Just to add from one of those early reading angst parents... Having one kid in middle school and a youngster coming up...reading level seems to be an indicator when entering school and can make life a bit easier that one is not a pushy parent if the child can clearly show early reading......
I don't hothouse but I do feel an urgency that the little one can have a way of showing her ability that is easily identifieable by who ever I need it to be identified by when the time comes....
My middle schooler's SAT scores have talked many more miles and opened up many more doors than anything else has from the school personnel. They understood those numbers.
I think early reading is similar...it is something that the elementary teachers understand as advanced...more so than say an IQ level and what that really means.
Sorry if this is repetitive, just not sure how clearly it comes across what I am trying to say.
I agree with what you said, Flower. Even when your child is doing multiplication in his head when he is 3 and asking big, deep life questions and has the memory of an elephant, these signs of higher-level thinking are almost always overlooked by teachers. Show a teacher that a child can read several grades above level, however, and the teacher is much more likely to take notice and look for further clues to a child's readiness level. Heck, when I was a kid in K way back in the 70s, the ONLY kids that got tested for the gifted program were those who were in the top reading group. I had an undiagnosed vision problem at that point and so I was not in the highest reading group. It wasn't until I was in 4th grade that I told my parents that I needed to be tested that the teachers thought of me as a "top" student. So, I think in many ways, teachers "label" students -- whether overtly or subconsciously -- as top or average or below-average students based on their reading level. It's not right, but it does happen. So, in some ways, I can see why parents are anxious to have their child read before entering school, perhaps thinking that it will give them a sort of leg-up. And unfortunately, it very well might. IME, I have seen differences in the way my kids were perceived by teachers based on when they read: DS1 at 5.5, DD at 3, and DS2 at 4, all self-taught.
