psychland, I read widely in educational research for work. Though this is certainly not my specialty, I have never seen any research that supports this theory:
Here is what I think is happening: children who begin to decode at a very young age are positively reinforced with more and more reading material that becomes much too advanced for the very young child. That is, though some children are whizzes at breaking down two, three, and even four syllable words, they most likely do not have the vocabulary or the maturity necessary for understanding these texts. And, yet, because they read them fluently, parents (and unfortunately some teachers) continue to push them to read longer, more sophisticated books. Gradually, these decoding geniuses develop a devastating habit—they get used to getting the gist of what they read and that is what reading becomes for them.
Can you point me to it? Everything I have read about precocious readers supports the general idea that precocious readers continue to be strong readers. This doesn't mean children who are NOT precocious readers won't catch up, of course.
Yes, I have seen research that points to the conclusion that children must enjoy reading if they are to learn to love it, but I think we know that. That's not at all the same claim that reading books for fun that contain words a child does not know will harm him or her. It's also not the same as saying that forcing a child to read books way above his level in school is harmful. (I agree. But we are not talking about that! We are talking about withholding books from eager readers who are motivated to read them because the adult "knows better.")
Yes, I have known children who carried around Harry Potter without having read it or said they had read Harry Potter when they hadn't, but I don't know any who actually sat there for hours on end forcing their way through it when it was way beyond them for the sake of accolade. Children are easily bored little beings. My own daughter started reading Little Women in second grade, possibly because she thought it seemed impressive. I didn't say anything. She got about 40 pages in and gave up. It was not at her level at that time. I didn't need to snatch it away from her, because she was not going to sit there and push through it.
I can't think of a better way to depress and bore my two young precocious readers than to have limited them to books that contained only one word total that they did not know.
