Psychology Today: Reading Wars

[SKL]

I expect you are expressing the sentiments of the vast majority of readers. This became obvious a while back when someone did a poll about the ages kids started reading. If you looked at the poll results, the curve mirrored the expected averages exactly, with most kids starting at 6-7 years old and outliers on either end. But, the posts in the thread were very heavily weighted toward the early readers. My conclusion... early readers and those whose kids are early readers like to talk about it. 

 

While we give lip service to the idea that early readers are not more intelligent, that mythology is still very powerful. Imagine a scenario where we convinced people that early readers tended to be more pedantic, unoriginal thinkers, and late readers were actually more intelligent, creative and accomplished in life. I expect we would see the opposite effect. In fact, neither is probably true, and the reality is that we can't tell much at all about intelligence from the age that someone begins reading. Nevertheless, we always see posts in these threads weighted towards early readers. It doesn't reflect reality at all.

 

We are talking about early reading because that is what the OP is about.

 

If the OP had been asking people's experience with late readers, everyone wouldn't be talking about their early reader experiences.

 

[Outdoorsy Type]

My oldest read fluently at 4/5 or kindergarten, my middle at 7/8 and my youngest at 6. I feel like I've seen the whole curve. I have seen 6yo boys berated and made to feel stupid for not being able to read fluently by first grade, which was one factor in deciding to homeschool. I think the push for younger readers can be damaging to confidence in a bright but busy child. The 4yo reader and 8yo reader could read at the same (higher than grade) level by fifth grade.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Outdoorsy Type

[bluemongoose]

I expect you are expressing the sentiments of the vast majority of readers. This became obvious a while back when someone did a poll about the ages kids started reading. If you looked at the poll results, the curve mirrored the expected averages exactly, with most kids starting at 6-7 years old and outliers on either end. But, the posts in the thread were very heavily weighted toward the early readers. My conclusion... early readers and those whose kids are early readers like to talk about it. 

 

While we give lip service to the idea that early readers are not more intelligent, that mythology is still very powerful. Imagine a scenario where we convinced people that early readers tended to be more pedantic, unoriginal thinkers, and late readers were actually more intelligent, creative and accomplished in life. I expect we would see the opposite effect. In fact, neither is probably true, and the reality is that we can't tell much at all about intelligence from the age that someone begins reading. Nevertheless, we always see posts in these threads weighted towards early readers. It doesn't reflect reality at all.

 

 

We are talking about early reading because that is what the OP is about.

 

If the OP had been asking people's experience with late readers, everyone wouldn't be talking about their early reader experiences.

 

 

SKL is correct. We were asked specifically about our early readers.

 

Second...I think you see more people with early readers talking about them on here because in real life you cannot say anything. People shoved my DD out of a playgroup because they were offended by her being able to read at so young an age. (I didnt say anything about it to them...they could see she was reading). When you have a child doing something precocious, people do not like you for it. You are considered a threat without even opening your mouth. They can go on and on about new things their kids are learning, but you are not allowed to participate in this conversation. If you dd, it is bragging. On the boards there is some freedom in anonymity that allows someone with a kid who is ahead of the others to say HEY my kid did this and I am proud of them!

 

And you are correct, sometimes an early reader is not gifted, sometimes they are. Sometimes a late reader is also gifted. But this doesnt change the fact that you can go on and on about your own child IRL if your child is right on time for things or slow, but heaven help you if you try to be proud of a kid that is miles ahead of their peers. Shame on you for wanting to share your trials and joys as well! 

 

 

And to be clear and upfront...I'm dealing with 2 gifted and one 2e (gifted and high functioning aspie). If you do not deal with this, you do not know that it is stressful, exhausting, and intense. Their brains do circles around mine and little things spin them out of control. They bore easy in schoolwork and it is hard to keep up. Just because they are ahead of their peers doesnt make them easier to deal with. It comes with a variety of very different challenges. Then add in the aspie parts on top of that and you have to deal with 45 min of meltdowns that you have to work through and people yelling at you "because your kid offended me". You have to watch sadly as kids treat your kid meanly because he is different and awkward.  I am only allowed to reference the aspie parts, the challenging parts of teaching an aspie when talking with other moms.  Wouldnt it be nice if you could share in the happy things, the breakthroughs, but no! You can't because that would be bragging. 

