My child is almost 5 and currently in a private preschool for TK. One of our good friends has another child the same age plus an older child in 1st grade.
Our friends are in a different town so they are in a different public school system than what my daughter would be in, but it has a pretty good reputation. However, our friend has been drilling additional education in his older child the past few years. He was teaching his older child how to read at age 4, giving the child all these phonics books and spending time on the weekend doing reading lessons. He has been doing the same with his younger child who is now reading plus he has been adding math to both kids to work on over the weekend.
My husband thinks we should be pushing additional lessons at home like our friends. In the case of reading, I've heard if you push too hard, it will cause your child to resist and dislike reading. We read to our child every night, and frequently get them new books or borrow books from the library. Our child loves us reading to them but they have been pushing back at trying to learn reading independently.
At my child's preschool, they have been teaching letters, sounds, and writing for the past year. My child can easily identify all letters, identify sounds with letters, and can write their name. I think our child is on par for their education at this point and I am afraid of pushing too much education now and causing stress or burnout.
I know that additional education at home is a good thing if there is a lapse in school's curriculum but I also wonder if 4 going on 5 might be a bit young to be pressured into additional work.
Submitted September 28, 2026 at 11:49AM by PinkHamster08 https://ift.tt/GR5qeSw
