Should I Teach My Child to Read? -- The History

Tonight we're returning to the first parent FAQ I am addressing in this blog -- Should I teach my child to read?

As I mentioned in my previous post, this question goes back a long time, and I think it's important to understand how our thinking about when and how kids should learn to read has changed over time.

The "Mental Age" Theory

You don't have to "measure up" to read!

For a long time, we believed that reading was primarily a cognitive task, a function of IQ, and that children had to achieve a certain level of cognitive maturity, aka, "mental age," before they could learn to read (Gates, 1937), usually age six and a half:

For some time the problem of determining the optimum or necessary mental-age level at which reading can be successfully introduced has been under investigation. Recently statements have been made, in books written primarily for professional workers, which imply that this problem is fairly well solved. For example, Harrison states, "It has been found that in order to make any progress in reading a child must have attained a mental age of at least six years and that a mental age of six and one-half years more nearly insures success."

So, in this understanding, there was no reason to try to teach kids to read before they entered school, which at the time didn't begin until first grade; they just weren't smart enough yet!  On the flip side, as long as you were smart enough, you should be able to learn to read when the time came. At this time, reading ability and intelligence were often confused with one another.

We know now that very smart people can struggle with reading, but some of these ideas still persist. For example, one way we use to diagnose reading disabilities in schools is called the IQ discrepancy model. Under this model, a child is designated as reading disabled if the child is reading at a level significantly below what is typical for his or her IQ level. The implication of this model is that it's ok if you can't read, if you are also not "smart" as measured by traditional IQ tests!

However, we know now that reading is primarily a language task, not a measure of intelligence (Velluntino, Scanlon, & Lyon, 2000). A high IQ is not necessary for learning to read, and you don't have to wait for your child to get "smart" enough to read either.

The "Readiness" Model

This guy is ready for anything.

Eventually, it became clear that not all kids started reading naturally right at age six and half. So, instead, we moved to the thinking about reading "readiness". Under this theory, children needed to get "ready" to read by having a certain number of skills in place before reading instruction could begin (Smith & Chapel, 1970):

The time in a child's life when he becomes capable of reading involves a manifold readiness Gestalt. He must have reached readiness in four different aspects of growth; physiological, psychological (emotional and intellectual), educational and sociological (cultural and environmental).

So, under this model, you could do various things to make sure your child was "ready" to read at school entry including teaching him or her how books work and how to hold a pencil or crayon (e.g., "educational readiness"), but other factors, like your child's vision and hearing (physiological  readiness) just developed naturally (or  not).

Through this time, it was considered to be a bad idea to try to teach kids to read before they were "ready" and readiness was largely out of parents' control. Early readers were considered to be possibly at risk for confusion or struggle when they did get to school, as they had not been taught the fundamentals when they were "ready" to absorb them and in accordance with the most up-to-date pedagogy. Reading instruction did not begin until first grade, even after kindergarten became common.

Who Are Early Readers?  The Durkin Study (1966)

Even in this context, however, there were always kids like Scout Finch who learned to read before they were formally taught in school. In 1966, Dolores Durkin (1966) decided to actually study these kids! She studied almost 10,000 first graders in New York City and Oakland, California and identified that 1-3.5% of entering first graders were already reading before they had received any school instruction. She gave these children IQ tests, interviewed their families, and followed them longitudinally into the later grades. She found that:

• There were no IQ differences between early readers and later readers
• There were no bad longterm effects from learning to read early
• The main difference between early readers and later readers is that early readers had encouragement and help learning to read at home!

Her conclusion was that "Kindergarten programs should assist and encourage those children who wish to learn to read." —

Over time, it's become clear that another conclusion was equally important: parents and families can play a big role in helping children learn to read and there is no reason to avoid teaching your child to read if you and your child enjoy sharing books and literacy activities together. In future posts, we'll talk more about what research says about how reading develops and what this process looks like at my house.

It's not too early!

References:

Durkin, D. (1961). Children who read before grade one. The Reading Teacher, 14(3), 163-166.

Gates, A. I. (1937). The necessary mental age for beginning reading. The Elementary School Journal, 37(7), 497-508.

Smith, D. E., & Chapel, J. R. (1970). Reading Readiness. Reading Horizons,10(2), 3.

Vellutino, F. R., Scanlon, D. M., & Lyon, G. R. (2000). Differentiating Between Difficult-to-Remediate and Readily Remediated Poor Readers More Evidence Against the IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Definition of Reading Disability.Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33(3), 223-238.