Edited January 17, 2016 by bluemongoose

[SKL]

Most of us do not hesitate to share our observations with our challenged kids when an OP wants to discuss them.  It's an interesting topic to those of us who have lived it at either end of the spectrum.  Sure we're proud of our early readers, and we're proud of our hard workers too.  Besides, our experiences might help someone else.

 

It is what it is.  What good does it do society to prevent people from talking about what is?  Why do some people feel threatened or offended by something that comes naturally to a little child?

[ReadingMama1214]

Most of us do not hesitate to share our observations with our challenged kids when an OP wants to discuss them. It's an interesting topic to those of us who have lived it at either end of the spectrum. Sure we're proud of our early readers, and we're proud of our hard workers too. Besides, our experiences might help someone else.

 

It is what it is. What good does it do society to prevent people from talking about what is? Why do some people feel threatened or offended by something that comes naturally to a little child?

By posting the OP, I wasn't trying to imply early reading was better. I'm for child led learning to read. So whether that's 4 or 7, it's when's best for the child.

 

We also don't readily tell our friends or family that our 4 year old is starting to read. We've had friends who started judging their own kids because DD could write her name at 3. It wasn't something we showed them, but instead she had shown them her picture and it turned into a "wow that's amazing. I can't believe that. Johnny is no where near that no matter what I do. Etc..." So we don't publicize when dd can do something. I'd rather not make them feel inferior. In reality early reading is not connected with intelligence. But our society pushes it. If my boy doesn't learn to read until 7/8, he's no less intelligent than our daughter.

[908874]

I remember when I was 5 yrs old the principal had me do a reading test before I was allowed in first grade (Feb birthday). I remember reading a simple reader to her. It was sort of like a Dick and Jane reader but in Spanish.

 

Obviously, my first language is Spanish, so I was taught phonics (much simpler since the vowels have a single sound, most consonants only have one sound and so on). I wasn't reading novels lol, but I could read portions of the newspaper. I am unlikely to have understood what I read necessarily at that age.

 

English is a different story I think. I would imagine only very remarkable young kids could possibly read English at 4 using only a phonics approach. They may be over-represented on these boards as I can imagine the parents trying to figure out what to do and looking for help.

 

Many gifted kids can probably figure out phonics without too much explicit instruction if they are even moderately gifted in language.

 

I was musing the other day with my limited knowledge on this topic, that the push for sight reading may be fueled by the fact that most young kids have an easier time appearing fluent readers using this approach. Understanding of simple text may also increase with sight reading. And you know - that's one way schools/administrators measure how good a teacher you are. When you teach phonics the progress is slow. Then (from what I've read here) it clicks and kids go from slow readers who sound everything out to fluent. I would think that for the average kid, phonics would serve them better as they will be able to properly read words like pluripotency or steroidogenesis before they know what the words mean. And they will probably have an easier time with spelling.

 

^--- not an expert of course.

 

 

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[SKL]

I would think that for the average kid, phonics would serve them better as they will be able to properly read words like pluripotency or steroidogenesis before they know what the words mean.

 

Now here is what I've always wondered about.  If a kid gets to the stage of reading / thinking where they would have any need or desire to use a word like "pluripotency," that kid has probably read millions of words in the past, and that being the case, would s/he not have figured out phonics intuitively even if not taught?  I mean, there are only 26 letters (in English), roughly 40-50 phonemes (?); how many times would even a slow thinker need to see these in order to make the connections?

 

Or are you talking about kids reading these words long before they can have any meaning to them?  If so, what would be the point of that anyway?

 

I'm not opposed to phonics instruction, but I do feel it may be overkill for a young kid who is already a very fluent reader.

[matrips]

My boys were early fluent readers who taught themselves before 4. Dd taught herself at 4 once she found out her brothers were reading. I think there is something about extreme internal motivation. They loved reading and still do today at age 11. I'd say it was a combination of phonics and sight words, but mainly phonics and rules they picked up. They somehow figured out what rules seemed to apply and would apply them in each case for their pronunciation. Even though with the English language, that doesn't always work.

 

The only credit I can take for their reading is reading a ton with them (we had tons of those lift the flap books too), playing those leapfrog letter and word factory videos for them, and having the leapfrog magnetic letters on the fridge. I never did get to use the 100 EZ Lessons book that was sitting on the shelf, waiting until they got older and were ready to learn to read. 😮

I obviously was not very well clued in to my kids! I had no idea until we got a new dr Seuss book just after they turned 4, and I sat with them to read it, and one ds asked if he could read it instead. 72 pages later, he finished reading it aloud.

