Age of Reading?

[sbr]

I learned to read in first grade, when I was over six years old.  Some people tried to get me to read before school, but they quickly gave up on account of me being completely uninterested.

I did too, with the books about Sam and Ann and Nip, their dog.

[Syt]

I remember the first book I liked in the school library, 1st or second grade. It was a giant book of WWI biplanes. Those things fascinated the hell out of me.

I learned to read with Asterix comics, the French comic about the American Civil War "The Blue Boys", Lucky Luke and Reader's Digest "World History" in 2 volumes (though I very much preferred the maps in it). I think my parents were a bit disconcerned when I built a LEGO guillotine at age 8 after illustrations in the book.

Oddly, I never liked children's or youth books much and preferred non-fiction (there were some pretty decent aimed-at-kids books about history and science which I loved and read a lot at the library. The first fiction book I recall to have read was an edited children's version of Moby Dick (I loved the movie with Gregory Peck ... well, I still do). I had some sci-fi books I enjoyed, though (Commander Perkins, a sci-fi adventure series, and some short story collections which included something like Last Starfighter or some postapocalyptic stories which I loved).

[Grallon]

5

Lets kids be kids.

And make functional illiterates later on right?

The sooner the better Malthus.



G.

[sbr]

What is concerning for us is that Carl was born in mid December, making him the youngest one in his class. His cousin, born three weeks later, is the oldest one in her class - born early January.

A year makes a big difference at this age.

My youngest was born Dec. 28; she is the oldest in her class, thankfully.  She is incredibly shy and I would have been tempted to hold her back a year to keep her from being the youngest in her class.

[Syt]

What is concerning for us is that Carl was born in mid December, making him the youngest one in his class. His cousin, born three weeks later, is the oldest one in her class - born early January.

I was the youngest in class all 13 years of school and I turned out fine, I think.

[Grey Fox]

5

Lets kids be kids.

And make functional illiterates later on right?

The sooner the better Malthus.



G.

I turned out fine.

[The Brain]

I still remember the day I learned to read. It was the same day I learned to ride a bike. It was a pretty productive day. I was probably 5, but then we didn't have reading lessons or anything so I still don't think I was slow.

[HVC]

i knew basic stuff like how to spell cat in preschool, so probably 4. "Really" (little kid) reading startied in grade 1, so five. Kids get way too much homework. It started when i was little and it's growing.

[Barrister]

I turned out fine.

[Strix]

It appears that schools are pushing for more and more at a younger age. Unfortunately a lot of it is driven by the disparity in learning between those that want to learn and those that do not i.e. the burbs versus the inner cities.

It's an agenda being pushed by some States that if they start a kid learning earlier than that gives the educators more time with the child and sparks an interest in learning. Which means many of the goals and benchmarks are set by the standards being applied to inner city kids. The result is the kids in the burbs get smarter faster which creates a bigger gap between inner city and other kids which in turns creates more issues for educators.

It has it's good points and it's bad points. It won't work because administrators and politicians just don't understand or refuse to understand the bigger picture.

[sbr]

i knew basic stuff like how to spell cat in preschool, so probably 4. "Really" (little kid) reading startied in grade 1, so five. Kids get way too much homework. It started when i was little and it's growing.

I think my kids had more homework in elementary school( grades 1-6) than they do now in 8th and 10th grade.  They get very good grades but never seem to have homework.

[Malthus]

My youngest was born Dec. 28; she is the oldest in her class, thankfully.  She is incredibly shy and I would have been tempted to hold her back a year to keep her from being the youngest in her class.

Carl's not shy. At all. 

The other day they had a show-and-tell, and he took his harmonica and played a "tune" (he doesn't yet play actual songs, but he's very musical) - he had the other kids dancing, apparently.

His thing is that he can be very silly - he is only four, and sometimes he just feels like tuning you out and babbling about racing and shooting bad guys. The older kids and teachers on occasion find this tedious.

OTOH, he's learning, albeit slowly, to play games without throwing a tantrum when he loses. He was playing snakes & ladders with his grandma, and she won - he said "well done!".

He was so impressed with snakes & ladders that he spontaneously invented a game by himself - something he's very good at: each person tosses a four-sided ball in the air and the colour uppermost is what they have to do:

Yellow = climb a ladder (good)
Red = burn up in flames (bad)
Blue = swim in the ocean (OK)
Green = run across the grass (OK)

You have to act it out.

[DGuller]

I was the youngest in class all 13 years of school and I turned out fine, I think.

I was the oldest one, by several years.

[merithyn]

And make functional illiterates later on right?

The sooner the better Malthus.



G.

Why? This is a silly concept, that learning earlier makes one better. It's simply not true.

Anecdotally, I learned to read when I was three and was reading chapter books by first grade. I'm still an avid bibliophile. However, my brother and sister didn't learn to read until they were in first grade (which was the norm). Both are extraordinarily successful business folks, read nearly as avidly as I do now, and are very articulate.

Of my own children, I had two learn to read at five, one at three, and one at six. They've all tested very well on standardized tests in Reading and English. They all love to read, and they're all perfectly happy with a book in their hand.

As for the homework thing, when the kids were in preschool they had "book bags" that came home with them. The idea was that we would read the books to the kids, write down that we did so, and the kids would draw a picture showing what they thought of the story. The intent was to encourage parents to read to the kids. I hated them. The stories were stupid, the kids hated the whole process, and overall, it turned all of us off from homework for quite a while. Instead of reading them silly books, we started in with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at bedtime.

[Grey Fox]

I turned out fine.

Oh come on, do it! I did half the work.