 all together and so she was in the top group, doing more writing and spelling than phonics learning, from the start. You may get lucky or you may not.

Do you have a choice of schools? If so, start asking generic questions about how they deal with this now (i.e. not my child is amazing, but how do you deal with this when it happens - some teachers told me it had never happened in their class before).

Can you also not look at another nursery for next year? DD's Montessori did a much better job of teaching her at the right level than school did and we would have quite happily left her there for another couple of years if it had been an option.

I could read before I went to school and was self taught. I was way ahead academically and I remember things in a way that's probably not regular. Really fine detail of events etc that happened when I was a toddler for instance. I am however rather emotionally and socially awkward.

I hid amongst others who seemed similar in higher education for many years and it felt very comfortable.

My friends son Has diagnosed aspergers. After knowing her and him for a while and noticing similarities I took online tests and score ridiculously highly.

Now when I hear about super advanced small dc I tend to fret for them. My DS was super advanced as a toddler, all I did was worry about him fitting in socially at school. Fortunately he loved football and I encouraged this. He recently got invited to the big after prom party of the most popular girl in the school. As much as I am really pleased he is clever that made me happier than him winning a prize at school.

You say he causes trouble at nursery, what kind of trouble? I can clearly remember loathing nursery because in my mind they didn't treat me as an equal to them. I remember the staff talking down, in my mind to the children and getting annoyed about that.

Sorry ended up a rather rambling post.

The phonics sessions will be a short part of the day.
He can enjoy feeling he knows it.
If he is really ahead with both the read and writing part of phonics then the school may let him sit with a book or do some independent writing or something.

Other children start reception knowing stuff others have to learn e.g.

• how to line up quietly
• how to listen / not call out
• how to sit nicely on the carpet
• how to wait your turn
• how to share

maybe some of the others will have to wait (and be bored) while your son learns some of this?

I am always a bit baffled why some people would spend so much time teaching their children to read before reception. Its totally not necessary at age 2/3/4. They need to learn to share, be sociable, go to the toilet, each their hands, eat independently, play imaginative play, find their own items, get themselves dressed, build towers from wooden blocks, experiment with water etc. This is the building blocks that come before school.
Physical literacy is hugely important - can they run, jump, climb, catch a ball, do a mini assault course, play footy etc
My DD was a top reader for her class but not massively advanced at all. Even then, I found that at times, the books she brought home were too 'old' for her. She could read the words but not really understand the concepts or meaning some times. At 7 she was reading books geared towards 8/9 year olds and mentally preferred stories for 6/7 year olds.

Irvine it's the same in my country...

However this is a British forum and it's clear from the op and other posts that the expectation is the child wont be expected to read.

If it's like my dd Infant school, they will completely ignore them and destroy their confidence, but then again it was a really bad school where a huge number removed their children before reaching Y6.
They just wanted all children to start school with no skills at all so that they could claim the praise when the children learnt something.

It's not sad. Reading is lovely.

smelly, Op has written her dc learned phonics as part of speech therapy.

My ds was reading and writing at the start of school. I didn't force him. He was hyperlexic, and due to his chronic illness, he spent a lot of time in hospital. It was inevitable. And yes, he was behind in some physical skills, so we had to work on that when he was ready.

At my school, the phonics consultant we used was dead against any setting in phonics lessons so they are all whole class, with differentiation within the lesson e.g. write two sentences rather than write a word, or read this word using the skills taught that day that none of the others can. They need the phonics lessons to get them through the all important phonics screening check. Guided reading sessions are definitely ability-based though. I had a reader in my Reception class this year and I did one-on-one guided reading with her, with more of a focus on higher level comprehension, and she was sent home harder books to read.

in our school, there was enough smaller group teaching for the ones who'd started with good reading schools to continue to make progress - lots of focus on comprehension, how punctuation helps etc.

In year one, two of the most able readers went into year two for guided reading.

