Reading at 3, should I encourage or discourage?

[Anonymous]

My DS is 3.5, has always been very into books, taught himself letters and letter sounds from a leapfrog toy before he was 2 (we were shocked when we realized this), now at 3 he has started ready, he really wanted to and I wanted to encourage him in the things he likes (when he was into geography or dinosaurs we encouraged) However, now my DH is starting to worry that he will be so far advance in reading by kindergarten that he won't enjoy school. should I stop encouarging (which would be hard because he asked to read to use every night) or should I just let him go with it.

[Anonymous]

Why on God's green Earth would you ever discourage a child from reading? Is this fake? "I'm worried my child will be too smart." Well, my wallet is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight. Them's the breaks.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I'm the first PP, and I just re-read your post and my (snarky) reply, and now I don't think you're kidding, and I will answer seriously. No, you should not discourage him from reading. Keep on doing what you're doing and pat yourself on the back that you are raising a smart and inquisitive little boy.

[Anonymous]

My 5 yo (just finished pre-k) was the same at that age. Now reads fluently but still needs work on stamina and comprehension. School is not boring at all, but most of the more advanced reading is done at home. I would absolutely continue to have your child read more and more to you, and keep reading the more complex books to him.

[Anonymous]

I was one of those kids. Don't push, just facilitate. Help him go where he wants to go and if he wants to go there as fast as possible, don't hold him back.

Deal with school if/when it becomes a problem. There are lots of options locally. But, frankly, even in public school in a small working class town in the middle of nowhere, school rarely got boring for me -- with a self-motivated kid (and your son certainly sounds like one), challenges are easy to find.

[Anonymous]

Agree with the previous posters--follow your child's interests, and worry about what you'll do in future years in future years. There will always be more books to read, and a good school will be able to accommodate him. Enjoy him! He sounds like a bright and fun little boy.

[Anonymous]

and a good school will be able to accommodate him

While I wouldn't discourage him, I don't really agree with this. While they SHOULD be able to, I think that in many cases they are not. If your kid is the kind who is happy to do his own things while others are doing things he already knows, then he will be OK. If not (and my DD who had this issue is not) then it can be a problem. Most public schools in this area are not really able to effectively differentiate more than 1 (perhaps 2) grade levels in the classroom. It can be an excuciating K, 1 and 2 experience until they get into GT. (Grades 1 and 2 are generally worse than K because K is still mostly "fun".) My older DD will be in 3rd grade in FCPS next year and is looking forward to "finally getting hard enough work". I hope for her sake that she is right.

Maybe the private experience is different, but we can't afford private and our K-2 experience in FCPS was pretty hard on her emotionally.

[Anonymous]

I think most teachers will do what they can to accommodate him esp since bored kids often become behavior issues. My son started reading at age 3 also and at age 4 is reading at a beginner first grade level. We read some beginner books a few nights per week but mostly I still read to him b/c the beginner books are really boring. I know they have placement screenings before K and when K starts. If your son is really in a level on his own, sometimes they send them up to first grade for reading. I would make sure the public school he will go to will accommodate him.

[Anonymous]

He will probably one of several children who self-taught to read at this age, encourage him, his pre-K and K teachers will probably have several others like this and they should be adept at handling these early readers. It's not that big a deal! I know a number of students who did this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: a good school will be able to accommodate him.

I'm the pp that wrote this. I don't mean to say that every school will be a good fit, but I guess this is how I define a good school. If it can accommodate such bright kids, it's a good school for them. As the pp suggested from her daughter's experiences, not all schools will do the accommodations that might be best for a particular child.

In any case, I think we are in agreement that deterring the reading will not better suit a child like this for school. If a child learns fast, he learns fast. So if he's able and wanting to read now, this may be evidence that he's a fast learner, in which case he'd learn fast if kept from reading until kindergarten--and then the OP might still be facing the same thing her husband is trying to avoid by discouraging reading now.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I think the issue for my DH is that we can not really afford private school at this point, which leaves us with our local public school. DS is in a montessori preschool in the am, but we are financially looking forward to being able to send him the a public K, as we have one younger child and have been in discussions about possibly having a third. And my DH doesn't want DS to end up a "problem student" with behavioral issues due to boredom. DH obviously wants DS to enjoy learning, but thought it would be best to encourage him in something else like science, like finding interesting books about animals to read to him, instead of letting him read to us at night.

[Anonymous]

If he wants to read to you, let him. If he wants you to read to him, do it. If he is as bright as he sounds, he will read on his own. Sometimes I hear my son reading in his room out loud by himself. I usually ask him what he wants to read at night. 75% of the time, he wants me to read to him. Other times, he will choose easy readers we get from the library. Let him lead.

[Anonymous]

My kid reads one book to me and I read two to her.

[Anonymous]

Definitely encourage it - you don't want him to lose interest.

I learned to read as a 4 year old - was reading to other kids in preschool. When I went off to kindergarten at age 5, my (local public) school simply sent me off with the first graders when my class was learning to read.

My point is, and others have said, a good school should be able to accommodate children at every level, including those who are advanced.

You may also be surprised to find out your son is not the only one who will be reading at that age. I'm sure there is a plan in place for children at an advanced reading level, even in the public schools.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure there is a plan in place for children at an advanced reading level, even in the public schools.

Sure there is. The plan is to ignore them because they don't need to do anything for these kids. My DD has been reading Bailey School Kids and Magic Treehouse (in school) for 2+ years because the school has nothing more to offer her. It irritates me that they don't even bother to have them read quality literature vs serial drivel. (The answer I was given when asked was that they want to "capture their interest", but I suspect the real reason was the muttered "there are no pre-packaged lesson plans for those" when I pointed to the high quality picture books in the classroom.)

But I get that the schools have an overwhelming job working with the kids who are not fluent readers, have LDs, ESOL, etc. Just don't kid yourself that the average public elementary school, even in FCPS or MoCo, is equipt to challenge kids entering K as fluent readers.

OTOH, the PP is right who pointed out that whether you encourage him to read or not, once they have cracked the code, they will realize that print is everywhere. You can't stop it even if you wanted to.