Thankfully, nobody ever tried to make me write with my right hand. They just hopelessly confused me as to which one it was. 
I think anybody who gave me a pair of scissors and expected me to use my right hand should also have expected someone to lose an eye. I can’t even dial a phone with my right hand.
I’m admittedly basing my statements on what I was taught in college, in psychology, in anticipation of my teaching certification. Unfortunately, without going and digging up those old texts from back in the stone age, I can’t provide a reliable cite. It’s possible that I’m incorrect due to outdated information. One thing I do recall clearly is a picture of an xray of a 5 yo boy’s and 5 yo girl’s hands, described as typical of each. The boy’s hand showed markedly less bone development (i.e. more cartilege) than the girl’s, an indication of the one of many areas in which boys mature later than girls in certain areas of development.
If a more recently educated teacher or psychologist can provide newer information about the average age when I child can associate the printed page with words, I will readily concede the point.
As another anecdote (which I know is NOT the singular form of “data”), my older daughter was completely unable to use scissors to make more than a single cut when she was in pre-school. The teacher said not to worry about it, that she just wasn’t ready for that yet. And in time, she did as well as anyone.
My point is mostly that children’s brains and muscles need to develop to a certain point before they are ready for certain things. It’s useless to try to force an advanced skill like reading or writing on a child who’s not ready. It’s similar to other skills like walking. If a kid’s not ready to walk, s/he won’t. At some point, assuming there’s not a disability or mistreatment of some sort, s/he will.
How much of our IQ is determined at birth, and how much is determined by a fertile home environment? I consider myself smarter than the average bear, but is that because I was taught to read at a young age, or was I able to read at a young age because I was smart?
I think any parent that doesn’t try instill in their child a love for reading and books is a poor parent. So much comes from learning to read that the sooner you start, the better. And since IQ tests don’t mean much when given to a 5-year-old, parents should read and take the kidlets to the library and play the Highway Game with them as much as possible before kindergarten. The kids may have problems reading, yes, but the parent must at least try. And keep trying.
That’s the one thing I shall always be grateful to my mother for, teaching me to read. Now, for me, reading is like breathing. I must have a book somewhere, either with a bookmark in it or next on a list. I feel lost when I have finished a book and have not decided on what to read next.
Ivylass, I agree with all of your statements. I know in my case, my mom was not specifically trying to teach me to read, she just knew that reading to children was a good thing. I don’t remember NOT being able to read; one of my earliest memories was trying to follow along in the book she was reading to me, losing my place and asking her to show me where we were. These were classical novels like The Count of Monte Cristo and Treasure Island, incidentally, not Dick and Jane. However, as I said before, my older sister had the same advantage and did excellent work in school, but did not read by herself until first grade.
A good book on the nature/nurture issue is The Nurture Assumption by by Judith Rich Harris and Steven Pinker. Their research indicates that a huge amount of a person’s character is due to inheritance, and another huge influence is the peer environment (not necessarily the same as the parental influence). For example, adopted children tend to have more resemblances in certain areas to their biological than to their adoptive parents.
I think it’s apparent that a good environment enables a person to develop up to his/her potential; a poor environment may interfere. Similar to the case of a person whose inheritance is to be shorter than average. The best nutrition in the world will not turn that person into a 6-footer; a person with the genes to be tall may remain short if he’s deprived.
I agree with this, and started reading to all of my kids when they were newborns. I still read to my five-year-old, several books a day. Heck, sometimes I’ll read to my 14-year-old (who is a voracious reader on her own, but it’s just a fun thing for us to do). However, none of my kids could read when they started kindergarten. My youngest will be starting kindergarten next week. She knows her alphabet, and can tell you what sounds almost all the consonants make (the vowels still confuse her), but she can’t read yet. She’s very bright, and I think I’ve done a pretty darned good job of instilling a love of books in her. I don’t think I’m neglectful; she just isn’t ready to read yet. When she is, I’ll encourage her, and buy her more books.
