your baby can read

confuseddad_2

Wow. Thanks for all the views.

I am happy with her progress because she has shown so much interest in learning and thats whats important. I will leave it in the teachers hands as they have more experience in this than me and we will back that up with support and encouragment.

She is in fact teaching us about kicking k and curly c, so never mind to early to learn its never to late either.

Lunar_Eclipse

milliebear00001 wrote: »

As I said, a child who comes into school able to 'read', is not always top of class when it comes to reading at the end of Key Stage 1. There is little long term benefit in being an 'early' reader.

Whilst I know children who do catch up, it is my experience from both my children that those who are ahead when starting school (can read, write and do basic numerical sums) start off on the top table (top group) usually for both Numeracy and Literacy in reception, were still in the top group by the end of Key Stage 1 and are still there towards the end of Key Stage 2.

It is also possible for a 5 year old to read fluently. By that I mean able to read whatever you throw at them. It infuriates me that teachers think they might not be understanding what they're reading, memorise the content or whatever. Why exactly? My youngest could read well in reception. She is a very quick learner, with an IQ that puts her within the top 1% , not that her infant school teachers knew that. But it's within the realms of possibility to be reading Blyton or Dahl in reception, so I find it very sad that some teachers find it impossible. Weird. And very sad and uninspiring.

bylromarha

milliebear00001 wrote: »

The school was wrong for not providing reading material at the correct level.. I've never met a 4/5 year old child who could decode a 'difficult' book perfectly.

I shall introduce you to my son:rotfl:

He's got the reading age of a 10 year old, and is 5yrs 4m - when I pushed the school to do his reading age 1st term Reception , they initially resisted, but I wanted them to have a baseline to measure progress over the year. It was 8yr2m, 9yr 6m by the end of Reception year. I had him reading Blyton at home - there's a limited list of books he wants to read, which I will allow him to read, due to the 10 yr old story themes.

It was this information that helped convince the school that applying their policy of starting him on Stage 1 of ORT was a bad idea.;)

I'm a Primary teacher too, with lots of KS1 experience, so he truly scares me as I've never come across a child like him - especially being the youngest in his year group too. The fact he taught himself to read is the scariest bit - I gave him the sounds when he asked for them, he put them all together

His high reading means he is choosing to access a lot of information and material not available to his peers, which is all being soaked up by his inqusitive brain. His current favourite book is a kids encyclopedia - lots and lots of benefits to being an early reader as he could tell you stuff about the natural world I had no clue about at age 5.

OP - avoid the system in your first post - waste of money!

EDIT: Having read back a few posts, I'm not parenting pokering him!!!! I can't raise you a football class or an ice skating troop as he does nothing outside school hours, and won't unless he wants to follow an interest he has!

dizziblonde

I came across a year 1 child at one point who was reading Harry Potter, and over the course of a couple of months figured speech marks out for herself - she started putting them over each word that was actually said by the character, then put two and two together and started putting them around them. Incredibly capable little girl - also with the driest sense of humour I've ever come across... at one point I joked she didn't need to write that much until she became Prime Minister, she looked me up and down and replied, completely deadpan, "I wouldn't want to be Tony Blair Miss, the man's an idiot."

That child had been through this world before I swear - but yes, it's possible (but rare) for a child that young to be reading with good understanding of a text - I've never closed my mind to the possibility of it because there's nowt with more potential for causing mayhem in a classroom than a very bright child who is getting bored in school (I was one)!

I start kids near the bottom of the reading scheme and skip them up accordingly but not at parental request - I'll think again about where they should be if mum comes in and says "I reckon this might be too easy" - but sometimes I won't move them up if I think they need to be on the level they're on in order to work on fluency, expression or understanding... or just to build up confidence a touch! I've been known to send home 2-3 books of different levels to try out at home with parents I know won't just jump for the top one for bragging rights - it takes a bit of time to work out the right level to put some children on... and some kids who devour books I've sent home class library free readers as well as a scheme book, or a couple of scheme books at once.

Certain parents I wouldn't trust to work as easily with - the ones who've done things like sneak into classrooms before school and compare reading book colours within children's trays, or ones who've sat and cross referenced siblings' reading diaries to check where each kid was at set points in the year - they were different children !!!!!!!!! It seriously does become a reading scheme competition in some places - I worked in a very very posh private school once where we had two parents physically come to blows over the ongoing row about whose child was the brightest!

Kids ahead of the others aren't generally a problem if you plan properly for them - I know from bitter experience as a kid that I was streets ahead of the rest of my class (I'm not idly bragging, I was assessed by an ed psych and the IQ he came back with was Mensa level but that would have required effort and I'm a lazy little nowt). If you don't cater for those very able children you end up with the situation I ended up in as a kid where I was bored out of my skull, had sussed out every loophole to get around the teachers and caused mayhem ending up with primary school being a very very unhappy time for me (put me in ability sets at secondary and I flew)... it's why I've always always always pushed the most able in any class I've taught - because a bored bright kid is a recipe for mayhem!