Do you think it's a good idea to teach your child to read, before they start school, if they are able to

[user1492337624]

Just wondering what your views are ?

This child in question knows all their phonics and has started reading basic words like tent cat peg etc

If it suits the child. If they hate it then definitely not, but with some children it would be hard to stop them.

Reading isn't a limited skill. It's the start of the new world for a child

Reading is a limited skill, you can either sound out the word enough to recognise it - or possibly retrieve the meaning from a dictionary - or you can't. There's nothing more to it, that it allows access to a new world is for sure (but even that reading is not required, as text to speech tools are available now) However tha world requires other things - vocabulary, reasoning and experience of idiom and metaphor - which take longer to acquire, and do not need to learn to read first.

Yes.

My eldest was reading before school - we are in Scotland so he was slightly older at 5y 1m when he started school. He was powering through Astrosaurs, Beastquest, Roald Dahl, famous five before starting school. His teacher was great, she kept him in the most advanced reading group which was way too easy for him but gave him separate books from a parallel reading scheme - nonfiction if I remember. Keeping him in the top group didn't single him out, and after 18 months many of the more able students had caught up with him.

I didn't teach him to read though - he just started doing it by himself.

Both myself and my DS could read before we started school. I expected that he would be able to from my own experience. Not just sight words, full reading without ever really being taught or having words broken down. (My family always said I was like Matilda)

However when I did start I went backwards for a while with phonics and I found that DS did too, although it has strengthened his longer words and taught him some rules to follow. He got very in to digraphs and trigraphs as a sort of seperate topic without really needing to apply them to his reading. He's six now and reads at about age 10. That is not to say that this works for every child, I did absolutely nothing to "teach" him and just read to him every night.

Meant to add that although my son was very advanced in reading, his handwriting was - and still is - shocking. So while the others were doing reading or literacy, he did extra fine motor control stuff.

They know enough, they'll pick it up. Why not use the time sharing a range of books instead, talk about them, do silly voices, act them out. This will foster a love of books that will be so much more beneficial.

Poppy your little one sounds like mine. Can read anything you out in front of him but his handwriting is absolutely terrible! He's not that great at colouring in the lines either really.

I think with some children you can't stop them. Ds (summer born boy) wasn't in to reading until end of year one, but could simple addition and subtraction before school. Dd could read I think, but I didn't "teach her" her older brother and the world did that.

Sir, I was thinking after reading your post, and realised.
Maybe we think totally opposite because English isn't my first language, and my knowledge of English is rather limited.

I haven't with mine because I think it's probably boring to go through it all for a year in reception if you already know it. And if you go up to work with the year above you're not having that time with your new classmates.

But I know they're bright and will find it easy.

If I thought they'd really struggle at school, I might have started earlier.

Da was reading before school. He loved a set of stories that were part of an old reading scheme and picked up the words. He is still an advanced and quick reader.
I would be careful of teaching phonics to make sure you use the same scheme the school uses and that you are pronouncing things 'properly' so bbb not buh as it may confuse your (?) child

Ds couldn't read before school but could read a lot of CVC words as well as CVCC words before they started phonics in second half of the autumn term with no real tuition at home or school. I think it was just the right time.
We consciously chose not to give any tuition in his nursery year on reading but that was more to do with me not knowing what to do. He did enter reception knowing lots of maths though (entered nursery doing addition and subtraction though) but I thought that was bog standard.
As for the phonics teaching if they can read, or pick it up fast, I think DS has still found it fun. I think next year will be boring for him though but they may well deal with other issues to do with SNs in that time though.

It depends on the child, if they are ready and keen you could teach them to read before they start school.

I did it with both my sons. DS1 was ready a few months after he turned 4. I wanted to teach him to read before he started school so he wouldn't be confused learning to read in two languages at the same time. When he started school he could already read in Spanish. He learned his phonics at school and progressed really quickly as many of the skills he knew from reading in one language were transferred into reading a second.

DS2 was ready a few months before he turned 4. I taught him to read in Spanish and only took him a couple of months to learn. We only spent 5 minutes a day playing phonic games which he enjoyed.
Once he knew he could read in Spanish, he kept trying to read signs, labels, posters, etc but I kept having to explain that some letters have different sounds if the words are written in English. As he was so keen to learn I got him some phonic flashcards and decodable books, and I only had to explain which sounds were different and teach him the ones that were exclusive to English. Again, he learned in just a couple of months and can now read books that DS1 was reading at the end of reception.

I agree with irvineoneohone, that reading is not a limited skill and you can increase vocabulary and learn reasoning skills while reading. Although DS2 can read a book in English, he doesn't always understand the words he is reading because they are not in his vocabulary, given that English is his second language at the moment. So our reading time is the perfect opportunity to talk about words he doesn't know, what they mean, and in turn develop other skills like understanding the story, predicting and talking about what characters are feeling, etc.