I should have worded that the reading expectation is (most likely) specific to schools with high scores in our area but I'm seeing that this trend is spreading and starting earlier.
The first parent-child preschool I tried out was refusing to "promote" a 4 year old to the next class because she didn't know the alphabet. I thought they were crazy. Apparently, the 4 year old class teacher expects all incoming students to know their letters. This was not a terribly exclusive or selective preschool.
I can go on and on but this drive to get children to read as early as possible is starting to really bother me.
