Preschool and reading?Follow

Last night I went to an Open house for my sons preschool. Hes three and will be starting school for three days a week starting on Wednsday. I went in, the room was nice, the teacher seemed competant, she answered all my questions and had packets for FAQs. I thumbed through it but didnt give it a good read until I got home. Thats when I saw that one of the activities for three year olds was "Quiet Reading" that lasted about 30-45 minutes. One of the parents I know who has a five year old told me this morning that this teacher expects three year olds to sit quietly for that time period and read to themselves.

Now if youve ever had a three year old, especially a boy, you know that it is almost impossible for them to sit quietly for more than 15 minutes. Also, I dont know any kids personally who at the age of three can read. Look at picture books, yes. But not read and not quietly for that length of time.

Is this a structured event that kids this age could do well, and I just have never had the opportunity to see it done, or is this possibly an expectation too high for the preschool teacher? My son loves to pretend to read, and does so often, but only as long as 10 minutes or so. Just curious as to your opinions

Go there the first day and observe the quiet reading time. If the teacher ends up in the bathroom for the entire reading time, there may be a few things he is doing in there. I am sure you would not want him doing either one around childern though.

He isn't a retired catholic priest is he? I'm just saying...

Well she is going to have a very fun time trying to get a group of 3 year olds to stay still and be quiet. You know when the first one acts up it will automatically become a chain reaction. Maybe she scheduled the 30-45 minutes in hopes to actually having them all quiet and reading 10-15 minutes. I am sure she realizes that it will take quite awhile before they are all seated and quitely looking at pictures of tigger and he-***** in thier books.

Maybe it's the teacher reading to the kids as they sit quietly? That makes more sense to me, and I vaguely remember teachers doing that for us as a wee lad.

That and playing with a light-brite with my buddy and discussing how I'd like to shower with a particular girl in our class.

I can see possibility for it to be both a good and a bad idea, depending on how much control she has over the class and interest she has in the children.

If she has good control and lots of interest, it gives her more time to work one on one with the kids who need the extra attention while still keeping the other kids constructively busy learning necessary skills

If she doesn't, well I guess that'll show.

If the teacher really knows what she's doing, the children are more than capable. I sat and read quietly for more than an hour when I was three. I am sending my daughter to start her second year of montessori primary this week. They start into the routine right away and all of the new children get into it by the end of the first week.

They might seem unable to sit quietly and be content around the house, but that's because they are bored with the same old toys and because they know exactly what they can get away with. When a child goes to a new place with new people, they develop new relationships with new boundaries. It does depend on the teacher's training though. She would only be doing it if she has been successful with it in the past.

The only time my 3 year old is quiet is when he's asleep. And that doesn't happen very often anymore.

He won't be going to pre-school, but if he doesn't slow down any over the next few years, I feel very sorry for his kindergarten teacher.

My daughter will be 4 in December, and she does a good deal of reading. It's really amazing. The only drawback is that when my wife in IMing me she reads our conversations.

If she get's into the mood she can easily read by herself for an hour or so. I don't think this is typical for 3-4 year olds though.



Edited, Fri Aug 26 15:18:07 2005 by Esdim

I was reading at about that age. Not quantum physics texts, but simple sentences. (Of course, I'm not sure what my interest level would have been without an adult audience to impress.)

I had understood, though, that parents are discouraged from teaching their kids to read before the school gets hold of them these days. Something about learning to read "the wrong way" - I'm really not sure what that means.

I dont know Sam. While I dont force my son to read, Id like to think Ive intstilled in him a love for books. He can determine the letters, and we're working on sounding them out strung together, but he hasnt caught on yet. You are, and Im pretty sure have always been, quite the intelligent person, so Im not surprised you were reading that young.

As for volenteering Thumbylina, yeah I probably will. They do a criminal record check for anyone who wished to volenteer which I found comforting. I figure I may do it a couple times a month or so.

I know that out here, they teach kids differently than they used to. Back when I was in the lower grades, they taught you to read and write properly. If you didn't know how to write the word, you were supposed to look it up in the dictionnary. We were told that it didn't matter how much we read either, as long as we knew all the words and looked them up when we didn't know.

Nowadays, they teach kids to read stuff and try to guess what the word means. They are supposed to try to get it from reading the rest of the sentence. Also, when they write it out, they are supposed to write out the word like they think it should be,and then the teacher will tell them if it's wrong or right.

I know this because my buddy's little brother(like, 14 right now) can't read or write worth ****. His spelling and grammars isn't bad, but his understanding of bigger words is horrible.

All in all, reading for a good amount of time is alot better than different camera angle per second TV. At least it'll help them focus, if the teacher can pull it off.

/nod

Not if you happen to be Chinese.

It's Chinese that's written right-left, right? Left?