Anyone heard the one about reading ability being linked to loss of first tooth?

[sameagain]

DS2 (YR1,just 6) is struggling with reading, to the extent that the school have identified special needs and he has the appropriate plan etc, which is great.

My mum (ex teacher) told me yest that she has heard on the radio that reading is just like walking - they do it when they are physically ready and this will often be around the time they lose their first tooth.

Now, DS1 was a very good reader in reception, but he did lose his first tooth while in the reception class. DS2 still has all his milk teeth. What do you think?

It sounds like a pile of want.

But TBH, I find it madness that we have 4 yr olds learning to read and write and parents fretting. For some DCs it will "click" really early and for others not until they are 7ish.

IMO it's complete codswallop. Ds is reading chapter books fluently and still has his full set of baby teeth at 6.5.

Nope, ds1 good reader in Reception, dd in Y1, neither lost their first tooth until well after they had cracked reading.

There was an article on this in the Telegraph Weekend section yesterday - it's probably online on their site.

It sounds like nonsense to me - ds was reading sentences at 3.5 so how does that work under this theory?

Am I missing something??

I found the article interesting, it does go along with the notion that northern eu countries teach later at around 7 and then they pick up the reading fast and over take uk school children by 11.

The fact that we all think are children are good readers is one thing, and they probably are - but what if

what if we had let them to not read until there milk teeth started to fall out, could it be that they would still be good reader and possibly better.

That one we will not know.

Sounds barking to me!

DS1 was reading fluently by 4 1/2. He never lost his first tooth until the month before his 6th birthday.

DD is 5 1/2, and is starting to read nicely now, no sign of a wobbly tooth!

Too early to tell with DS2, he is nearly 4, but I have a feeling he will be reading before he loses a tooth.

Jack lost his first tooth at 6 and a half but could read a newspaper at 3 (autism) Lucy lost her first tooth at just six but has been reading fluently since 4 and is the best reader in her class so the theory doesn't work for us

What a load of absolute boll nonsense.

This is one of those "statistics can prove anything" things. It will be true for most children simply because losing their first tooth happens around the time they've been in school for a while learning to read.

Not true here. DD is a very good reader, reading above her age range. She is 7y and in Y2 and still not lost any teeth yet.

sameagain it's my experience that a child who learns to read slightly older will normally be just as good at reading as their peers later on, so in that sense I think we sometimes worry too much about the age a child learns or indeed wants to learn to read. It's good that your DC2 has extra help and that you're positive.

I can't see there's any useful link between loss of first tooth and reading ability. There's a correlation between the age that children learn to read and the loss of their milk teeth but that's hardly surprising because both happen as children get older! Other mumsnetters have already pointed this one out.

Just as I suspect it can be harmful to push certain children into reading too early (before age 6) bearing in mind the time at which our dcs acquire the neurological ability to read varies significantly between individuals, I also suspect it could be harmful for any school to actively delay a child's reading due to some arbitrary tooth loss/readiness to learn construct. Especially one with bizarre links to soul incarnation and other absolute boll nonsense. Which we will not go into here.

Sigh. There's no 'neurological ability' to read -it's not wired into the brain like language. Writing is a recent man-made technology -a skill that has to be taught.

There is absolutely no evidence that teaching 3-5 yr.olds to read is in any way 'damaging'. Lots of parents do it, and a few children teach themselves, with no reports of harmful effects.

'If a child can speak in whole sentences and participate in everyday conversation, the child has adequate prerequisites to be taught how to read'

It's toxic instruction using the whole language multi-cueing activities of memorising and guessing which causes damage.

Bonkers!
My dd is just 6 and has been reading fluently for 2 years, still has not lost any teeth (much to her disgust!)

Sounds like a load of rubbish, dd1 started recognising words when she was 2 and can now read short books at the age of 4.
She still has all her baby teeth, although thanks to peppa pig, she is desperate to lose them so the tooth fairy can visit.

sorry, rubbish theory IME. DS2 lost his first milk tooth at 10 - very late but was a late teether. He was reading fluently before he started school. DD lost her first tooth a bit younger but way after she'd started reading.

