In May, a special time begins for us and for the parents. The oldest group in our preschool — the Wisemen (in Polish: Mędrki) — is slowly counting down the days until the end of their preschool adventure. In September, they will step into Year 1. And along with this approaching change, the same question awakens in parents which we hear every single year: “Will my child cope with reading and writing?”
We usually answer with a smile, but very seriously: yes, they will cope — provided we don’t try to race them against the school system or against other children. Every brain matures into letters at its own pace, and our task is not to “outrun the school”, but to build in the child such a foundation that, when school starts to teach letters, the child has already everything needed to take them in.
And this is exactly the foundation we work on with the Wisemen throughout the entire last year of preschool.
What readiness for reading and writing really is
Many people think that readiness to learn to read is “knowing the letters”. And readiness to write — “the ability to hold a pen”. These are very misleading simplifications. A child can name all 32 letters of the Polish alphabet without error and still not be ready for genuine learning to read, because they lack a foundation that has nothing to do with letters at all.
That foundation consists of many elements. First — coordination of the body’s movements. A child who cannot coordinate hands and feet cannot coordinate eye movement along a line of text either. Reading is movement — the eyes must learn to follow the text from left to right, then return to the next line. Training begins much earlier, in dancing, in climbing, in hopping on one foot.
Second — orientation in space. The letter “b” and the letter “d” look identical in a child’s brain until a stable map of “left-right” has formed. That is why, before the child begins to distinguish these letters on paper, they must distinguish them in the air — to know where their right hand is and where their left, where is up and where is down. All of this is built through movement.
Third — concentration. Reading is a cognitive effort that lasts for minutes, sometimes whole quarter-hours. A child who cannot stay with a task for three minutes will not stay through a lesson either, no matter how well they know the letters. That is why we train attention literally every day, in hundreds of small situations.
Fourth — hand fitness. Writing is a very demanding sport. The small hand of a five-year-old must master simultaneously the grip of the tool (the pincer grip), control of line, control of pressure, coordination with the eye, and sometimes additionally — resistance to fatigue. That is why we work on the hand long before we hand the child a notebook.
Fifth — a rich linguistic world inside the head. A child who can tell a story, understands the concept of a sentence, knows the difference between a question and an answer, is linguistically ready to start associating sounds with letters. Without this, even the most diligent practice of letters will be art for art’s sake.
How preparation looks in practice
In the everyday life of the Wisemen there are no “reading lessons” in the form known from Year 1. There are, however, very many activities which all together prepare the ground for learning.
Movement comes first. The Wisemen go every day through obstacle courses, balance on a line drawn on the floor, jump over patterns, change direction on command. This looks like pure play. In reality it is a systematic training of the vestibular system, proprioception and bilateral coordination — that is, all those systems which two years later will allow the child to sit calmly at a desk, follow text with their eyes and lead a pencil along a line.
Letters with hands, with feet, in sand, from sticks. Before a letter ends up in a workbook, it must pass through the whole body. With the Wisemen we lay out letters from chestnuts, sculpt them from plasticine, draw with a finger in flour spread on a tray, make them from string, paint them on packing paper with a big brush. A child who has built the letter “A” from sticks ten times has an image of that letter in their head that even the best textbook could never give them.
Rhythm, song, clapping. Phonological awareness — the ability to pick up individual sounds in words — is the strongest predictor of success in learning to read. That is why we sing, clap syllables, count phonemes, play with rhymes, play “find a word starting with…”. A child who can break a word into syllables by tapping on the table is neurologically much closer to reading than a child who “knows the letters” but does not hear the structure of the word.
Hand work. Every day we do something that exercises fine motor skills. We thread beads onto strings. We cut with scissors. We model with plasticine. We fold origami. We fasten buttons on Montessori practice frames. Each of these activities looks like a small play, but it builds finger strength, eye-hand coordination, control of precision.
Storytelling and conversation. In the Wisemen we find a moment every day for the child to tell something in their own words — a story we read, a dream from the night, a plan for the weekend. We encourage longer sentences, the filling in of details, the logical sequence of events. This builds the structure that the child will then use both when reading texts of others and when creating their own.
Books — every day. The Wisemen listen to books in the group, look at picture books on their own, “pretend” to read. This last element is paradoxically very important — a child who holds a book in their hands and tells their own version of the story takes the first step towards real reading.
What we avoid
What we do not do in our preschool — and we often ask parents not to do this at home either — is the mechanical drilling of letters in workbooks under time pressure. “Write the letter A ten times” is, for a five-year-old, an exercise that does not at all build the skill of writing, and often spoils the motivation. A child who feels that writing is a punishment will develop a long-lasting aversion to it.
We also avoid comparing children to each other. Some write their names at the age of four, others not until seven — and both are within the norm. A child who hears that “Christopher’s been writing for ages, and you can’t yet” learns shame above all, not writing.
We also do not rush the formal learning of letters. In the methodology of Glenn Doman or in some Scandinavian schools, children formally start to read only at the age of seven — and brilliant readers nevertheless grow out of them. The Polish education system requires this much earlier from the child, but that does not mean that we in preschool need to accelerate this model. On the contrary — our task is to give the child peace, foundations and self-confidence, so that they enter Year 1 with inner readiness, and not with exhaustion.
What a parent can do to help
The list is short and may seem too simple. And it works best:
— Read together every evening. Even five minutes. Even the same book for the tenth time. A child who has been read to regularly enters Year 1 with a vocabulary twice as rich as a child who has not been read to. This is the single biggest difference a parent can make.
— Talk. About everything, every day, at length. In the car, at dinner, before bed. Ask the child for their opinion, listen to their stories, ask follow-up questions. Written language feeds on spoken language.
— Give the child opportunities for movement. Walks in the woods, climbing on the playground, dancing in the living room. All of this builds the foundation that will soon transform into school fitness.
— Patience. If the child does not want to practise letters — do not force. If they make a mistake — do not correct as a teacher would, rather have a conversation. If they say they “can’t do it any more” — propose a shared break together. The child’s brain learns best in an atmosphere of safety, never in an atmosphere of pressure.
— Celebrate small steps. The first time the child recognises their own name in a sign. The first word they read from a bus advert. The first letter they write — crooked, big, but their own. Every such moment builds the inner faith “I can” — and that is the ultimate fuel of learning throughout life.
The most important message
Year 1 is not an exam to be feared. It is the next stage of an adventure for which the child is gradually prepared throughout the entire preschool time. Our responsibility is that, by then, the Wisemen will have arrived with a strong hand, a fit body, rich language, curiosity about the world and confidence that learning is fun.
And if that confidence is strong, then the letters themselves are merely a technical detail. They will be learned by every child whose brain is ready for them — without exception.
That is why in our preschool we say to parents: relax. Trust the child. Trust their brain. Trust the process. And if you feel the need to do something more at home — do the simplest thing in the world: an evening book and a long conversation at the table.
That really is enough for a Wiseman to grow into a child who, on the first of September, walks into Year 1 calm, curious and ready.