My daughter had her share of developmental delays: she couldn’t jump until after her fourth birthday, and she still has trouble opening four and a half doors! I am no stranger to fear and anxiety about my little one’s progress. A parent can’t see (or hear) their children doing something at a certain age and not think, “Is my kid supposed to be doing that already?”
I’ve heard this question a lot from moms with kids my daughter’s age. Although he has delays in one area (gross motor development) he is always literate in another. She sounded out simple words twice, reading three short sentences, four whole books. Lots of nervous looking parents at my daughter’s preschool and playgroup asked me and my daughter’s teacher, “YouKids Did they think they knew how to read before Kindergarten?”
The short and simple answer is no – absolutely not. Kindergarten, when kids are six years old, is the normal time when most children learn to read. It is not a sign of a developmental delay or problem if your child is approaching kindergarten age and cannot read at all. In fact, there are very few children who can read before Kindergarten. The National Center for Education Statistics states that about one child in fifty can recognize sight words before entering Kindergarten. Until one in a hundred actually sings the words before the sentence. In other words, children who read “real” before starting school are quite unusual, while those who cannot read before starting school are completely normal.
Most kids enter kindergarten with some precursors to reading – 66% can recognize letters by name, and at least half can recognize names on sight. But like phonics skills they usually read in Kindergarten, not before. NCES states that 29% of children can associate letters with sounds that begin (such as associating “Z” with “zebra”) by entering kindergarten, and 17% can identify which letter ends a given word (such as knowing that “cat” ends with “t”). These kids tend to excel in learning to read in kindergarten, and are actually ahead of their peers despite not being able to “really” read yet.
If your kiddo is approaching Kindergarten age and still can’t read, don’t sweat it. Children must be trained to teach them to read simple words and sentences, to write letters, to understand bare elements. mathematics It is not a small thing that your child is to know in kindergarten. While I am proud that I was born a precocious reader, I know that I am not a superior peer. All you want to do is compare her gross motor development with another child’s age to see that she simply focuses a lot on learning one thing while focusing less on something else (and that’s okay).
All children are unique and there is nothing inherently wrong or abnormal about a child who cannot read before Kindergarten. However, if you are concerned about your child’s development development of his pre-literacy skills, the teacher or doctor can put you in contact with the resources to kick him off before he needs it you are going to school
