I could read, write and count, before I went to school… but I was number 3 child so had elder siblings etc…thus, it was part of life at home…
As for speaking…mmmm… 'nuff said 
How did you fare?
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Same here Stella, my mum passed her love of books and reading on to me at a very early age.
The schoolmistress though wasn’t a happy bunny that I could read, write, count and articulate when I started school. She actually told mum off because she felt it ‘undermined her position’.
Some time later I was very ill and couldn’t go to school for some months. When I could finally return I was still ahead of the class … phew ! 
I was miffed because I was swiftly moved from the first class… where the kids played with toys etc… but my huff didn’t last long 
The same Stella. When I went to school I could read a newspaper (sort of!) and tell the time. I was four and a half.
At that time, early 1970’s, they were teaching reading using the “breakthrough” method which just confused me completely and the teachers couldn’t understand why I wasn’t progressing! They, too, weren’t happy that my parents had done such a great job of teaching me 
My Mum tells me that I came home one day and said I was learning “grapefruit” which perplexed her a little until the teacher told her it was “breakthrough”. 
I actually remember none of this at all although I do remember having a “little accident” because I was frightened to ask for the toilet!!
I was a bit picked on by the schoolmistress because I could read, write, do simple sums, but worse I was smacked by her because I had forgotten some of the words of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, (very Christian, not) this was after being away from school for some months due to being seriously ill.
When my mum met me at the gates and discovered why I was crying she marched me straight back in to confront the schoolmistress.
Now mum is 5ft nothing, and never said ‘boo to a goose’, but believe me she had the culprit shaking in her shoes and an apology was swiftly given.
Thereafter the said person never so much as raised her voice to me again.
Always sad when these things happen… for all the many, many, wonderful folk who pass through our lives… the “bad” ones seem to linger longer in the memory.
Although in your case… your Mum battling on your behalf has resulted in a golden memory… 
It did have an effect on me Stella because it made me afraid of school. Afraid that if I forgot something, however trivial, I would be punished.
I lost a lot of confidence and sometimes made myself sick so I wouldn’t have to go.
It did change when I was older and attended a completly new school, but it was always there.
The big problems between parents and teachers often occur when different learning methods are used at home and at school and most (UK) schools hold workshops to share their methods for teaching language and maths skills with the parents. This might be as simple as where KS1 children are being taught mental maths skills to use their mathematically knowledge to solve four rules problems using mental skills, possibly with jottings, and the parents confuse them by introducing inappropriate formal systems too early. In my experience I have never hear a teacher complaining that a child can already read when they enter school and the moans that I’ve heard about writing were where the children have been taught to use exclusively capital letters where the norm is to start with lower case. The big, huge, ginormous problems are the number of children who enter school without being able to talk, have no social skills and are unable to interact with their peers or are even not toilet trained. These are usually the result of poor parenting.
I started school in 1950, Dad was amazed when I still wasn’t reading after a year, he taught me to read, starting with the “Rupert Bear” strip in, I think it was the Express.
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Presumably he did similar things before you started school or did he wait for the school to fail before doing his bit. Learning to read is and always has been done in tandem by parents and teachers working together. My parents always claimed that I learned to read by pouring over Corgi car catalogues day in day out.
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So true… a youngster in the Lire et Faire Lire group resisted all attempts … until he discovered a wonderful book about dinosaurs …
It worked like magic…
My parents were pretty busy making a living Dave, not doing the teachers job, I am very grateful to Dad, for devoting the little free time He had, to doing what teachers failed to achieve:+1: 
Wrong Bill. Learning is not a teacher’s job any more than it is a parent’s job they both have responsibilities. Spending quality time with your children in their early years pays dividends in the long run and the amount a child learns before they reach school age is astonishing.
Oh, Ok Davy, totally pointless communicating with you, so I won’t.
It’s a teachers job to teach, not parents.
Teachers were described by my brother, a Loughborough Graduate, as children among men and men among children.
I have often, but not always! found the description fits.
I sent you a pm before you posted this Bill. Please read it. I’m not writing any more in the subject because my beliefs are so different from your own it will achieve nothing. Calling me Davy gains you no bonus points.
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I was an enthusiastic reader, encouraged by my mum I once, in infant school ,was given a table of children to sit and supervise ( and I was the youngest) because in our large baby boomers class the teacher had too many to watch
My nephew was an early reader and his reception class teacher frequently commented how good he was. He went to the next class and the teacher told his mum she was concerned at his poor reading skills. His mum insisted on him being tested and it turned out he was very advanced and the poor lad was bored at the level being taught to the class. A programme was put in place for him and by the time he was eight he was reading above an eleven year old level
Not to enter into any arguments but I do believe it’s a parent’s responsibility to help their child with basic learning before they start school.
The simplest things like manners, learning to say please and thank you etc;
Teaching to ask for and use the toilet is not a teacher’s job!
It can also be reading to them, getting them interested in books and words.
Teaching them that they can’t have everything they want, that tantrums don’t work.
My father worked all hours and lots of overtime to put food on the table. My mother worked part-time too but they still found time to teach the basics.
I am from a generation where the ‘kids’ didn’t rule the house, where we weren’t allowed to have food fads and certainly not allowed to sit in front of a tv for hours on end.
IMO if you have children they are your responsibility, not to be palmed off for several hours a day into a school system where teachers have to do the jobs of parents!
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Yes, manners, toilet training, good behaviour, parents responsibility, Teaching, is what teachers have been trained for and are paid to do.
Children are not “palmed off for several hours a day” Ann, parents are required, by law, to ensure their children attend school
I was sent away to school when I was 4 because I could read properly in English and French and my parents went away to Japan. The others started at 7 so not such a huge difference. I had to have a scribe in exams because my writing was ‘so messy’, I think it was probably about average for a 4 year-old.
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