When should a child learn to read?

These are only my views, the way I see it from my experiences but if you're interested read on and feel free to leave a comment with your own opinions: I think everyone has the right to their opinion no matter what it is. 

Over the years of being a parent I have read a lot about children learning to read and when the right age is that they should start learning.  Some people get upset about children learning at a young age, some get upset about children learning too late.  My view is there is no right age.

This is an old but favourite photo I had to take when I saw them all off their own backs sat there reading!

I particularly dislike it when people say that a child who learns to read too early loses their love for learning, only because I hate it when people put everyone into the same box.  At the same time I hate it when people say that a child should be encouraged to read early when a child is not ready - not all of us are made that way.  Reading should be fun and although encouraged by reading to them, it should not be forced on to them to read to us.  I always wait for my children to ask me to teach them or, in my eldest's case, show me they have taught themselves.

 

How can there be an age on when to learn to read?  As I said, Chiara taught herself to read - that is the only way I can put it.  One day I was just reading a Dr Seuss book to her, Hop on Pop it was, one I had never read to her before and she started reading along!  Can you imagine how surprised I was to hear a nearly 3 year old read to me?  Page after page she got through. The first word she struggled with was the page with the words night and fight!  It was rather surreal, nothing I had expected and nothing I had tried to encourage.  It was my Chiara being my Chiara and to be honest I think she would have suffered with frustration if I stopped her, not that it was possible to stop her. 

 

I think when people say don't let them learn to read too young as it will make school more difficult for them they are really saying the school system is letting down children who don't follow the pace of learning set by Learning Authorities.  Don't force a child to learn but if they do it, it is obviously a passion for them and should not be stopped but encouraged in the same way as when they begin to walk and talk. 

 

I suppose what I'm saying is anyone in care of a child, no matter what the age, should encourage their natural development; no one should stunt the learning growth or try to speed it up.  The same as some children learn to walk and talk before others, some children learn to read earlier than others.  So why stop a child who is ready to reach a milestone because, at the end of the day, that's what it is - a milestone.

 

I would never push my children to learn anything, whether it be reading or anything else.  That is the only thing in life that stops a child from wanting to learn; it'll take the fun out of learning and make it a chore.  However, sometimes if a child is having difficulty learning and cannot learn the way they are taught, then it's up to us to change the way we teaching them -this can take a while to find the right way though.  I wrote a post about this a while back called: If a child can't learn the way we teach...  None of my children have learnt anything the same way, all have very different learning styles. 

Also people should stop putting expectations on a child and look for what they are actually learning and achieving and focus on that, show them the point of learning things and when they are ready (I really believe this) they will show you when they are ready to start learning new things.

 

Harmonie is my youngest as you know and I honestly have no expectations of her.  She loves books, I read to her, her sisters read to her and she will pretend to read  to us.  Whenever she is ready she will begin reading for real, that I am sure of, I just can't tell you when.