If you're worried he's going to get bored why don't you just stop teaching him

It's more for you than him isn't it?

smellyboot I didn't spend any extra time teaching ds to read - he just taught himself as we read books together which I imagine many parents do anyway. Took far less time than his sisters who struggled to learn to read. Didn't stop him learning the other things you listed too.

There's so much more to reading than just decoding. I also, as a teacher, hate the ORT books. They follow a certain formula and once you've read one or two, the language and sentence structure is so repetative that you can pretty much read them all at any level. The only real difference is the size of font and spacing and the amount of content. You would be better giving your child a variety of texts for enjoyment rather than working through schemes. He's just a young boy who has plenty of time to tick school expectation boxes.
I also agree that reception is primarily about social skills and also developing problem solving skills, resilience and a desire to learn. The formal stuff comes in time. Childhood isn't a race to see who can learn to read and write the fastest. Sounds like you have a really bright little boy and I'm sure he'll be fine.

Ds1 could read fluently before starting reception. But actually the phonics work they did in class was still helpful and fun for him, he just got his take home reading books from other classrooms and was on a higher book band. The first term of year 1 he found more boring as they went over a lot of the reception work again. Terms 2 and 3 of year 1 were fine again.

DD could read fluently before she started school, I posted about it here at the time with much the same worry you have now.

School were great, her teacher knew she could read and gave her books suitable to her ability, differentiated in class etc. She still did whole class phonics, but to help her spelling/writing rather than decoding. We worked quite hard on getting her reading non-fiction and poetry rather than fiction, which was and is her go-to genre.

She's now about to sit her 11+, still a voracious reader and scoring exceptionally highly in comprehension and similar. But she's loved primary school, across the board, and her reading ability helps in all of it, especially maths word problems which I wasn't expecting!

Letting them pick their own books from the library, and not commenting on the selection, was good advice I had. And keep reading to them, even when they can read for themselves.

He will follow the curriculum like the other children. My ds didn't seem to get bored and really enjoyed the fact that he 'got it' so quickly. It was all new to him anyway - he had learned phonics one way then had a different way taught to him in class. Even if they know the phonics they will still be doing new worksheets, activities and colouring so are learning more than just the phonics e.g pencil control. Even my 9yr old will still sometimes read books that are for a much younger reading level - when everything is new and challenging sometimes it's nice to relax and do something easy and familiar.

My sister refused to read a thing throughout school, hated reading, I remember my mum reading the books to her as that was the only way my sister would even look at them...

...she now has a degree in English Lit and write for a living 😎

It also depends on what nursery they go to... some will start phonics early and some just don't as a policy. With my earlier comments, I acknowledge that the sounds work started as speech therapy, but to carry on to such as level of reading would go beyond that.
I just meant that some parents seem very anxious to start children reading very early when its not needed; other stuff is. In lots of countries where children dont start formal schooling until 6/7 they will have different experiences. I am not aware of any where that routinely teaches children at 3 to read?

No, Hercules, You shouldn't stop him from what he wants to do, and it won't be an issue unless your ds's teacher is crap. There are always some children who are advanced then others, and good teacher will know how to differentiate.

I don't know why anyone would take issue with work books, they are literally the same as a CBeebies special magazine, just a themed set. And the teach your monster to read is a video game. As for saying "isn't there more fun things to do than work on his reading?" Well no, he loves reading. Every night he'll read 4 to 8 books because he wants to and he loves that he has his own books that mummy doesn't read. And obviously I'm not going to stop him.

Him being naughty at nursery is more him not being stimulated enough. His key person is very good at finding ways to keep his mind occupied but half the time he is made to do group activities. Like listen to a story being read but they have to go slow for the kids who barely understand English. And he can often see the page so he's read it or he'll remember the rest of the book. So he wonders off alot and sometimes brakes things to see how they work and things like that.

He's not being naughty on purpose, I don't think he even considers what he's doing could be considered bad. I can only imagine how he will react if they try to teach him what he already knows. I don't want him to get in trouble for wanting to learn and eventually stop trying in school. From the mix of replies it just looks like random luck if they'll teach to their level or not :/