[908874]

Now here is what I've always wondered about. If a kid gets to the stage of reading / thinking where they would have any need or desire to use a word like "pluripotency," that kid has probably read millions of words in the past, and that being the case, would s/he not have figured out phonics intuitively even if not taught?

 

Probably. Like I said, I am no expert on this topic so what I am saying here can be total nonsense. If so, disregard.

 

It is likely that a young kid who is ready to understand chemistry is also able to read chemistry texts. I am not familiar with the very gifted child. I met one in college (12 year old studying physics).

 

There are adult students who have trouble both reading and spelling words like the ones I mention in a college setting. It makes me wonder if better phonics and spelling instruction in childhood could have been helpful.

 

 

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[SKL]

There are adult students who have trouble both reading and spelling words like the ones I mention in a college setting. It makes me wonder if better phonics and spelling instruction in childhood could have been helpful.

 

Maybe that would be better addressed via a study of word roots / Latin & Greek.

 

And, with or without phonics instruction, we English speakers may not know how to pronounce a totally new word, because it could be legitimately pronounced more than one way based only on phonics rules.  Then you have the added reality that literate people in different countries may pronounce the same word differently.

 

My kid who is an advanced reader will sometimes pronounce a word she has only seen in print, phonetically and incorrectly.

[MrsWeasley]

My oldest taught herself to read when she was four, and she's a sight reader. I have taught her phonics through spelling.

[Bluegoat]

No, because groth rates might be different too. So one child might gain curves as they grow early, and another might fall curves if they grow later, for example, but looking at the stats for thousands of kids, it averages out to the curves even though huge variations could be normal. My kids all dropped curves like crazy, as my dh and I are not tall, and at age 20 I was very slender. My kids were born around the 50%ile give or take, but genetically they could not possibly follow that curve forever. They dropped early, and far. My oldest dropped to about the 2%ile. He has gained some... is probably at about 35%ile or so... I stopped looking at charts years ago.

 

The charts are all statistical. Not even great statistics. And I believe the infant ones are based on formula fed bavies, so bf'd babies don't match up well for those reasons too.

 

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Yeah I think that is what I was getting at - the assumption that individual children, if they are healthy, will stay on the same curve, is wrong.

 

If that is true, I don't think they have any utility at all - they are more likely to cause problems or lead people to the wrong conclusion.

[shawthorne44]

I expect you are expressing the sentiments of the vast majority of readers. This became obvious a while back when someone did a poll about the ages kids started reading. If you looked at the poll results, the curve mirrored the expected averages exactly, with most kids starting at 6-7 years old and outliers on either end. But, the posts in the thread were very heavily weighted toward the early readers. My conclusion... early readers and those whose kids are early readers like to talk about it. 

 

While we give lip service to the idea that early readers are not more intelligent, that mythology is still very powerful. Imagine a scenario where we convinced people that early readers tended to be more pedantic, unoriginal thinkers, and late readers were actually more intelligent, creative and accomplished in life. I expect we would see the opposite effect. In fact, neither is probably true, and the reality is that we can't tell much at all about intelligence from the age that someone begins reading. Nevertheless, we always see posts in these threads weighted towards early readers. It doesn't reflect reality at all.

 

I expect that this group will naturally have a higher than normal percentage of early readers.  

 

1. A homeschooling family is more likely to accidentally give early reading instruction to kids ready to read early.  At least for the later kids.  Older child is being taught reading, and the younger child 'crashes' the lessons and learns also.  If the older child were learning in school, the younger child wouldn't learn until school either.  
2. I would imagine an early reader would be more likely to be homeschooled.   Like the story of our fearless leader.  Her mom was shocked at the middle elementary students that couldn't read, so taught the kids before school, and then the school didn't know what to do with the kids.
3.  This is an academic homeschooling group.  It makes sense to me that people that think academics are important would be more likely to notice and nurture early reading skills.  An example of the opposite is the little boy across the street.  He is a sweet boy and very bright.  He has less than 12" of books and we probably read as often to him as his family.  It hasn't even occurred to him that reading would be possible.  

[shawthorne44]

 

I expect that this group will naturally have a higher than normal percentage of early readers.  

