Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Spooky.

I also found a review of the literature on early readers. It was published in 2006. So it's pretty recent.


AND, regarding the academic development of early readers over time (emphasis mine):


In other words, they didn't "improve" because the tests couldn't actually measure improvement.

Psychland, if you have a study that's more recent than 2006 that also meets criteria for objectivity, I'd be interested in a link to it. Vague statements about information on a website are far from enough. You should be able to at least find links to abstracts.

We're also talking about a fairly basic skill here.

I'm not sure what we are worried about measuring or improving once you are at or near the ceiling.

Because at that point, you have learned the skill.

In mathematics, once you have learned the basics of calculus....you have learned the basics of calculus.

With my sample size of 1, I can say that decoding and comprehension aren't necessarily mutually exclusive at the early stages of reading, particularly for children who rely on sight words.

When DS first began reading, he relied mostly on phonetic decomposition, clues from first letters of words, and context.

Now, as an "older" early reader, he blends phonetic decomposition and sight words. Because the average complexity of the words he reads is higher, more information has to be stored in his working memory at any time when decoding. However, with a larger bank of retained sight words, understanding of sight words is immediate. So there's a natural trade-off in the speed of a cycle of decoding to comprehension as he acquires a richer spoken and read vocabulary. I imagine this process, or one like it, is seen in kindergarten HP readers, with a discrete jump as the child first makes the transition from classroom easy readers. That's learning.

From what I see, my son will gladly accept a slower processing speed in the short term for the benefit of greater ease in reading later. He's intrinsically motivated by the challenge and seems thrilled when he reads more (for him) complex words like "stopped" or "hippocampus". Having the power to unlock new knowledge seems intoxicating to him.

The notion expressed by the author that you should have full comprehension of all nuances of a passage is preposterous. That is tantamount to saying that there should never be any learning from reading. Total hogwash.

Exactly. Mastery is mastery.

I am aware of research showing that children who are explicitly TAUGHT to read early, in the classroom, do not maintain an advantage over children who have reading introduced later on. But that's not the same thing at all.

I disagree.

Mastering the basics of calculus (whatever that means, TBH) doesn't mean you can do differential equations, and you won't get there if your professor tells you that you're too young for it and that you have to keep practicing the chain rule and the substitution method for another couple years.

This is precisely the situation that gifted kids are in at school, and precisely the situation that this so-called reading specialist is using and advocating: you can't read book x because I decided it's too hard for kids your age. And BTW, your test scores prove it: you're not getting better. Never mind that you had hit the test ceiling last time. So here's a basic reader for you.

I'm kind of surprised to see this reaction from two people here?

I was thinking more of "here's a library, now, go read whatever you want to read" once you have essentially mastered reading.

Ability to read at a basic level + dictionary = able to read just about anything that you feel like reading.

Mmm--I actually don't agree with this. Which doesn't mean I think kids shouldn't be allowed to read books that are a bit beyond them, or contain words they don't know!

Mastery of a skill implies you have knowledge that allows you to access more difficult material. There are only so many phonetic combinations that a child has to learn before virtually any word can be understood (possibly with a dictionary), so mastery occurs earlier in reading than other subjects, like calculus.

I understood Jon to be contrasting reading with calculus. Once you understand the basics of reading, you can apply them to infinitely more difficult contexts. With calculus, mastery of the basics doesn't necessarily imply you have the potential to immediately access more difficult material without more instruction. (Obviously, for some autodidacts, this will be untrue.)

Yes.


This mindset (that the same proximal zone exists for a group of children of the same age, or worse, that one exists for a similar group of children) is downright toxic for kids who mastery literacy very rapidly-- and many of us here are parents to children like this.

I can't even wrap my head around the idea of FORCING my child to read material that she found too difficult. Honestly, all I've done since she mastered decoding is steer her away from material that I thought was inappropriate in other ways...

"No, dear, Silence of the Lambs is probably not a good book to read for a 6th grade book report, honey..."



Like UM, I said little when my then-7yo opted to pick up Bleak House and Great Expectations. She didn't finish either one until she was more like 12yo.

On the other hand, what does this Reading Specialist's view of the world say about forcing barely-literate high school students through Othello and The Scarlet Letter, anyway??