When I read the article I was bothered (at first). How many of us have heard a teacher tell us "they're not really reading," when we, as parents, know that out they are, really.
In defense of the author (and I'm only talking about my DS), there are strong "decoders." My DS7 has strong technical skills, but his stamina and comprehension lag about 1-2 years behind those skills (and still a few years ahead of first grade). The decoding (again, my opinion) is part of DS's giftedness. We don't worry about it- but for purely selfish reasons, I'm not handing him the Hobbit (I want him to love it!) until we can have a meaningfully discussion about the themes.
are making a good point, and we have discussed elsewhere on this forum how some of us have kids with this particular combination of strengths and weaknesses, where they read early but have lagging comprehension skills, simply because that's the way they are wired.
However the author does
not make this point at all, and I doubt that it has ever even occurred to her. Instead, her premise is that early readers are always hothoused, which causes them to crash and burn eventually.
