What’s wrong with your family? Why would they even know this?
I was reading by the time I was four and a half or so – possibly earlier, but I don’t remember and nobody else knows – and while I barely remember kindergarten, I do know it was my first grade teacher who my mom clashed a bit with about my reading. Once it was proved that I was reading (at something like a fourth grade level) my teacher conceded that I didn’t really need those phonics lessons. I’d been acting up out of boredom, apparently.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t expected to be reading. This would have been about 1981 and 82.
Bites When Provoked, I understand that all you were trying to do here was make a point about your lack of comprehension, but you would have done it better to have made that point in your reply. Please do not alter credited quotes.
What do you mean by “pre-reading”? Knowing letters, being able to sound out words?
Also, what is a “chapter book”? (I have a strange feeling i’ve asked that question before…)
They know about it because I threw tantrums and tried to get out of going to school. Sorry, I thought that was clear.
Just as I had suspected!!!
I read the title of this thread and saw 64 replies and thought to myself
“I bet the majority of the replies are people bragging about ‘I knew how to read when I was only 2, brag, brag, brag.’”
You early readers are so full of yourself you just can’t wait for the opportunity to tell people (who don’t really give a crap) how young you were when you could read.
Give it a rest already and try to answer the original question.
“Pre-reading” is the stuff you need to know before you can read. The way books work, for example–you start on the lest side and page through to the right side. That the words mean things, that groups of letters are words, what the letters are and that they make sounds, mostly all that stuff that we never think about because we know it so well.
A chapter book is…a book divided into chapters! Early easy readers don’t have chapters, just one simple story. Then they’ll have, say, 3 stories in the book, like Frog and Toad do. Real chapter books start at about a 2nd grade level and are like the Magic Tree House books–short chapters, maybe 10 to the book. They’re the sign that the kid has graduated to Real Books.
I could read somewhat early, but I don’t consider it a personal accomplishment. I didn’t learn to read on my own, after all. My older siblings put up with my constant pestering for them to read to me, so I managed to pick it up slightly earlier than some kids.
My husband is an equally, if not more so, accomplished reader and he learned how to read in school, in the first grade. These are just data points. If anyone is genuinely proud of themselves for learning to read early, then they probably have very little else to be proud of!
If you want real fun, start a thread asking people what their IQ is.
I’d include word recognition in pre-reading. Not really knowing how to sound out words, but having recognition of the easy ones - the, on, and,…you can’t read a new word, but you can name the ones you know. Sounding out words is actually reading. Kindergarters should be at the pre-reading stage to start.
Though I typed that and didn’t mean pre-reading, I meant reading pre-kindergarten.
One of my friends has a son who read the first Harry Potter book halfway through kindergarten. That’s the tail end of the bell curve. Being able to read Hop on Pop isn’t, although most kids starting kindergarten can’t, and many will finish kindergarten unable to read Hop on Pop.
I keep reading & re-reading that sentence & it’s STILL not sinking in 
Hop on Pop, that’s advice I can handle.
Hampshire, I think I love you.
I did already, so there! 
Well, given that these articles are making huge sweeping statements purporting to cover kids which presumably run the gamut of infant capabilites from future Nobel-winner to future Springer-fodder, I would presume that the articles are a pile of monkey-poop.
Everybody likes to think their kids are exceptional, but some genuinely are, at either end of the distribution. Just teach the rugrats as much as they can comfortably handle and make the 
face when at them they have been naughty and 
when they have been good and everything should be sorta OK*
*[Advice based purely on observation. Writer has no experience of kids other than having been one and seeing a few others brought up in various different ways]
In grade 1 I was still learning! In Kindergarten we traced lines and played with toys and tried to remember our own phone numbers! But that was in the 80’s.
Although I don’t know any kindergartners, I’m doing a site for advanced students in Kindergarten to grade 3, and there is quite a bit to read on it. I know a lot of this stuff would have been impossible for me when I was in Kindergarten.
Examples:
-
Math problem with different degrees of difficulty
-
Painting with this text:
How would you describe this picture?
Respond with a journal entry, a poem, or a story.
Can you think of another creative way to express your ideas?
- “What’s this” picture - a macro of a sock.
But no kids have used this site yet, so it could well be too hard for them.
Today I had a meeting with a teacher about a project I’m doing for grade K-3 kids. The site is for the kids who want to do a little extra; not necessarily the gifted kids, but the ones that want to do more than what they learn in the classroom.
I asked the teacher if the Kindergarten kids would actually be able to read the site, and the answer is mostly no. When Kindergartners are looking at the site, she says they will likely be doing it with someone older.
She said the grade 1 class did an exercise where they opened a template file and resaved it. She said that it took quite a lot of effort for them to learn.
So kids are still kids, and they still need time to learn things.
Well, duh. The people who didn’t learn to read until they were in third grade are not going to think they have any worthwhile input on the issue. If you notice, a lot of the respondents have said that even though they started reading early it didn’t really make much of a difference in the long run. People telling when they learned to read, especially if they learned to read prior to kindergarten, are the exact people I would want to respond to a thread titled, “Are Kindergartners Expected to be Reading?” It provides a comparison as to what was the norm when they were in school compared to now. If they were reading earlier than usual, of course they would remember better than those who learned along with everyone else, which would make it even more likely for them to want to respond.
The OP obviously feels that the expectation of literacy in a 5 year old is a bit unusual. From the early readers who responded, I would say that even if kids start reading at that age, it doesn’t mean they’re geniuses, though they might have better than average verbal skills. In the long run, it may make very little difference at all. If your kid doesn’t start reading until first grade (which seems to be the average, based on posts in this thread) it’s no big deal.