At what age to kids learn to sing their ABC's and to recognize letters? I teach Sunday School and the new group of kids just moved up into my class. 4 and 5 yo's. My DD who is 4 is now in my class. We are doing the A beka K4 curriculum. She is starting to read very, very beginning words like CAT. While waiting for the other kids to show up I started making small talk with a little boy. I asked him how pre-school was going and what he did in pre-school. He said "sleep, eat, and watch TV". I thought there was no way that is what happened in his pre-school so I drew an "A" on the board and asked him what that was. He had no idea. I then asked him to sing his ABC's. He could not even after I sang them for him. Later I asked his Mom and she said he does not know them. I was talking to another parent later in the day and she said he was completly normal and that my DD was ahead. Now my daughters might be ahead, but don't kids know their ABC's by 4??
Like anything, there's a wide range of normal based on intelligence, life experience, access to resources, parent concern, and a host of other things. It's perfectly normal for a 4 year old to be in the early reading stages. To answer your question, though, "normal" (average) is half-way through kindergarten ... so appx age 6. It's helpful for kids to already be familiar with the alphabet, but really, they're not expected to know anything when they enter PS kindergarden. I wouldn't consider "sleep, eat, and watch TV" to be preschool, though. Sounds like cheap daycare to me. When I teach the K-1st class at church, I'll have first graders who can read and write absolutely anything, and I'll have K'ers who don't even recognize their own name in print.
Interesting. In our district, if your child isn't reading at least their 20 predetermined "beginner sight words" when they enter K, they are put into "special help" groups for the developmentally disabled. I'm of the "better late than early" camp when it comes to reading, so I don't agree with this practice. I think not knowing the alphabet by the time you're 5 or 6 is perfectly normal and healthy. Most schools, though, disagree with me. Absolutely!
Nothing says, "you're a worthless idiot" like labeling a child as they walk through the door the first day. :roll: Sheesh!
What 20 beginner sight words would a child be expected to know prior to Kindergarten? The child's name maybe? Weird.
I spent a lot of time helping with my children's public school junior and senior kindergarten classes. Junior kindergarten has 3 & 4 year olds starting in September (it's a Dec. 31st cut off). In my experience all of these little guys, with the exception of a couple of non-English speakers, could sing their ABCs. Don't parents teach them to their children, as a matter of course? In any case, the kindy teacher was actually trying to get the children to STOP singing their ABCs, because her curriculum was focussed on teaching letter sounds, not names.
I do think it is very variable as to when children learn letter recognition. I tend to teach letters and reading at an earlier age. ABC song at around age 12 mos., and beginning letter recognition and sounds. The older two started reading on their own at around age 3, and our third child started prior to his 2nd birthday. I begin reading instruction after they start trying to sound out words on their own.
I'm not certain exactly which ones, but they are the "base" sight words. I'm sure it's things like 'cat' and 'mom'.
After my kids learned the ABC song, I taught them to sing it using only the letter sounds. It really helped them learn the sounds. now when it came to vowels with long and short sounds, I taught them to sing it with the short vowel sounds the long sounds I taught later (but not as part of the song). I don't know if anyone else has done that but it worked for my kids.
It must vary by area. Around here, kids are supposed to have a familiarity with the alphabet when they enter K. Be that as it might, when ds was in Headstart (a huge mistake on my part) apparently the school was not concerned with that... or much of anything else. They acted like a daycare that also fed the kids breakfast and lunch. The only skill I saw them teaching was tooth brushing. There was a 'center' where the kids could write, but it was just there, I didn't see kids using it. I admit though, that after a failed attempt to teach my ds the alphabet (and realizing I was just confusing him) I gave up. He went into K with only the barest familiarity with it, but he did fine and was always ahead with his reading skills.
Wow! Do they really teach those as sight words? The only sight words I teach are ones that don't follow basic phonics rules.
I laugh at the thought of singing the abc's. I know MOST kids pick it up real early, real quick. Not ds. Dh asked him sometime when he was 5 to sing it to him. Ds couldn't do the whole thing. When we would sing it in preschool, he just had no interest in it. His friends could sing it, but could not give you the sounds the letters made. Ds worked the opposite way, sounds first then letters and never cared about the song. There was a period when he was around 3 that he had 2 friends named Emma. He would sing the song and instead of LMNOP, it was Emma Emma 2.:lol: It was such an obscure concept in his mind.
My four year old sings the "regular" ABC song and the one from StudyDog. Which she has never played, but her brothers and sisters did (note to self, I should download that for my kids' new computer). She's just now identifying letters. Like a couple of previous posters, I think the concept of mandating kids to not only know letters but sight words on entering kindergarten is ludicrous. My kids had it nailed - my oldest was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at 5 - but that doesn't change the fact that it shouldn't be mandated for the "average" kid IMO. Just another case of "we must be best" trumping common sense - and likely bringing us down, besides.
I wouldn't say either child is ahead or behind. They've just had different life experiences. When I taught PreK, I had lots of kids who couldn't sing the ABC's, recognize their name in print, or even tell me how old they were. But some of them could build block towers that you wouldn't believe or go across the monkey bars on their own. It just depends on what they've had experience with. When he's ready and is exposed to it, I'm sure he'll pick it up just fine.
I really dislike school systems that teach sightreading. My dd learned to read that way and she can't spell! She also has no skills for sounding out words she doesn't know. My younger two were taught to read at home and they learned with phonics. They can spell, read, sound out, and generally figure out words much better than my oldest. My niece is in first grade. Her parents have been teaching her phonics and now in school she is sliding backwards in reading because they are actively discouraging her from sounding out words. She has to look at the word and guess what it is based on the pictures. What??? That just seems ridiculous to me!!! OK, rant over!
By sight words they usually DON'T mean words the kids can't sound out. Instead, they are the most common words found in kids' books. We think the list is a bit of a joke here, honestly.
That was my dd as well. The ps said, "she sounds the words out. That's ok, but....." They also tried to tell me a child repeating a sentence back to the teacher without actually looking at the words is 'reading fluency', and is better than the child who actually tries to READ THE WORDS. Ah well. The hardest part for me was that the teachers actually believed the nonsense they were saying.
Recognizing letters and their sounds is mostly developmental. Some kids may not know letters and sounds because they have not been exposed to it but many kids at the preK level simply aren't developmentally ready to learn letter sounds. I believe this is called "phonemic awareness" or the ability to differentiate between sounds like "b" and "d" or "j" and "g". Until their brains are ready, they won't get it. I experienced this with my two kids. My DS knew his letters and sounds at 4 and was even beginning to write phonetically in preschool. My DD is about to turn 5 and is finally picking up on the letter sounds, although she still struggles with many of them.