Reading to children is a wonderful thing. Once, a few eons ago, I was teaching English to a particularly troublesome and fractious class of 9th graders, a “general” classs as opposed to college prep. We were studying short stories. Their text did not have any O. Henry stories, and I wanted to show them the “twist ending” typical of that author, so I brought in my own copy and read it to them aloud. The class was particularly enraptured; it was the best behaved they were all year.
Anecdotal: Bricker Jr, who has not yet turned 4, can read. He can read perhaps 300 words by sight, and sound out words he doesn’t know. He can take a book he’s never seen before and read through it.
I got so caught up in responding to Ivylass’s post that I forgot to address the OP! Here’s what my youngest one’s school expects a child to know when starting kindergarten: alphabet (reciting and recognizing letters; beginning to write some of them); numbers (count to ten, recognize numbers to ten); know full name and be able to recognize first name when written down; shapes (including the more complicate ones, like the difference between a hexagon and an octogon); dress themselves (except for maybe buttons, zippers and shoelaces); use bathroom indepently; take turns; sit quietly for several minutes; listen attentively; follow a set of three directions.
I didn’t learn how to tie my shoes until first grade. To survive, I wore shoes that didn’t need tying (velcro straps).
Not by kindergarten. Some will, some won’t. See-Spot-Run is first grade reading.
The important thing is that you DID read to your children and exposed them to books. You are by no means neglectful. I’m speaking of the parents who don’t have a library card, who won’t open a book for themselves, much less their children, and don’t have any reading material in their home except for a cookbook or a Sports Illustrated magazine.
Anyway, no kindergarten teacher expects a new student to be reading, even if it’s great that they can. But they get pretty pissed off if the kid doesn’t know “red”.
Now, I am going to brag about what my soon to be first grader can do: the little bum can multiply! He knows there are 21 days in three weeks. He wonders how we can say there are four weeks in a month since that would make 48 weeks in a year and didn’t we just tell him there’s 52. And he’s not counting by anyone’s fives! He sees 7 nickles, he knows he’s got 35 cents. And so on. He does this all in his head. I didn’t teach him that. His kindergarten teacher didn’t teach him that. His first grade teacher doesn’t expect it. Just because he can do it, doesn’t mean he “should”.
If only they had those when I was a kid. My younger brother finally taught me how to tie my shoes on my first day of 8th grade. My kid has been doing it since he was 4. Go figure. In fact, velcro shoes are so common now that it’s hard to find really nice tie shoes in certain sizes and we want our son to have them so he keeps in practice.
But, in kindergarten most of his friends didn’t tie their shoes and still aren’t.
So he’s above average. Probably by a lot.
You know, I read (heh) somewhere once that the biggest indicator in whether a kid will be a reader (by which I mean enjoying reading) is whether they see their parents reading for enjoyment. Hubby and I both read a great deal, so it’s only natural that our kids think that reading for enjoyment is just what people do.
It’s probably a good thing those didn’t exist when I was in Kindergarten, or I might really of not been able to tie my shoes in the 9th grade.
Thanks for the input…here are the obligatory photos of the kid:
I’m an old-fashioned geezer, I guess, but I don’t expect any particular academic accomplishments of a kindergartner. I think social and behavioral skills are much more important at this age than reading abilities. I’ve seen kids who can read and do math who cannot sit quietly and wait their turn, and who pitch tantrums if the focus of attention is not on them.
Beautiful! I love that smile.
Amen to that! I have a nephew (now a senior in college, but hey, I’m old), and before he started kindergarten, he could read, do simple math, count backwards from 60 (learned it by watching the microwave), and all kinds of other neat parlor tricks. But he had no social skills, and would often have temper fits if his food wasn’t cut into small enough pieces to suit him! He had a hell of a time in his elementary and middle school years because of his lack of social skills. I think he would have been happier and better adjusted if his mother had started on social skills instead of flash cards at a very early age.