Please don't 'baby' your children

[pineapple95]

Where do I start?

Parents of my y3/4 class routinely carry their children's bags in, take their lunch bags to the hall, hand in letters and money, put their reading diaries and spelling books in the right places on the right days, linger in the corridor chatting ... for goodness sake MAKE YOUR CHILD LOOK AFTER THEIR STUFF!

7-9 year olds can carry bags and remember books. Don't baby them. Even 3 year olds can carry their bags - don't be that parent who mollycoddles their children.

Clearly Mathanxiety is confusing curriculum with assessment zzzz which I assume you don't believe is the parents role?

They wouldn't so I'm questioning Mathanxiety's expertise regarding EYFS content as they don't seem to understand the difference between practice and assessment.

I'd say bottom line it's parents role to ensure their child grows up healthy and happy and dare I add a considerate person.

Roundaboutthetown I am not sure where to start with your comprehensive misreading of just about everything I posted. It's a busy day for me.
A positive perception of him or herself is a vital element of the foundation for future learning for a child. Don't scoff at the idea of children being crushed. Introducing a new, artificial hurdle into an environment where a teacher is (by your description) faced with serious impediments even to maintaining order is evidence of a very serious lack of understanding of the needs of four year old children.

How children feel about themselves and their competence at age four is extremely important. Setting up a hurdle that some are neurologically unable to get over (and I am talking about NT children here, not children with SN) is unnecessary and potentially negative for all.

zzzzz Wrt fine motor skills and why they are important.
bild.la.psu.edu/publications/stuff/research-papers-directory/sanjeevan
They very often go hand in hand with SLI. Observation of lags in fine motor skills can contribute to a diagnosis of SLI.

I am not 'taking a pop' as such, just pointing out that the UK early years approach is misguided as the research on which this policy was based took place with children who were at least a year older than the Reception age children in the UK who are, in fact, expected to attain competence in literacy (despite what Mrs claims).

schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/28933-Ofsted-Early-Years-Curriculum-Report.pdf
Reading, reading, reading. This OFSTED publication is all relevant to my argument here Mrz, especially the pages devoted to the topic of literacy - p 21 for instance, but the first few pages too.
A telling observation:
The headteachers believed that the complexity of learning to read contributed to the development of children’s resilience, concentration and perseverance – traits that children would need for other learning.
Otherwise known as dropping children in at the deep end and seeing who could learn to swim. The school experience for four year old children doesn't need to be so bracing. The effect on those who don't make the grade or even those who struggle, whose progress is left in the hands of parents who are not qualified to help with the nightly decoding practice, and who may or may not have the patience to do it gently is apparently a price school administrators are willing to pay.

The report also unself-consciously emphasises the need for good pre-reading practice - in general creating a language rich environment that in other school systems would create the foundation for phonics instruction at a later age.

Hmmmm well op mine are in seniors school and both are highly organised and motivated and don’t lose stuff. I personally believe that it is because when they were little, I modelled this behaviour for them and yes, I did everything you don’t like in parents doing in your op. They watched and learnt. Children learn differently and this learning style suited mine.

I know kids of 14 whose parents never did any “babying” and one in particular has not got any organisational skills, always losing stuff, in the wrong place, forgetting homework - so independence at a young age has not helped at all. In fact, it’s left the child with no idea of how to get organised.

Where I live parents don't even go to the school lol. Kids get picked up at home.

How children feel about themselves and their competence at age four is extremely important. Setting up a hurdle that some are neurologically unable to get over (and I am talking about NT children here, not children with SN) is unnecessary and potentially negative for all.
I agree with this. My child was not ready for phonics at 4, they just didn't click for him until nearer 6, despite knowing the letter sounds before school. He ended up learning to read by sight words instead, which I supported him in doing as I didn't want his confidence negatively affected. Waiting and learning at 5 turning 6 would have been more developmentally appropriate.

