Learning to Read

In many parts of the USA school starts about now, so I thought this would be a good time to blog about learning to read.

I understand kids' brains must reach a certain level of development before they're ready to learn that skill. For most kids it happens between the ages of four and six, though I've heard some rare geniuses learned to read when they were two years old and I've seen kids in Special Ed classes finally develop that ability when they were teenagers.

Unfortunately some parents and preschools try to force children to learn reading skills when some of the kids may not be ready, and that often convinces the kids that reading is impossible, so they give up and don't try to learn it when they are ready to do so.

I've mentioned before that years ago I read about a study of the highest functioning students at the best universities in the country. The researchers intended to find out what method of teaching reading had been used when the subjects were little kids since it would probably prove to be the best method. To their surprise, the results of the study showed the only thing the students all had in common was that when they were little kids their parents had read to them often, usually at least every day.

If you have kids or know kids one of the best things you can do for them is read to them a lot. And snuggling together while looking at a picture book and sharing the story is a pleasure to both the kids and grown-ups.