> The universal educational standards now trumpeted by the Obama
> administration require children in kindergarten to read and write. ...
> ... I have a Ph.D. in English and started working on
> letter and sound recognition with both my very bright children when they
> were two and a half. I also read to them every night. By the time they were
> in kindergarten they could read a word here and there, but no way could it
> be said that they could read and write English. By first grade they were
> fine.
Some US standards may be too low, though. My info is 30 years old, but I had one somewhat scary experience with that.
My daughter was a bright kid, there were plenty of books in the house, we read to her, bought her picture books, and sent her to a Montessori kindergarten. By the time she entered first grade, she could read quite a few words, perhaps even the odd simple sentence, but she certainly could not read a story. Sounds about like your kids.
Just as she turned six, mom and dad took a job abroad so she went off to an American school for children of expats, run to US standards, with teachers all US-certified. They gave her their usual set of standardised tests.
According to those, she was at a grade four reading level! If they'd said she was a bit ahead, say end of grade one rather than beginning, I'd have accepted that. According to the principal, though, her score was that of the average US 4th grader.
To me, that says there was something appallingly wrong either with the tests or with American education.