Can kids read when they enter kindergarten?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My preschooler is a proficient reader; currently at Montessori, where I think they make reading one of the academic priorities. When DC enters kindergarten next year, I'm concerned about him becoming bored, but I'm told they separate the kids out into ability levels, whatever that means. I'm planning to pay careful attention to what goes on in terms of reading education and I'll talk with the teacher about the details of the teaching approach.

I'm glad your child is doing well, but I haven't found that the Montessori method is very good for teaching reading. It's exceptional for math, but not that great for reading, IMHO.

[Anonymous]

I worried about this when my older one was in preschool. I had heard that in our county there was the expectation that kids should be able to read upon starting K, so I made sure to work with him at home to boost what he was learning in preschool. Several years later and I have known numerous kids entering K who did not know how to read. Didn't matter. All the ones I've known caught up in no time, some 5 year old non-readers outshining their precocious classmates within just a couple of years. I can't be brought to worry about it with my current preschooler. Pushing her to read chapter books by k wouldn't mean she'd still be ahead of her non-reading k classmates by 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing 30-50% can read with all the red-shirting going on.

25% probably don't even know their letters.

[Anonymous]

Yes, most can in our McLean public elementary.

[Anonymous]

My 4.5yo can't really read yet. She knows the general idea, can sound out words, and has a bunch of sight words, but couldn't pick up an unfamiliar text and just read it without a lot of help and nudging.

[Anonymous]

I went to K able to read and write (I am 35) and pretended I did not know how to do either so I could kick back and relax for a few months. Deceitful kid I was.

[Anonymous]

My brother taught K and said it was a mixed bag. My SIL is a reading specialist and said there's kids whose parents think they can read - but are really memorizing. She said some preschool programs do a good job teaching kids to read, but some do more harm than good and she has to spend time fixing the problems. Kids are supposed to come into K with pre-reading skills, but aren’t expected to be reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our DS was not able to read when he started K. He could read and write his name, as well as all the letters and numbers, but not actually read. Now that K is halfway over, he can read!!

His teacher separates the kids into reading groups based on their reading level, as assessed during the first weeks of school.

This is how my first son was. He also knew about 25 sight words (mom, dad, dog, the) but that's not reading. He's in first grade now and reading at 3rd grade level.
My second son is in PK, he probably won't know any sight words. I have no worries that he'll be reading in a year or two.

[Anonymous]

I hope my son will be able to read by K - he is 4.5 now and I am working with him but strangely, although he can sound out the individual letters of a word, he can't decipher the word by doing that - for example, he can sound out the letters in the word "cart," but even after stating all the sounds in a row, doesn't associate them with the word cart. He can sight read short words like big, dog, cat, mom, dad, the, bus, etc. that come up often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of kids can recognize certain words - like "dog" and of course their name - but most kids aren't reading full sentences yet.

I'm from California and in the 90s, we had the "reading by 8" campaign so I'm surprised how often reading by KG comes up around here. Where I'm from, if you were reading by the end of 2nd grade, that was considered success.

That should probably be the norm everywhere, but DC is hyper competitive.

OP, more than likely at least half the kids in your kids class won't be able to read. It really doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

The kids are ll across the board in K and even in 1st grade. The teachers can cater to all, by the use of groups. The expectation is hy will know some letter sounds.

[Anonymous]

Some can. Some can't.
All four of mine have had interest in reading while still in diapers so in nurturing that, they all learned to read before kinder.

[Anonymous]

My son could fluently read before entering kindergarten and his teacher did not do reading groups for him. She only worked with the kids who couldn't yet read. He got ignored and did worksheets way below his level. I think a lot of schools don't give kids any accelerated work if they can read because it is so much easier to do nothing with the kids that can read until the other kids catch up at the end of first grade or second grade. He is in first grade and I am still waiting for him to get any work on his level. At the beginning of the year there weren't any chapter books available to read in his class because the teacher told me that wouldn't be fair for the kids who couldn't read them. She only had books at or below a first grade level.

[Anonymous]

Mine did not. She learnt by the end of Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

My eldest could, but my younger child is not reading now in PK-4. Will be a toss up if she is reading by September. She will have a very hard time if they ask her to read say a Magic Treehouse book. This is with similar amounts of reading together at home, trips to the library etc.