Is teaching pre-school aged children to read a bad thing?

Question

I have two age groups I divided my classroom in. I seperated the younger 3 year olds in my classroom from the older 4 and 5 year olds. I teach basic pre-school to the young ones and reading, writing and math with my older ones. Is reading too much for a 4 year old to learn at such a young age.

Answer 1

No, as long as it is stress free and fun.

Answer 2

Not if it's done appropriately.  This is actually the optimal age to teach those things.

Why are you separating the groups, though?  They have so much to learn from each other.

Here's a good book on reading activities you might want to look at:

http://astore.amazon.com/monteblog-20/de...

Answer 3

It isn't if the kids are ready.  Many Kindergartens like kids to have the basics down.  We love the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics and Letter Factory to help make the learning fun in our daycare preschool.  

I completely agree, you shouldn't worry about separating them, we have a 2 year old that is more primed to learn to read than a 4 year old.

What are you doing for math?  Counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting and classifying are great math activities that need to be understood before adding and subtracting. All these learning activities can be and should be part of your day, not a sit down, be quiet and LEARN!  You will be surprised how much is learned by play, proper set-up of the environment (making sure the toys that work on what you want to work on are out and available) and just by talking and interacting with the kiddos.

When making your lesson plans, remember with young kids, worksheets do not equal learning.  Hands on, hands on, hands on and fun, fun, fun should be the way to go.

Answer 4

It's not a bad thing at all as long as it's done in an age appropriate manner.  There's not really a need to separate the age groups.  Just expose all the children to print and basic literacy skills on a regular basis as part of your routine.  The ones who are ready will pick it up and the ones who are not should be able to enjoy the activities anyway.  Read stories to the group.  Point out basic book skills as you go.  This is the title.  This is the author's name.  The author writes the words.     And so on.  When you start reading, hold the book so that YOU see the words.  The children will say I can't see.  Smile, turn the book around and point out the print.  This is what I am reading.  When I hold the book this way, I can't see the words!  First, I'll read the words, and then I'll turn the book around so you can see the pictures!  Point out common words as part of your circle routine, and look for common words in the environment.  Do you serve milk at snack or lunch?  Point out the word milk and say the letters.  Look, it says m-i-l-k, milk!  Offer plenty of opportunities for writing.  Whenever they draw a picture, remind them to write their name on it so I will know who made that picture.  Have a word wall and include all their names on it in case they want to go get their name to help them write it.  Math should be part of everything you do.  Count all the children every day.  Ask if there are more boys or more girls today.  Count the chairs.  Do I have enough for everyone to have a chair?  There is no reason to separate the kids.  The little ones will learn from the older ones and it may surprise you that some of them will be quite ready for these skills.

Answer 5

While I think that learning is something that you're neither ever too old for or too young for, I do have some valuable info to share with you.  My daughter learned to read, particularly a lot of sight words, when she was in preschool. Oh my goodness, when she got to Kindergarten, they had to put her in first grade reading and language arts. She misses out on some of the activities with her peers.

With that said, I think it's ok for them to learn as much as they're little brains can absorb, but just know that it can create a scenario in K that will set them apart from the other kids. FORTUNATELY for us, the catholic school my daughter attends has the resources to put her where she *should* be based on her skills, not just by her age.

Answer 6

no, you see not lots of people read books now and they expand your mind, reading at a young level can really make them read more books in the future. and thats where people like stephen king come from ;)

Answer 7

Not necessarily, as long as you are aware of their individual needs and abilities. Some of the kids might be fine with it, but others might not.