[Lalakh]

> I'm pretty sure that's closer to 4 or 5 for most kids who grow up in families from the Cornell / John Hopkins pedigree.

If you met two 10 year olds, one learnt to read at age 4 the other at age 8- do you think you could tell the difference? Would it really matter?

Actually more than likely it would- the one who learnt at age 8 is more likely to read for pleasure. An overly formal approach in the early years can be counter productive, and often damaging. Not to mention the fact that all the time spent at age 3-4 learning to read, is time missed doing the stuff they should be: learning social skills, problem solving, independence...

See some of the vast amount of research on this by reading the section on reading for pleasure pages 16-19 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/c...

[ejstronge]

Thanks for linking to an article that at least mentions research - it's easy to go off of general feelings in conversations like this.

I just want to point out, however, that pages 16-19 do not conclude that children who learn at 8 years old have a greater pleasure than children who learn at 4. The conclusion, which isn't a hard one to agree with, is that teachers should find ways to make reading more exciting.

[Lalakh]

Agreed- just think it is worth pointing out that there is no proven advantage in teaching children to read early,that there can actually be some concerns with teaching reading at an early age, and that there are also no disadvantages to learning to read later. These are worth a read to:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029435.000-too-much-...

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago006408.html