My son is 5 years 3 months, and he can't read. He knows a few short words like cat and can work out that if you swap out the c and put in an h the word is hat, but there is no way he could read even a very short and easy book - not even the most basic, level 1 reader.

NP here. I had this issue with my DD. My neighbor is a retired teacher. She said in the old days, the rule was end of THIRD grade.

A lot has been pushed down too young, OP, and now a cottage industry of expensive folks will be more than willing to "help" your child.

My DD did not read until the summer between 1st and 2nd grade. I remember that spring (of 1st grade) my DD crying and saying she was stupid (I didn't even know she knew the word!) She was the LAST kid in her class to learn to read, and she was on the older side of the class.

Then she started reading. And reading. And reading. I knew she could read, but still, in my mind, I had her pegged as not good in reading. Then in 3rd grade, she tested in the 97% percentile nationally for reading, and ended up taking the SCAT and joining the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth program.

She's in 6th grade now and a very good reader and writer. Ugh, in fact, she just presented me with a contract for the terms of my holding, distributing, and swapping of her Halloween candy!

So my two big points are--first, relax; it will happen, and second, just because the part of their brain comes online later than others in their peer group, doesn't mean they will always lag behind their peer group in that area; they can shoot ahead.

HTH

OP,
My DD just turned 5 and can not read fluently. She knows the letters, sounds and some words ect. What has worked for us is "Teach Your child to read in 100 easy lessons". http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985 . The major thing for me is I couldn't really teach her how to combine the sounds and blend them to read words and this book goes into detail about that and actually has some fun games to play with your child, lesson plans and even tells you exactly what to say to the child so you don't really have to figure it out on your own,really fool-proof for parents. If you live in Fairfax County, the book is available at almost all of the Fairfax county libraries. You can pick it up and see if that is something that works for you. The 10 first lessons or so might be easy for your son but teach him how to blend letters to make sounds, and I've noticed a lot of improvement with my DD after just a few lessons and reading games from the book. We are still at the beginning of the book so I can't speak much to the rest of it but I would recommend it for anyone looking for an easy method to teach reading to your child!

My son appeared to not really understand the concept of reading at all until very recently (he is also in K). All of a sudden, it just clicked. Like your son, he was very aware of other children who could read (particularly our neighbor who is a year older), and I think he felt bad about it. No amount of reading / coaching from me was helping, though.

DH had a lot of luck with sight word flash cards with him. That, combined with whatever they're doing in kindergarten, finally helped him make that critical connection. But this happened in the span of a few days. Give it time.

Anonymous wrote:It seems early, but it might be worth a conversation with the teacher to see if phonemic awareness and decoding skills are developing. Approximately 20% of kids have reading disabilities that are best addressed as soon as possible.

My dd was formally diagnosed with dyslexia in 1st grade, but there were flags by 2nd quarter of kindergarten I wish we had noticed.

Good advice. I thought my DS would "get it," being that both parents are avid readers, but he didn't. At the beginning of 3rd grade, the red flags became apparent and we had him tested. He has a reading deficit, decoding issues/phoneme awareness. We hired Lindamood Bell, a specialized reading tutor.

My child is 5, just turned, and reads a little. We've worked with him at his pace but haven't pushed. He doesn't WANT to, so we aren't pushing it, only making it fun.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8. 8 is on the late side. Everyone on here claims their 3 year old is reading. They are not. They have memorized words. They are not decoding and reading. Ignore these deluded parents.

not so. My kid was not reading early, but my friend's son was and it was not just memorization of words. At 3.5 you could hand him a book he had never seen before and he could read it. At 5 he could read chapter books. Now I do question whether he has ASD, but that is another story.

+1 BUT it is like potty training. At this point no one cares when a kid learned to read or poop in the toilet. They all do it at some point.

Anonymous wrote:8. 8 is on the late side. Everyone on here claims their 3 year old is reading. They are not. They have memorized words. They are not decoding and reading. Ignore these deluded parents.

not so. My kid was not reading early, but my friend's son was and it was not just memorization of words. At 3.5 you could hand him a book he had never seen before and he could read it. At 5 he could read chapter books. Now I do question whether he has ASD, but that is another story.

My son is 5y3m, in K and can not read. He can sound out some words, but I would by no means say he is reading. At the conference with his teacher last week we were told that he is on par with the majority of kids in his class. Out of my friends with kids in K/also younger 5's only one of them can read and he was on the other end- reading extremely early.

8. 8 is on the late side. Everyone on here claims their 3 year old is reading. They are not. They have memorized words. They are not decoding and reading. Ignore these deluded parents.

My kids went to non-academic preschool. They learned to read in k and first. 5 is not a late reader!

I still cannot read too well without using a calculator.

My DC was a late reader and really wasn't reading fluidly until 2nd grade. She had learning support in school through 3rd. She's now in hs and while spelling and grammar aren't her strong suit (she's probably very mildly dyslexic), she still earns straight As. She gets better grades than my son, who was reading Harry Potter in 2nd grade.

what do we count as reading? My 5 year old can read short words like "cat" or "zap"? What do we even expect of a 5 year old these days?

It's only Nov. I bet he'll be reading by the end of the year, OP. I wouldn't worry unless he is still struggling at this time next year.