mathanxiety - I am not sure where to start with your comprehensive misreading of just about everything I posted. And you have still failed entirely to answer why you are not advocating that school at all at age 4 is a bad idea, if your concern for children's self-esteem is as great as you claim it to be. Literacy is not a unique part of the curriculum where children fail to meet their early learning goals - children just as frequently fail to achieve in other areas, too. There is no evidence coming out of UK schools that I am aware of which demonstrates that more children struggle with phonics than anything else they are assessed against in Reception. So why is failing in other areas of the curriculum not as harmful to self-esteem in your eyes? There is plenty of evidence, imo, that 4 is just too young generally for many children to be in school, with its goals and measurements and high adult:child ratios - yet if parents don't apply for a place for their child in Reception and wait until year 1, they risk finding there are no spaces available in a nearby school and their children will have missed out on a year of getting to know the other children, and parents need to get back to work and not have to pay so much for childcare, so parents apply for spaces for their children, regardless of their school readiness and regardless of the harm to their self-esteem when thrust into an environment they are not fully equipped to deal with. So why are you not railing against that? And why so relentlessly positive about the US system unless and until pressed on it? There are colossal failings in the US system, too, and I think you'd find a better reception to your opinions if you were more willing to be honest about those, rather than constantly, and in all honesty, somewhat nauseatingly, going on about how wonderful you think it is in the US, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Also, where is your evidence that a significant proportion of NT children (if such a thing as a NT child can really be defined) are not neurologically capable of learning phonics at age 4? I can understand the argument that the UK is offering its children up to be part of an experiment to test this hypothesis, which is a somewhat bizarre approach, but haven't seen cast iron research demonstrating that hypothesis has already been proven, nor in fact overwhelming evidence so far from the UK that this is the case.

Ps please don't use Ofsted as evidence of UK schools' approach, given the contempt with which it is generally held in by UK schools. A normal Ofsted inspection these days only lasts one day, anyway, during which time they must be capable of seeing only a little more than bugger all (and they rely a huge amount on what schools claim to be the case on their website, given the fact they don't have the time or money to actually look for themselves).

Bold Beginnings briefing
http://earlyexcellence.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/10100-ReviewwCRECMarchh2017.pdf

zzzzz that's not what I said or what I implied, wrt SLI. What a bizarre misreading and extrapolation.

"just pointing out that the UK early years approach is misguided as the research on which this policy was based took place with children who were at least a year older than the Reception age children in the UK who are, in fact, expected to attain competence in literacy (despite what Mrs claims)." You're still confusing assessment outcomes with curriculum methods.

Neither your opinion on Ofsted nor the opinion of English schools about Ofsted make a difference to its role, Roundaboutthebottom. It is a non-ministerial department of the government, and it reports to Parliament. What it says and what it encourages in schools matters a lot.

Unless you are trying to tell me that education in England is actually a free for all, with nobody setting standards or enforcing them and nobody particularly happy about the enterprise? In which case, I suspect my comments on the positive qualities of American education are justified.

There is no discernible relationship with your quote from me and your comment on 'curriculum methods' and 'assessment outcomes' Mrz.

zzzzz yes, I know that's what you said. You said it in response to something I posted.

The point of delaying formal teaching in a classroom setting is to wait until most NT children will be developmentally ready.

I don’t know if I could find the paper now because it’s at least 15 years since I read it, but that research has been done in Europe. They found that the majority of children are ready for reading instruction by their fourth birthday, a few won’t be ready until closer to their 5th with the rest getting there by the time they turn 6.

I wouldn’t object to the teaching of reading starting in year 1 but I’m not convinced you can make an argument teaching phonics at 4 is developmentally inappropriate.

Having taught in reception and 1st grade at a time when there were lower (non-existent) decoding expectations in kindergarten I’m not convinced age is a huge factor here.

mathanxiety - it is blatantly obvious that all your "knowledge" of the English education system is 2nd and 3rd hand and a result of selective reading of bits of what you fancy. At least mrz actually teaches in the relevant sector. You do not teach or live in the UK - do you even teach in the US, or ar you an armchair education expert? And what is your background in child development, because I'm getting a bit bored with your patronising tone, now, and want some credentials to back it up, please, given the lofty heights of understanding you claim to have reached with regard to the workings of the "NT" infant brain and your superior understanding of the precise failings of UK schools - which apparently trumps the knowledge and understanding of people with children actually going through the system and people working within it.

Ps, mathanxiety, you wrote this: "zzzzz Wrt fine motor skills and why they are important.
bild.la.psu.edu/publications/stuff/research-papers-directory/sanjeevan
They very often go hand in hand with SLI. Observation of lags in fine motor skills can contribute to a diagnosis of SLI."
Surely you can understand why zzzz interpreted what you wrote in the way that she did, given the general context of the discussion you were having with her (about why you thought teaching phonics "too early" to "NT children" was harmful)? Tbh, I found your sudden reference to children with SLIs a bit confusing - there were clearly too many different threads of conversation going on at once for anyone to make proper sense of!