At the beginning of every September, I ask the girls if they have anything they would like to achieve by the end of July. Anna (who was 5) said she’d like to learn to read.
I helped with this by teaching her blending sounds and split digraphs which we worked on until Christmas last year. This was to give her the basics. She already knew that letters have a sound and a name (ay or a, bee or b, etc).
After this, we started reading simple books. moving on to reading programs such as Oxford Reading Tree which we bought, but also got different ones from the library (one of our favourite places to go). By July she was on Level 5 books.
I have no idea the ‘comparison’ with schooled children, but this child has pretty much taught herself to read fluently. As of now (August) she is reading Liz Pichon (Tom Gates) and Andy Griffith (13 Storey Treehouse Stories).
To continue with her gaining confidence in reading alone, we now all read for half an hour a day (or more if you want to). So far I have found that instead of picking up a gadget or putting on the television, they have been picking up books to read.
My conclusion after this year, is that if a child wants to learn something they can do it anywhere, given the right encouragement and facility to do so. 🙂