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

Nicki

morlandbanks wrote:

Nicki, I resent the inference that I am trying to make my child seem more advanced than other children when she starts school!! For a start - you can't MAKE a child learn!! Lots of people use the internet as a way of playing with, entertaining and educating thier children. My family don't watch much TV, but most people find it very educational and entertaining. Would you have a go at them for tuning the TV to a kids channel so the children can watch something they will enjoy and be entertained by? Or would you prefer children only watch the channels they tune to by themselves?
I didn't show my daughter starfall.com because I'm eager to teach her phonics - which IS what the primary school she'll go to school teaches, so she isn't learning by another method. Actually she's learning Letterland at nursery, but having 2 systems doesn't seem to be confusing her in the slightest. I let her play on Starfall because she really enjoys it. If she enjoyed a site that teaches the finer points of fly fishing, I'd let her play on that! She just happens to enjoy learning phonics.
I'm not 'chosing things that will be taught anyway at school'. I teach my children lots of things. We bake together, we're learning Spanish together, learning to knit. Many things.
I don't know why you have such a problem with people teaching children to read and write just because they aren't school age. School age isn't set by nature, it's set by government. If our children are ready to learn earlier than yours, doesn't mean they shouldn't.
Also, you mention that children will be bored if they're ahead. That's rubbish. Any half decent school has a 'gifted and talented' programme to accommodate those children who need it.

I'm sorry you feel that I'm "having a go" at you, morlandbanks, as I've said a couple of times now, I'm expressing a personal opinion. You are quite entitled to hold the contrary one, and I don't take it as an affront to my views that you do.

Why do you think I am of the opinion that parents should not guide what their children watch on TV? That doesn't follow at all from what I've previously posted. My point about you finding the phonics site for your child was simply that you, not she, had decided that she should learn phonics before she went to school. Had you chosen Muzzy for her, you would have chosen that she learned a foreign language, or if a music site, that she developed her musical aptitide. Out of interest of all the many free websites which are fun and educational for children, why did you choose the phonics site for your child, if it wasn't to improve her literacy skills, and what criteria did you use to search when you found this site? And have you tried letting her play on the fly fishing site and if so did she enjoy it?

It's not that I think parents should be forbidden from teaching their children to read or write - I don't have a "problem" about this in the way that you suggest - it's just that my personal opinion is that it isn't necessary, and rather than giving your child a head start, it may in fact have the consequences I've set out in my earlier post. The OP invited varying views on the subject and these are mine. Some people posting on the site agree with me, and some do not. Yes, children are ready to learn at different ages, but when there is so much to teach them, I think parents should think about what it will be most beneficial to the child in the long term to teach.

My DS is in Year 2 now, and is at a "half-decent school", as you describe it. Yes, of course it has a G and T programme, but it doesn't start in the nursery, and really it doesn't amount to much in any school in KS1, I don't think. Furthermore, even if children are G and T, they still have to have the same basic lessons as all the other children, certainly so far as whole-class teaching is concerned, though the tasks set at small group level and 1:1 level may be differentiated. If you are under the impression that your child is going to go to school, and because she can read already, she will be taken into a quiet corner for the large periods of time that will be spent in nursery, reception and Year 1 teaching the other children to read in a group setting (at least one hour a day at the moment under the literacy hour required by the gov) and that your child will at this time be given differentiated tasks to match their advanced reading skills, I think you will be disillusioned fast. In those circs, I think you may find your child getting bored and frustrated.

To sum up - my personal opinion is that it is the parents who get most in the long run from teaching a pre-school child to read. I know of no research that suggests it is beneficial to the child in the long term, and there are some disadvantages to doing it. If having considered all the pros and cons, parents want to teach their child to read, that's a decision for them to make, but those parents who don't choose to do so, and explain their reasons for not doing so, shouldn't become Public Enemy Number 1, and there are very very many other educational things you can do with a child.

pipkin71

Some interesting points of view have been raised in this topic. So much so, I wish the Op had asked the question before I submitted my final paper!

As I am for teaching children to read and write before pre-school, I focused on several research papers that supported my view point that it is beneficial, for example:

"Some Antecedents of Early Educational Attainment in Language, Learning and Education" Wells, G.

"Nature, Nurture, and Cognitive Development from 1 - 16 years" Plomin, R., Fulker, D.W., Corley, R., and DeFries, J.C.

"Children and Young people's Reading Habits and Preferences" Clark, C. and Foster, A

"Language Use of Pre-school Children in a Child / Parent Education programme" Byers, P.

to name a few.

However, research carried out by Houston, S. suggests that "all children learn language merely by being placed in the environment of the language and they do not need any training or conditioning whatever to achieve this. They also appear to learn about the same age 4 - 6" Of course, further research disputes her claims and I tend to agree with them.

