Probably hormones

[ailbhe]

I feel like such a bad mother. Bad parent. Bad mother. I'm not sure which is worse.

Today, it's because as far as I know neither of my children can read. Other people tell me Linnea can but I've had limited evidence of that myself, and less and less of late, as she practices writing instead. I mean, they are three and five, so not reading isn't all that unusual, except that I think perhaps EVERYONE I know could read before they were five and so could all their children.

Also, I know children younger than Emer who count better, which proves I have neglected her and don't count things enough, not like we did with Linnea.

Presumably this will all feel better in a few days when I stop being so pimply and tired.

Comments

[submarine_bells]

I couldn't read before I was 5. And I'm doing a PhD now. So there!

[passerine]

I've been going through this one myself. My husband and I both can't remember not knowing how to read. Alex is now 4 and she can read uppercase letters but has a terrible time with lowercase, and this is probably more frustrating for me than for her.

Everyone always tells me about how she's so smart, but she doesn't always seem that spectacularly ahead from my perspective. Then I feel like a bad mother for not seeing her as being as special as people who barely know her see her. (But they don't have to deal with the Meltdowns-R-Us days with her either.)

[sashajwolf]

B couldn't read until he was 7 and has just gained 12 GCSEs, including 3 A*s and 4 As, so I think there's still hope for your two ;-)

In fact, none of our kids could read before they were five. Two of them learned to write before they could read and then used the writing to teach themselves reading, so even if your friends are wrong and Linnea can't read yet, she may well be in the process of teaching herself. (The third was C, who taught himself to read by learning to decode the names of Formula 1 drivers in TV captions.)

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

I didn't learn to read until I 6 or 7. Does this mean I was a bad child? ;-)

(But they put me in school when I was 4! They made me repeat primary 2, as I was too dumb to move onto primary 3.)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I couldn't read until I was six, either! I got better.

I hope you wake up feeling more cheerful tomorrow.

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

I didn't learn to read until I was at primary school, starting at six-and-a-half for me.

*tea*

[iuil.livejournal.com]

Sorcha apparently "couldn't read" at 5 either (I suspected she could but had no evidence to prove it). Then she started school and by the end of Junior Infants was reading chapter books. It was like she was now officially allowed to read because she was learning how to. Two years later and she has a reading age of around 10!

[iuil.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the Junior Infant curriculum assumes non-reading ability so starts off at the very beginning of phonics. I gather it's much the same in Reception.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

My five-year-old only reads a very little bit, and writes quite a bit better than she reads because she also prefers to practice writing. I am not worried about it, and don't think you should be. Kids choose what they want to learn when, and this is simply when Grace is getting interested in reading for herself. I am sure if she'd thrown herself into it when she was three, she'd have learned quite successfully then, but she didn't, and that's okay. Linnea doubtless has had other things on her personal agenda also, and that's okay; that's who she is. I was reading at two, but Grace doesn't have to be me, or the friends of mine who did similarly, and Linnea doesn't have to be you or your friends either.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i would think that you'd need to know how to read in order to write, no? otherwise how do you know that you've written the correct thing?

my little sister didn't learn to read until she was five, since i figured out how to read about the time she was born, and i was pretty much always there to read things to her until then.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

My brother couldn't read until he was seven. He's very intelligent and has a degree and is a police officer and absolutely full of confidence. You're not a bad parent at all, and even if the girls can't read until they're older, it won't harm them.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed that Kate is so bright & struggled with reading well, even when she was in year 1, so 5/6. I love, love, love reading & she loved books, they were just this part missing. now, I know she's dyslexic.

I've pondered how Holly taught herself to read & knew how to blend when I sat down with her to actually "teach" her. Magic, or something? :)

Kate's comment this week in her reading book is that she reads too slow, so you can never win.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you know all this better than I do but... what about all the Scandinavian countries where formal education doesn't start till much later and the kids end up perfectly literate?

I hate age-based milestones. Kids are themselves. It's clear from everything you say that your children are clever and even unusually so. My Charlie is 4 1/2 and I don't think he's anywhere near reading. I don't mind in the slightest. What I would mind would be anyone putting pressure on him to get there before he's ready. As long as he is having a steady stream of books read TO him, I feel I'm doing my job.

I think perhaps EVERYONE I know could read before they were five and so could all their children.