My experience of a lot of home educated children who were not 'taught' at 3 and 4, by that whole deathly dull ORT process is that they pick it up almost organically at around 7.
I'm not saying dont teach children early if they are ready, but perhaps its not the badge of honour people think and of no use in the long run.
Mine were early readers but they are now just readingt the same stuff as their home educated mates.
I also worry that the obsession with early reading actively puts children off reading for fun.

maverick don't sigh. I see no problem any dc learning to read at under 6. For certain dcs though, it may be just as well to be patient, since they may well catch up later. The widely varying experiences of mumsnetters on threads like this bears this out. For the record, my older sister learnt at 4, I resisted until 6. It was a cause of anxiety at the time but when I started I learnt v quickly. My ds was the same, he's academically v successful now and reads voraciously. I just think parents don't necessarily need to be so worried, myself included.

As for a neurological ability to read: I mean that the neurological capacity to learn to read easily varies hugely in 4-5 year olds, because the rate of development of the neuro-physiological structures and connections varies (at 3 vv few have the capacity, while by 6 nearly all have the capacity). It's the toxic teaching methods you describe which, in the context of a brain which is not quite ready, can cause damage by creating a lack of confidence and feeling of failure at an early age (poor emotional attachment at home further potentiates the effect). The damage can be manifested in poor mental health outcomes, unemployment, even imprisonment, as demonstrated in some excellent US research.

It's interesting (if irrelevant) that we see a similar variation with teeth: we lose our first teeth at different times but by a certain age all of us (apart from some stray mumsnetters) have made that developmental step. And even those wild-cards seem to be pretty literate! The important thing as far as this thread goes is that we agree, I'm assuming, that there's no useful link between the age of loss of first tooth and reading ability. What are your thoughts? Have you come across this idea yourself before now?

I agree that "there's no useful link between age of first tooth loss and reading ability" but thought the thread was about tooth loss possibly being an indication of reading readiness. Sounds like you're saying, wilderduck, that neurological capacity should be in place before reading acquisition. I would say that reading acquisition develops neurological capacity.

I didn't push my dd1 into reading, I was reading one day and she was sitting next to me and said "look mummy, baby" and pointed to the word baby. There were no pictures of babies, so she must have recognised the word from somewhere.

She was 2, as I was pregnant with dd2 at the time and she was born when dd1 was 28 months.

We didn't want to encourage her to read but she has taught herself, she obviously isn't reading very much but can happily read books that are used to teach children in p1/2.

Have to be careful when I'm here as she likes to look over my shoulder and there are somethings I definitely don't want her to attempt to read

for the record, my DS wasn't pushed to read before school, he just could. So could DD, but she failed the 11+ so ability to read early not necessarily an indicator of (school entrance exam) intelligence.

How jolly to find you next to me again, Oh Tub. I'm referring to the title of the thread. Must we squabble? Reading acquisition will develop neuronal connections, yes (as does any learning) but what I'm discussing here is that the stage of development of the brain will be at different levels for children, say, at the age of 5. Some brains will have developed more than others. By the age of 7 the essential neurodevelopmental capacity required for reading is in place in the vast majority of children.

And if you want an answer to the first post precisely as well, there is no causal link at all between 'reading readiness' and tooth loss. None. It is, as other posters have stated, absolute bolleaux.

It just seems from reading these posters that dcs learn at different times and that the time of learning is unrelated to later reading ability. But whilst the tooth fairy is harmless fun (except ours is fat, old, lurks in a hedge sulking and spends the tooth money on beer and fags) the tooth gnome is a bloody liability.

Catch you on another thread another time maybe?

I think an answer to the first post is that some children never do, in fact, learn to read even though they may be physically equipped to do so.

Hmmm never heard that before. DD1 is very behind on her reading for her age, she's in year 1. She's on her second wobbly tooth atm. Actually come to think of it she did go up a reading level a few months back which was around the same time she lost her first tooth. Interesting. This was also the first time she'd ever gone up a reading level since she started reception.

I lost all my baby teeth quite young, I think I was 7 and had all my adult teeth. I was also quite an advanced reader as a child. Think I might look into that.

"she did go up a reading level a few months back which was around the same time she lost her first tooth"

Loosing teeth has NO bearing on reading ability.

It is simply the case the most children lose teeth at the point where they have been at school learning to read.

Do you seriously think that a tooth falling out has a sudden magic effect on the child's ability to read??