Should children read by the age of six?

[NKF]

David Cameron seems to think they should.

well I didn'tundertsand the news item tbh
it went onto say that tests should be adminstered at the end of the first year of school
but then they wouldn't be six but five.
but if his point is to change the emphasis of the reception year to learning to read rather than learning through play then I disagree

No. If they can, great but DS's school put a lot of effort into teaching reading and some still struggle (though not DS). It takes time to click and I don't think small children and their parents need the pressure. On the Continent they don't even start school until 6 so what is the hurry.

And what is being able to read? What level do you have to be?

I heard them saying at the end of the 2nd year of school (end of Yr1). They should be specific about the point in school, not the age of the child.
End of Reception would be absurd, imho, for the reading skills they were describing.
Also agree with a reply that said that less testing and more funding to enable smaller class sizes would be far better strategy.

depends on which advisor the gov has been listening to...

if we test them at 6 and they need to read to pass the test then yes..

My own views are that some children are ready and some aren't....should all children been made to jump through the same hoops. By expecting all children to be able to read to a certain level we are setting some up to fail.

This made me SO wild.

A Yr 1 test would have been utterly utterly counter-productive for DS who was so anxious about not being able to read (when he was just starting) that he couldn't bring himself to try.

Why is it that everything other countries do better than us we immediately do the opposite, instead of learning from their example? I saw a report that the Labour party have decided that the academic pressure comes as too much of a shock in Yr1................so....what would you do, given the experioence in Scandinavia and continental Europe where they concentrate on conceptual skllls and play before introducing RRR at 7, to excellent effect?...well Brown's gvt think that the way to solve this shock is to introduce more academic learning in Reception and Nursery!

Cameron did say his Yr1 reading test would be a swap frp Y2 SATS which would be abolished, but the important thing is that children learn to read - and read well - at the moment that is right for THEM to learn to read.

there is a whole year's age difference between children in Yr1 - and with the difference (on average) between boys and girls...well it just seems a crude way to address a probelm of older children being sub-literate.

But I wasn't going to vote for cameron, anyway.

Not after his One-legged Lithuanian' comment.

(and not before that comment, either).

he is an attention-seeking vote-grabbing marketing confection of a politician.

I was quite shocked at this (although only heard headline). Ds1 could read before he was 5 and ds2 is in reception now (just 5) and is reading too.

Plenty were still struggling at start of year 1 but by the end of year 1 (so most were 6 by then) most were there with it.

Like others have said, in other countries they don't even start until 6.

It seems like a lot of pressure to me.

He doesn't seem to know what age he is talking about because some children will only just be six at the end of year 1. I know it sounds like a petty objection but it makes a difference. And why six?

Argh. Some children just aren't ready. 7 is the average age so 50% would be labelled as failures at 6.
Its like they think 'reading' is the sign of a good school. I'd prefer happy kids who read later but read for pleasure. Forced reading puts kids off

A lot of children who are not reading at 6 are simply not mature enough yet. There is such a thing as "reading readiness", although goodness knows even many headteachers will not acknowledge this.

I do agree that the KS1 curriculum (and P1 to P3 in Scotland) should be thinned down so that more time can be spent on language and maths. Not at the expense of art, music etc though - I think they are vital, but some of the envirnomental studies, ICT etc could surely wait until they are older.

Sorry I haven't seen the report. What do they call being able to read? Is it the first 150 key words or being able to read all 7 Harry Potters by themselves? Anybody got a link to the report?

I don't think there is a report. It's just a statement from David Cameron. I think so anyway.

My gut feeling is that 6 is too young, particularly for many of the boys (but I have no expertise in this age of education and am happy to be corrected)

What I want is for them to be able to read, write and do basic maths, sit still for 5 minutes to listen to instructions and share equipment without squabling, by the age of 11.

Actually by the age of 14 would be an improvement!

Oh good! Another bench mark to make our DCs feel like failures.In most european countries kids don't do start doing formal reading/ maths until 6 or 7. Many of them far out strip our kids academically at age 8 even in poorer countries and they haven't been robbed of their childhoods to achieve it.

The Literacy strategy we have been told to teach for the past 10 years has not helped matters apparently. When is someone going to look to successes from other countries and give our kids a curriculum that doesn't turn them off learning? (Rant over-sorry I will get down from my orange box now.)

Sorry rant not over!
Is David Cameron actually a teacher? Does he know anything about child development?

I think you are right MB.

If he really wants to replace SATs which is probably no bad thing, why not make 7 the age at which you should be able to read? Most of the children in DS's class had the basics at that age. Some of them still need increase their vocab and broaden their reading but that will only come with time and practice anyway.

I didn't learn to read until I was about 7 (I think I'm doing alright now.......maybe Mr Cameron wouldn't agree)

My niece is a year younger than DD and has consistently been better educated than DD - but then she lives in Sweden

What does Mr Cameron considers as "reading"??? For example the majority of children in DD's class can "read" but all are at different levels. Would there be a strict level they would need to reach? If so who decides what the level will be? I don't remember there being such a fuss when I was a child (I'm 34 )

Good point. What is reading? What level? And is full comprehension of simpler texts better than technical reading accuracy of harder books?

What is important is that the children who are really struggling are given intensive help before an inablity to read damages their education. If you wait until seven years old to give remedial reading tutition then the child's confidence will have already taken a major battering.

The current system of keystage 1 SATs puts a lot of unnecessary stress on children. Without any benefits for them.

I think scraping keystage 1 tests is a really good idea. If a simple reading test is given to the child by a teacher the child knows it will not trumatise them.

What is important is the results from such a reading test should not appear in league tables.

I would be over the moon if they scrapped the Key Stage 1 SATS - they are evil imo. An 'end of Y2 reading test' would be fine, just to gauge where the children are, preferably with results withheld from parents, who don't need to know the results!

I'd like to see SATS Key stage 3 scrapped.

load of bollocks being spouted my politicians who have no idea at all about anything.

i have a six year old, from a supposedly advantaged background, who would fail their so called tests. and its not because of bad teachers or bad parents or bad parenting.
kids learnt to read when they are ready to learn. not before.

o yes, the deputy head at dc school proudly tells how she didnt learnt oread till the age of seven either.

The problem is that a lot of phonics teaching stops as children go up a school. The important thing is that children go on getting daily reading lessons/ tutiton until they have mastered the skill to a reasonable standard.

If a child needs daily reading lessons until they are 18 then they should get it. This needs to happen whether the child is bright or stupid, has supportive parents or is in care.

Personally I would rather my child got regular informal reading tests every half term rather than an external exam that children get coached for. I have a glasty feeling that teachers might be tempted to teach high frequency words to fake a good result in a reading test rather than teaching decoding.

Reallytired - but surely good teachers are already picking out children who need extra support? It shouldn't depend on standardised a test at the end of Yr1 with a simple pass / fail line.

DS is now in Yr2 - one of the two youngest in his class, and is now reading confidently - but it came much slower than i thought ti would...he is consistently described as 'very bright' by teachers. The school have only just introduced synthetic phonics from the off - with Reception children learning letter sounds very differently to how DS did.

I think DS would have learned to read like a shot had he done synthetic phonics (they did do lots of phonics in amongst word recognition) but word recognition put him off because he hated guessing in case he got it wrong. Had he been taughht de-coding earlier he would have been more confident, I think.

Some word recognition is essential in English, too, of course, as so many of our words are un-de-codable!