???

Please don't worry.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Jack is still not really reading. He can spell out very short words, and has a degree of confidence with the words he's been practising for a year with school, but no, he can't read. As for numbers, he is confident up to 20 and can add small numbers up to 10 if he's in the right frame of mind. I'm not sure I was reading at 5, either. I've just asked Dave, and he says he couldn't read before he started school and he took ages to pick it up. My god-daughter is in the year above Jack at school but is at roughly the same reading level as him (only 3 months in age difference).

Children younger than Emer may be able to count better, but it doesn't mean you've neglected here, because it's not a race! Just because Linnea could do different things at the same age just proves they're different children.

You're doing fine.

[mssociallyinept.livejournal.com]

"EVERYONE I know could read before they were five and so could all their children."

Wha'? Really? I, and the majority of folks/kids I know, couldn't read until taught to do so at school, around age 5/6. I thought that was pretty normal, seeing as schools assume kids can't upon starting. I could add and subtract numbers by around the age of 3, but that's because I am, and always have been, "mathematically minded". I came tops several years during school in the maths National Tests, so that isn't normal either. But even though I did, and am good with numbers, I've done nothing with it, nor plan to. So it's not the be all and end all of everything. I think you're kids are way smarter than I was or any other children I know. So you've really nothing to worry about, from what little I can read of you journal, I rate you one of the best parents I know. I actually admire you as a parent. I only have one tot, and you have the patience of a saint (with two!) in comparison.

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

I didn't learn to read before 5. Mum tried to teach me and I had absolutely zero interest. Once I got into it, though, the school ran out of books to give me by the end of the first year. I was way ahead of my age group for the rest of my school career. They'll get there!

[ifimust.livejournal.com]

Kids learn at their own pace - that's the whole idea behind personalised learning. Yes, there are points by which they "should" be able to do things... but yours are nowhere near that for reading, yet!

Neither of mine could read before they went to school - and I thought YS would never, ever get beyond the first set of books because he refused (quite sensibly) to talk about someone called Christopher Yellowhat. :}

(YS is now a qualified teacher and CD is in her final year of uni - they do learn, honest! Though I'm still not convinced YS can read an analogue clock...).

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea at what age I learned to read. I have a distinct memory of saying to my mother "Look, I'm reading this book" and being told, "No your not, you've just memorised the story".

I remember being confused in first-grade French immersion about the song we were singing about the words on the blackboard until I twigged that we were being asked to *read* them. So I assume I knew how to read (English) before I started school and learned to read French in school.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Sorry - that was me.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

If your kids know - as I think they do - what reading is, that the black marks on the page spell out the words of the story, and that you start a book at the beginning and turn over the page when you've finished looking at the black marks - they're reading. The rest is just mechanics, which will come when they're good and ready. It's the conceptual leap that is the hard bit.

As for numbers, it's surely more important to have a sense of number than to be able to remember the names of the numbers!

from asilon

[(Anonymous)]

Lol, none of mine were reading (properly) at 5. Buttercup is only just learning and she's really not that interested, and she'll be 7 next week. I must have become a worser mother because Violet was reading Harry Potter and Narnia at this age ;-)

And counting at 3 is just learning words, isn't it? Ernest couldn't count at that age, and he's now a mathematical genius (big wink!) so that obviously means nothing ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely hormones!
You're a fantastic parent of well loved children who happen to be brilliant. Enough!

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

I refused to learn to read when my mum tried to teach me, and told her I would learn when I was five and went to school. So that's at least one person you know who couldn't read before they were five.

I learned extremely fast once I did start reading. So many books! So little time!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Larf.

My father thinks I should force O to learn to read so that I don't have to pay him so much attention. He is now beginning to pick out words (O, not my father) - and to remember how to spell common ones that come up in the books he writes.

Said books, I might add, now feature such refinements as barcodes (with numbers), prices, publication dates, blurbs, and review quotations. But he can't read. You know what? I don't care. In the slightest. Which I find vaguely surprising, in a good way. I suspect it's another privilege thing, actually - I'm so completely certain that he won't be disadvantaged by his intellectual upbringing that I don't need to worry. Woot.

F, meanwhile, chimes in whenever he hears numbers: "two, tee, six, eight, ten!" Clearly, he has worked out what's hot around here.