This has been a topic that I’ve been pondering recently for a few reasons. The first is that one of my twins is highly verbal and has a fairly impressive set of preschool skills that she’s acquired while I’m busy not doing preschool. Friends and some family are a little surprised that I still maintain that formalized preschool, even at home, is not the direction I want to go, even with a gifted child. Music, art, play, and literature abound, but preschool in my house will always be optional.
The second thing that has me pondering this question is the numerous times it’s been asked on forums and lists that I belong to. One mom says that her daughter is so ‘gifted’ she doesn’t know what else to do but to begin teacher how to read. Another mom figures that her child is ready because she knows her ABC’s. Another family assumes that their child must be ready as well because she likes books.
I can’t tell anyone else what’s right for their family. I will tell you that we’ve taken a very deliberate approach to the preschool years. It’s not that I don’t do anything with them because I don’t have time, or because I don’t want to. It’s because my husband and I have deliberately sat down and discussed what we believe to be true about young children and learning.
I’ve talked quite a bit about the preschool years and so I won’t delve into that further but I would like to ask this question: what benefit does it hold to teach kids to read early?
Numerous studies have talked about how experience aids reading comprehension. To put it a different way, learning to read early doesn’t help your kids read better. . .living life helps your kids read better. I know for us, I hate to replace those “life experiences” both inside and outside of the home with time spent doing workbooks.
So, in my humble opinion, your preschool child is not ready to read when she knows her alphabet, when she knows the sounds or when she sings the alphabet song. She’s ready to read when she picks up a book and says, “Teach me to read mommy.” In my experience, that is always preceded with a few years of, “Read me this story mommy.”