toddlers more advanced with learning if at home with mum....

BrandNewDay

What is this about not teaching our children at home, ourselves?! WHAT?! Who says this?!

pipkin71

My DD's are 9 + 8 and both are advanced learners. They both learnt to read and write before starting school and I have followed this through, however, the youngest is being let down educationally by her school who present work suitable for the majority of the class but not my daughter. To balance this I teach them at home on top of what they do in school.

Interestingly, I have just finished my final project for my degree and focused on whether early pre-school learning equalled higher educational attainment at the end of ks1 [year 2]. My girls achieved level 4s and 3s and, amongst other factors, general consensus suggests that where parents show an interest in books and encourage reading this plays a part in childrens attainment, so regular reading sessions with the little ones is a definite plus.

My girls still love reading and writing stories and once a week we think of an object, etcetera and have a poetry evening. Sunday's was butterflies so we all made up butterfly poems to see who could come up with the best one.

regards
Pipkin xx

Rachie_B

lottee wrote:

OMG !!! I am off to read my 4 y/o a bedtime story straight away, but I will be getting him to try & help me tonight! That's fab, if my son could read now I would think he was a genius, never mind a year ago !!!

Did you read to them from a very young age, or did they just seem to pick it up?

:rotfl: my youngest is 4 and started school in september,he can read a few words and they have flash cards as "homework" bless

my eldest son could read in playgroup !!! they had "name strips" to get them used to recognising their names and my son could read them all :rotfl:

he was always and still is very interested in books and leaflets etc !
he would read and tell me what was on tv from the newspaper listings when he was 4 :rotfl:

when he was 5 he had the reading age of an 11 yr old :eek: he is only 10 now :rotfl:

i havent done anything differently with the 2 boys i dont think always provided loads of books for them both from a young age,but the eldest just seemed to grasp it really easily and was almost "self taught"

finc

My son is 2 1/2 and he isn't the world's biggest book lover despite my best efforts. He does, however love trying to write and adores his Fridge Phonics game which has helped him recognise letters.

I know the school he will go to teaches using Jolly Phonics so I've bought a few of the books from ELC and try to stick to this way of teaching him so he won't be confused when he starts at school.

jellyhead

gosh rachie was that a level 4 reading ability at age 5? our head was chuffed because my son and one other boy (out of 72 year 8 year olds, my son was 7 at the time of testing) got a level 4 :rotfl: he didn't like books as a baby though, not until he was 2 years old, loved them after that though but didn't learn to read until reception year at school aged 4.

jellyhead

pipkin71 wrote:

general consensus suggests that where parents show an interest in books and encourage reading this plays a part in childrens attainment, so regular reading sessions with the little ones is a definite plus.

sure this is true but could there also be an element of the children with lower attainment just not grasping reading and not being interested in books, so that's why their parents read fewer books to them as babies?

my sister has 2 children, one is way ahead at school while the other struggles in special classes despite being the oldest in the class. both had the same encouragement and family life but one just isn't as keen on books. my sister and i were the same, i was reading at 3 but she didn't learn until she was 8.

Rachie_B

jellyhead wrote:

gosh rachie was that a level 4 reading ability at age 5? our head was chuffed because my son and one other boy (out of 72 year 8 year olds, my son was 7 at the time of testing) got a level 4 :rotfl: he didn't like books as a baby though, not until he was 2 years old, loved them after that though but didn't learn to read until reception year at school aged 4.

i know ,we were all well shocked

esp as he could barely write at the time ! he had very poor pencil skills and couldnt use scissors etc

since found out he has "dyspraxic tendencies" and though brilliant at english etc ,numbers and also gross / fine motor skill tasks,are more of a hurdle for him

he only learnt to tie his shoe laces this summer gone at the age of ten bless him :smileyhea

pipkin71

absolutely jellyhead. As with all things in life,nothing is black and white and, as I found when writing my paper, although general consensus may at this point suggest encouraging books, before long another researcher will come along to disprove current thinking.

From personal experience, I think a love of books led to my girls achieving above average results in reading at age 7, however genetics could also be considered influential although this theory would open up a huge yay and nay debate amongst researchers themselves.

I guess, as parents it comes down to doing what is right for your own family - if your child loves reading, encourage it, if they don't, focus on what they do enjoy.

regards
Pipkin xx

morlandbanks

I've always encouraged my children to take an interest in books and we make good use of our local library. I count ALL the time with them and I have a bot of a thing about science and I'm always EXPLAINING things to them so they can understand how the world works. They both ask lots of questions.

My son, now 5 and at school, is learning at about the same rate as his class. He's in a lower group for reading and writing (although he does have a reading age 1 year ABOVE his actual age, so I guess the are just a lot of clever children in the class!!), but then he is one of the youngest in his class. My 3 year old daugher on the other hand is learning at an alarming rate and is almost on a par with him!

They have both had the same encouragement, but at the end of the day, different children will learn at different rates. Both enjoy learning and that's the main thing.

Sometimes I wonder if my daughter will be bored at school when she starts, but I expect she'll enjoy being a smarty pants and knowing all the answers!!

If I tried NOT to teach my daughter things at home she'd drive me insane with all her questions. At the moment she's keeps asking me to teach her Spanish, as I'm learning it myself and she thinks it's really entertaining. She loves impressing people with her extremely limited knowledge of the language because she knows she gets an audience when she starts counting or something in Spanish.

If you're actively trying to teach a child, it helps if you know the way that the school will be teaching, otherwise the child would just be confused. Our school teaches phonics and they run classes for parents so that you understand the method and can help at home. If you have your childs name down for a particular school, ask them about it and they might be able to advise you.

Mrs_pbradley936

If your child is not able to read reasonably by about age 9 the chances are that they will not be very good readers. The reason for that is before then they do not care what other children think of them, so they can be on the “blue books” or the “red books” or whatever way the school organise them. After about age 9 they do start to care and if it can be seen the they are “still reading baby books” etc. they can switch off and develop an attitude which says “I am not good at reading”. If they cannot read they will have trouble following diagrams, reading tables and so on and the tragedy is that because teachers have to teach the National Curriculum they are not allowed to take a number of eight years olds out of the National Curriculum to concentrate on teaching them to read. So if the cannot read at age nine nobody is responsible for tackling this and so the chances are they will not be reading well when they get to secondary school and by then the teachers have to prepare non readers for Shakespeare and to interpret graphs and to tackle algebra.