Reading

[Ellisha]

So, not sure if this is the right place to post but it's non CM related. My 4 yo daughter starts school in Sept and can read really well. She can read books like the Alfie ones or Julia Donaldson ones no problems - actual reading, not just memorised. I've never taught her, she's picked it up from the books we have and read together and reading signs out and about. Firstly, how normal is this? I don't talk about it with other mums much for fear of seeming like I'm showing off. Secondly, how do you think she will get on at school. I know they'll start her at the basics but is that going to help her progress? I'm in no way a pushy mum, she reads when she wants to and I still read to her a lot of the time. I love that she has such a love of books :)

[shortstuff]

I would imagine every teacher will have a different way of supporting your daughter. Best advice i can give is ask when you go to a meeting there.

At the school ds went to yr r were fab and happily encouraged him.

[FloraDora]

So, you need to establish how she reads...

Does she follow the synthetic phonics...does she know letter sounds and blends the sounds to tackle unfamiliar words?

Does she know a huge amount of key words ..Julia Donaldson books are quite advanced so her sight vocabulary must be big...can she recognise these words in unfamiliar books?

Does she use the pictures to work out some words in context of the sentence?

Does she use her knowledge of rhyming and letter groups to tackle new, unfamiliar words?

These are all the areas the school will check...with the new baseline this will be established early on.

I would anticipate this and observe her closely and assess her phonics stage ( Google Letters and sounds) so that you can tell the school specifics.
Check the Dfee site for the year group key words and in a play way check what words she can read out of context of a familiar story.
Give her a completely new, unfamiliar book of her choice from the library and watch closely the way she tackles it.
This will give you a clear picture in the way they will be assessing at school - which gives you all the information you will need to discuss it professionally with her teachers.

[Maza]

Brilliant advice from Floradora!

It isn't common for children to be able to read that well when they start reception, but it isn't unheard of. The children I have taught in reception who came in reading all had a great sight vocabulary. If they were stuck on a word, an adult would tell them and then they would remember it and not need to be told it again. However, I still needed to teach them to segment and blend words so that they could work out new words for themselves (after assessing their phonics stage using 'Letters and Sounds' as Floradora said). That's just my experience, but it did seem that all my 'readers on arrival' had that in common. I was still able to challenge them. Your daughter may of course be different. The school should have a 'Gifted and Talented' policy and therefore some strategies on how they would work with your daughter if they find that she is gifted.

If you don't feel that she is being challenged, then do go in and speak to the teacher. They may be able to tell you that they are challenging your daughter but not in a way which is immediately obvious - or they may be being complacent. Sadly I have come across that before when I was listening to a child read in a class that I was covering one day. I spoke to the mum at home time and said how well he had read to me that day and that he must have had a 'spurt' where everything fell into place over the half term holiday. She suddenly poured out all her concerns about him being under challenged as he had been reading that well since day one, but hadn't felt comfortable saying anything to his class teacher before because she was so lovely. So, do keep communicating with the teacher once your child starts school. x

[Ellisha]

Thanks for the advice. I struggle to work out exactly what she's doing because I'm unfamiliar with how they teach reading at school these days. I know mostly she knows words by sight. She could recognise her name and a few words like cat when she was about 18 months - she's always been obsessed with words and letters. She definitely tries to work some words out with rhyming and she must be working some words out phonetically because she has a good go at words she doesn't know. She can definitely pick up new books at the library and give them a good go, but I'll watch more closely to see what she's doing.

I will check out letters and sounds and see what stage she is at. I'm hoping school can give me some good advice on what to do at home!