Teamwork of me and Montessori preschool teachers.

My older 2 kids just had ABCs in prek because I picked playbased schools. We read books to them at home. They both learned in K and I was amazed.

My son did about a year of play-based preschool. He went into Kindergarten knowing about half of the alphabet on a consistent basis. The prep we did at home was reading every day and phonemic awareness type games. I have an education background, though reading is not my specialty. I did have plenty of resources available if needed.

I read to both kids every night but they still had very divergent paths to reading.

My first child was obsessed with letters and numbers from an early age. We introduced him to the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD at 18 months. He learned the letter sounds first before he knew the name of letters. He used to play with an app called Pocket Phonics and could select the correct letters based upon their sound before he was 2. I didn't formally teach him anything but he could read fluently at 3. He went to a Montessori preschool for 2 years which taught letters and sounds. In Pre-K, he started at a local private, which focuses on teaching phonics. He is in first grade and an excellent reader but still working on his spelling. He has great decoding skills in part because he has an incredible visual memory, but is now working to get his comprehension skills to catch up to decoding.

His younger sister was also introduced to Leap Frog at a young age. She learned the letter sounds but had no interest in playing with letters. She learned the alphabet in pre-school. She also recently started at the same private school for Pre-K. She is 4 and can only read her name and the word cat. She will get heavy phonics instruction this year. I don't expect her to be able to read until she is 6.

Everyone always asked how I taught my first kid to read. I didn't teach him to read. For reasons unknown, his brain just picked it. His sister had the same general path of exposure, and cannot read. Reading is partially instruction and partially developmental. Some kids walk at 9 months and others don't walk until 18 months. Some kids read at 3 and others don't read until almost 8.

If it makes you feel better, my SIL was in the worst reading group in her class in 1st grade. By 3rd grade, she was in the top group. She also went on to an Ivy League school for college. The age she started reading had no impact on later academic success.

The takeaways:
- Some kids can be taught or pick up reading skills early. Others cannot until their brain is ready.
- Most kids do need phonics instruction to learn to read (when their brain is ready).
- Academic schools and play-based schools are not mutually exclusive. My kids private school teaches a lot of academics at an early age through "play" - games, songs, hands on activities, physical movement, scavenger hunts, stations, puzzle games, etc. It is a mix of structured activities and individual choice. Both kids LOVE school and think they play all day. Academics are fine as long as they are developmentally appropriate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who taught your kid to read - the sounds, the blends, the combos, the practice.
Preschool, you, an IPad app, or your independent school teacher (and if so what grade)?

We had play based pk and K, lots of specials for grade 1, and no homework policies school so have never seen a word list or literacy pack come home for either of our kids. Now we feel naive since they still don’t know concepts or spelling and I wonder what fell through the cracks here.

Certainly alphabet memorization and reading at school helps at pk/k levels. But if you read to your kids as parents (almost) every night as toddlers thru pre-k they’ll learn almost by osmosis. DC1 got about 3-5 Dr. Seuss books a night from age 2-3 on and was reading independently by 4 / 4-1/2. DC2 was less interested in reading and being read to and started closer to 5 / 5-1/2, which seemed fine.

Just wanted to sat that this is not true for many kids. I am both a parent, a kindergarten teacher, and a reading specialist. While it certainly is very important to read to your child every night (and model reading habits at home), it is not learned through "osmosis" by all or even many kids. Many children need much more explicit teaching in letter sounds, spelling patterns, sight word recognition, comprehension, etc. Learning to read is very complex and it is naive to think every child can learn to read easily as long as they have parents who read to them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did. I read to them all the time and it was a natural progression for them to learn the sounds and letters and words.

I’ve read to my kids from birth and it did not naturally teach them to read. It did not make them enjoy reading when they finally did learn, although they do still like being read to.

+1

Evidence shows that almost all kids need direct phonic instruction in order to learn to read. Why all schools do not do this is ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:Orton-Gillingham tutor after dyslexia diagnosed in 1st grade.

how did you figure this out? A formal assessment? If so, where?

Anonymous wrote:No one really. We just read to them a lot and they followed along and just kind of picked it up. So they were reading books on their own before formal schooling. But in school they also had a lot of direct instruction for vocabulary building, spelling, and comprehension, so I'm surprised to hear this isn't happening generally. It is kind of the whole point of school.

What school or type of school did your kids go to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did. I read to them all the time and it was a natural progression for them to learn the sounds and letters and words.

I’ve read to my kids from birth and it did not naturally teach them to read. It did not make them enjoy reading when they finally did learn, although they do still like being read to.

+1

No one really. We just read to them a lot and they followed along and just kind of picked it up. So they were reading books on their own before formal schooling. But in school they also had a lot of direct instruction for vocabulary building, spelling, and comprehension, so I'm surprised to hear this isn't happening generally. It is kind of the whole point of school.

Orton-Gillingham tutor after dyslexia diagnosed in 1st grade.

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten teacher. We did very little before. Kid went to DCPS for elementary and is now in a Big3 private.

Similar here. We bought some Bobs books summer before DCPS K, then kid started to read a couple months into K. Then moved to private (and was actually ahead relative to the private’s math and reading expectations).

Anonymous wrote:I did. I read to them all the time and it was a natural progression for them to learn the sounds and letters and words.

I’ve read to my kids from birth and it did not naturally teach them to read. It did not make them enjoy reading when they finally did learn, although they do still like being read to.

A little in kindergarten, mostly in first grade.

I did. I read to them all the time and it was a natural progression for them to learn the sounds and letters and words.