I just read a depressing article in the
2009 -2010 Education and Enrichment Guide from
Bay Area Parent (BAP). For those of you not in the Bay area, BAP is a ubiquitous free parenting magazine. It's a major information source for day care and school listings.
The issue in question contains an article called
Learning to Read, Reading to Learn (page 24). It starts off by talking about 2-4 year olds who learn to read. They talked to a couple of teachers from Spring Hill School in Santa Cruz, CA, which supposedly understands and nurtures gifted kids. One teacher talked about "magic readers" who enter kindergarten with "this phenomenal capabilty of reading." At first I thought, "Great!"
Then I kept reading:
"But here's the thing: as remarkable as their precociousness is, it typically fades as the years pass and their peers catch up with them --- usually by grade 4. "
Then it gets very special:
"And what starts out as a distinct advantage is usually relegated to a personal milestone. The child who learns to walk at 9 months isn't going to grow up to be a better walker or hiker or runner in the field than the child who didn't walk until he was 13 months. Such is the case with the early reader. 'By the time they're in fourth grade, the other kids have caught up to them and often even superceded them.' says Trish Melehan, who for many years taught kindergarten and fourth grade at Spring Hill."
This is depressing on so many levels: it has an ignorant quote from an apparent expert <ahem> with "many years" experience at a school described as being for "the advanced and gifted." The quote is in a ubiquitous free magazine. And BAP doesn't have an online forum for commenting on its articles.
You can see the article at
http://www.flashedition.com/publication/?m=2676&l=1. You'll have to enter an email address, but a bogus one will work if you don't want to get on their mailing list!
FWIW, I'm about to send a mail (and a copy of A Nation Deceived) to the publisher of BAP. Her name is Gilda Fracchia and her email address is gilda.fracchia@parenthood.com. Maybe if a few people write to her, they'll publish another, more accurate article.
The email address of a person called "Local Editor" is jill.wolfson@parenthood.com and the article's author is sara.solovitch@parenthood.com.
Argh,
Val