From personal experience, children who do learn to read and write at an early age can become bored at school when the teacher is working at a pace that compliments the rest of the class rather than your child - my daughter is bored with school because they are not challenging her. However, children can also become bored with school for numerous other reasons.

I don't actually think there are any rights or wrongs here and whatever parents decide to do i.e teach phonics at pre-school or wait until the child enters formal education, doesn't place one parent higher than the other in the grand scheme of things.

As there's still two weeks to go before I receive my results I didn't add my research paper to the list above, but maybe one day LOL!

Nicki

Thanks for posting those references Pipkin, I hadn't come across them before and they were fascinating.

The full papers for some of these are available on the internet for those who are following this debate, and abstracts for the others.

I think it is fair to say that none of these papers actually look at the measurable benefit of actually teaching a child to read pre-school. They are all looking at the more general question of the impact of early exposure to books on young children, and the conclusions are that children who are read to from an early age, and who come from environments where books are freely available and valued, do better in literacy terms than children without these advantages. I don't think these findings will come as a surprise to most parents. I also think it is fair to say that everyone who has posted on this thread believes that children should be read to, and values that kind of interaction with their children.

I'm not sure that there really is that much disagreement between us all on this subject, despite some of the detailed debate there has been. We all agree that education in the home before children start school is valuable and of benefit to the child in the long term. No one, not even me, has said that it is the mark of a pushy parent to teach your child new skills at an early age.

Some of us, and I'm in this camp, feel there isn't a great deal of point in teaching formal reading skills before the child starts school because this is one of the first things the child will be taught at school anyway, and the child will therefore have to repeat this instruction over an extended period, and possibly be taught by a different method to the one used by the school. Parents who feel this don't believe in their own experience that their child will be advanced in the long term by learning to read early, and think that the pre-school time could be used to teach other things which aren't taught at school at this stage, and which there may not be time for once the child starts school.

Other parents believe that teaching a child to read before they start school is a beneficial skill, and one which will have a long term benefit to the child, and find that this is a way of entertaining their child pre-school, and stretching a bright child who will otherwise get bored.

I hope that everyone, in whichever camp they are in, can also agree that some children will not have the skills to learn to read at such an early age, because to get any benefit from reading you need to have not just the ability to decode the sounds of words, but also an advanced ability to understand language concepts. Many children start school with very poor receptive and expressive language, through no failure in parenting, as there is a wide variation of normal developmental stages in this area. To try to teach a child, who is not at an appropriate developmental stage, phonics or early reading skills will be harmful to both parent and child.

I have read this thread with interest, and learned a lot from all the opinions expressed. Thank you to everyone who posted, including those who disagreed vehemently with me. I would have to admit, however, that I haven't changed my opinion as a result, and if I did have another child in the future, I would still not set out to teach phonics pre-school, but would read to the child from a very early age, as I did with my current children, and concentrate on other skills.

Mrs_pbradley936

If you went to school in the 50s and 60s as I did you would have been taught phonics and have no idea what all the fuss is about and still less idea about how children can leave school unable to read. That is because from age 5 to 11 you did not do very much else apart from the 3 Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic). Then at age 11 you sat the 11 plus and that decided if you went to a grammar school or a secondary modern, At grammar school you were groomed for O levels and A levels while at secondary modern boys would do woodwork and metalwork and girls would do cooking and learn to use a sewing machine. You would be encouraged to read and measure but since you were never going to take an exam nobody was interested in teaching you anything remotely academic. When you left school there were lots of manual jobs to be had.

Then someone decided that “Comprehensive” schooling was the way to go. There began a vast experiment with children that we are seeing the results of now. The teaching of phonics went out and new methods came in. Some of the new methods worked for some children but those that it did not work for were left to struggle. It would seem that phonics works with most children. Anyway back to the Comprehensive schools, at the time it was deemed to be “fairer” to give all children the chance to take exams. It soon transpired that they were not all up to it and so for a few years we had O levels and CSEs soon to be replaced by GCSEs and the National Curriculum which says what will be taught and when. Fine in theory but as I alluded to before not much point introducing a non reader to a public exam system. So there you have it a potted history of the education system over the last 50 years. I would also add that according to the Sutton Trust more children from working class and poor backgrounds went to university under the old system than do so now.

pipkin71

It certainly has been an interesting thread.

regards
pipkin xxx

aimee21j

I'm sorry I haven't read all the posts but in reference to some of the earlier ones, as a teacher you can see which kids have had some input by parents. It doesn't really matter if you teach them different methods to that which they are taught at school as they will know the basic principles and will pick new methods up a lot easier.

As an English teacher, it helps so much if you read with your child. Reading helps with phonics and speech, writing and spelling. To all the parents who help their children at home, please keep doing it! We can identify the children who have been brought up to read books (and enjoy them )