 

1. A homeschooling family is more likely to accidentally give early reading instruction to kids ready to read early.  At least for the later kids.  Older child is being taught reading, and the younger child 'crashes' the lessons and learns also.  If the older child were learning in school, the younger child wouldn't learn until school either.  
2. I would imagine an early reader would be more likely to be homeschooled.   Like the story of our fearless leader.  Her mom was shocked at the middle elementary students that couldn't read, so taught the kids before school, and then the school didn't know what to do with the kids.
3.  This is an academic homeschooling group.  It makes sense to me that people that think academics are important would be more likely to notice and nurture early reading skills.  An example of the opposite is the little boy across the street.  He is a sweet boy and very bright.  He has less than 12" of books and we probably read as often to him as his family.  It hasn't even occurred to him that reading would be possible.  
4. I also think an early reader would be more open to homeschooling their own children because of the memories of the mind-numbing boredom of school.  

 

 

[hepatica]

 

 

1.  This is an academic homeschooling group.  It makes sense to me that people that think academics are important would be more likely to notice and nurture early reading skills.  An example of the opposite is the little boy across the street.  He is a sweet boy and very bright.  He has less than 12" of books and we probably read as often to him as his family.  It hasn't even occurred to him that reading would be possible.  

 

Yes, SKL is right, this was a thread about early readers. I was merely responding to a post that expressed frustration about the fact that it looked like everyone one had or had been early readers. Just wanted to remind everyone that the bell curve is still pretty accurate, even among homeschoolers. The over-representation of early readers in these threads is not limited to threads specifically asking about early readers. 

 

To be honest, I find the above quote a bit insulting. There are plenty of families with kids who read at ages 6 or 7 or later who do actually think academics are important, who do actually have other kids homeschooling, who do have books in the house and read to their kids. Seriously, there is still a ton of natural variance in when and how kids learn to read (meaning what their brains are doing when they are reading), and most of that variance has absolutely nothing to do with how seriously their parents take academics or whether they are reading enough books, or whether they noticed or nurtured reading skills. 

[shawthorne44]

Yes, SKL is right, this was a thread about early readers. I was merely responding to a post that expressed frustration about the fact that it looked like everyone one had or had been early readers. Just wanted to remind everyone that the bell curve is still pretty accurate, even among homeschoolers. The over-representation of early readers in these threads is not limited to threads specifically asking about early readers. 

 

To be honest, I find the above quote a bit insulting. There are plenty of families with kids who read at ages 6 or 7 or later who do actually think academics are important, who do actually have other kids homeschooling, who do have books in the house and read to their kids. Seriously, there is still a ton of natural variance in when and how kids learn to read (meaning what their brains are doing when they are reading), and most of that variance has absolutely nothing to do with how seriously their parents take academics or whether they are reading enough books, or whether they noticed or nurtured reading skills. 

 

Yeah, I see how what I said could be interpreted that way, but it wasn't how I meant it.  More the reverse.  It isn't that exposing the kids to lots of books guarantees an early reader.  It is that NOT exposing kids to lots of books guarantees that the kid won't be.  

 

Think of it like kids talking.  Having lots of live conversations with your baby/toddler will not make the child an early talker.  But, if you have a child that would be an early talker, but you never talk to the kid, then that kid won't talk until sometime after school-age.  Just because the brain isn't exposed to language before then.   With the neighbor boy, he might be a natural early reader.   But, no one will never know, because he rarely experiences a book.  

[The Governess]

Interesting. My Dd is one of the 1% who was reading fluently before four. But she learned via phonics instruction. She knew all her letter sounds and was blending three letter words when she was two just by playing around on Starfall. A friend had given me the old Hooked on Phonics set, and when she was three we worked through that together. She was reading the Little House books before she turned four.

 

She might have learned to read on her own without more explicit instruction... but I know now that she is a very parts-to-whole learner - extremely so - so I'm sure that direct phonics instruction was her preferred method of learning.

[Korrale]

My son was a precocious reader. Started at 2.5 was fluent by 4. He could pick up my college text books and read them. Not understand them necessarily.

He was taught whole work method with the assistance of ASL as he was non verbal. He learned to speak as he learned of read.

He intuited phonics first by chunks. If I remember correctly suffixes were the first thing he picked up on. It was easy to add an -ed or an -Ing to the end of a word. He would figure out unknown words by looking for the chunks of words he knew within the words. For example he could read scattered because he could read cat, er, ed and s.

By 3 he could read unknown words phonetically.

We have since done phonics programs with him, but via spelling. He is not a natural speller. So if there was a downfall to learn if to read whole word style this might be it. But it was always my intention to teach phonics through spelling.