Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research "Reading evens out" research?

Hello! My son has high verbal skills and is reading well above grade level. His preschool teacher has already given me the "the early readers even out by third grade" speech. He has an IEP for OT and PT and will have a reevaluation meeting before Kindergarten, I am prepared for them to throw the "readers even out" fact at me again in the discussion if not beforehand, but am wondering if there is any research they can call upon to say that? Where did that come from? And what percent of the time is it true? My searches have turned up nothing concrete.

Here's a position statement on early childhood from NAGC:

http://www.nagc.org/sites/default/f...y%20Childhood%20Position%20Statement.pdf

A paper cited in the above statement, on reading achievement in precocious readers from age 5 to 11:

http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31745/

And a case study by the same authors:

http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31744/

Cut sheet on educating early readers from UConn:

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/reports/Trifolds/A9403P.pdf

ERIC summary on research regarding precocious readers:

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ750775.pdf

I don't know what research teachers think they are quoting. But I think "some" kids will appear to even out and these are the ones they are talking about. Kids who are average or bright but didn't have preschool and the parents never talked about letters, read to them, or do or anything academic at home. These kids show up at kindergarten or first grade completely clueless but they are cognitively ready to learn the concepts, so they make big gains fast. They might jump from the low reading group to the middle reading group within weeks or months. Then there are the kids who will probably always be in the low reading group unless they get special help. They either have a disability, or they are simply "slow". I tutored reading and worked with about 18 kids in first to third grade. With most of them there was NO WAY I would have been able to teach them at age 4 or 5 to read. I would have rather banged my head against a wall. Most of these kids made gains with help, but tended to fall back down when the help was withdrawn. I had the most success with the very young kids who just hadn't been exposed to anything in the past. Those are the kids that had parents who did nothing, and just needed a little more 1 on 1 attention. Then they "evened out".

I think the term "evening out" is misleading, but I do think there is something to be considered from the teacher's point of view. The way it was explained by a teacher to me (in Kindergarten/1st grade) was that it's not always evident in an early elementary classroom (K-2), who the students are that will one day be the highest-ability readers or the lowest-ability readers etc. - simply because children reach the developmentally "ready to read" point at different points in time. It's a reality I saw among the children of friends that sometimes the kids who were reading going into Kindergarten really *weren't* the kids who were at the highest reading level or highest-achieving kids overall once they were in 3rd grade or higher. The reasons they were reading sooner were sometimes simply that they were developmentally ready at an earlier age than others, or other times the kids who weren't reading simply hadn't been exposed to reading "lessons" etc before entering school. None of the students "evened out" as individuals when they reached third grade, but it was easier to see where everyone "fit" in among their peers in 3rd grade because the kids who started reading late had caught up.

When your son has his re-evaluation meeting for his IEP, will he have cognitive and achievement testing? If not, can you request it? That should give you strong data supporting acceleration or differentiation etc if that's what you're seeking - probably more so than simply being able to show that he's already reading. Combine "already reading" with strong scores in reading ability and reading achievement on a test that teachers are familiar with, and that will give you the data you need to counter an argument that he might "even out".

Best wishes,

polarbear

This sounds reasonable and common sense. You're describing the point of view, that I assume most here hold, that differences in ability certainly exist, but measurements of ability at a young age are sometimes unreliable.

However when people say "they all even out by third grade" they are saying something completely different. They are saying that differences in ability do not exist.

The official levels in my son's first grade class certainly looked more even at the end of the year. When the group reached the desired level they were given no further instruction or testing. The extra time was used to give extra instruction to the lower groups and push them faster. Hey Presto! Evening out.

I should clarify that the research citations I listed above generally say that early readers do not "even out" by third grade.

I understand what you are saying 22B, and also understand that may be what some people mean when they refer to "evening out" by third grade, but in my experience I have never heard an educator say that all students even out in ability, but ran into brick walls repeatedly in early elementary with teachers not wanting to differentiate because they felt students would "even out" in terms of where their true relative abilities are once they'd reached that magical third grade point. So I was merely attempting to point out one point of view that is sometimes encountered in advocating for gifted children in early elementary. In the case of either belief, having current ability and achievement testing will useful when advocating.

polarbear

I think to some extent reading has a binary aspect - either a kid can pick up a given piece of everyday text and read it more or less fluently, or she can't. And absent LDs or other special circumstances, most kids fall on the "can" side of the divide by third grade. I've always assumed that must be the origin of the conventional wisdom. As an early reader very invested in my identity as such when I was a kid, I remember my mild chagrin at 7 or 8 when my best friend was reading aloud from the Little House books and I realized she could do it just as well as I could. Of course that doesn't mean that the evening out occurs across all domains, just that most kids have mastered the mechanics of reading such that a fluent reader no longer stands out. The early readers, of course, may have a much larger vocabulary and be learning lots of higher-level skills, but those things aren't instantaneously apparent in the way that a kindergartener reading The Hobbit or Harry Potter is.

This was also our experience. They try to get all the kids to the same level. Children who are ahead of the "desired level" are not given instruction in order to keep learning, but stay at the "desired" level. Eventually the other kids will "catch up" as they are still learning, and the children who are (or were) ahead, are not.