Literacy news

Is 'the earlier the better' the right path forward for teaching reading?

20 Jul 2010

Nursery World (8 July 2010) features an interesting opinion piece by Dr Sebastian Suggate. The piece centres on the debate around when to start teaching children to read. Dr Suggate, Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Würzberg, thinks that the application of the philosophy of “the earlier the better” to teaching young children to read needs to be challenged.

He says that with the worrying number of people who lack adequate literacy skills there is little wonder that the Government and society are interested in how to raise literacy rates. But Suggate argues that the Government-prescribed requirements to start focusing on literacy development from the ages of four or five needs to be examined.

This emphasis on the earlier the better has not come from nowhere; there are arguments supporting the inclusion of reading on the curriculum from an early age. One of the arguments is that children who enter primary school with lower reading skills perform more poorly in reading during primary school. Suggate argues that this basis for focusing on early reading “confuses two issues: children who enter school with lower literacy skills usually have poorer language development as well, or come from more disadvantaged homes.” Another argument for early reading is that those children who have early reading interventions, like phonics, do better in school. Suggate points out that, according to his research, for “children in the first two years of school these can improve reading in the short term. But after 15 months or so, the effect has reduced by about a third. What’s more, these studies seldom look at long-term reading progress.”

Suggate goes on to highlight three studies which look at the long-term reading performance of children, all three of which show that early reading curricula have no discernable long-term positive impact. Research comparing Rudolph Steiner schools, whose pupils do not begin formal reading training until seven, and children who had intensive reading training from five showed that capable readers from Rudolph Steiner schools caught up to their peers by age nine and less capable readers caught up to their peers by age 11. Suggate says, “To express it differently, with a later beginning it took about three years for the average reader to reach the level that the earlier beginners took five years to reach.”

Suggate gives six reasons why “the earlier the better” does not apply to reading:

1. Reading is not like language, in that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that a dramatic “sensitive period” exists. There is not a window in which reading needs to be learned or else be forever shut.
2. There is also a large body of research suggesting that early and later language is the backbone of reading comprehension. Language is a complicated skill that undergoes development well into adulthood.
3. In contrast to language skills, reading skills such as learning the alphabet, the sounds that go with letters, and how to read sentences, can develop quite quickly. Under the right conditions, it is probably a question of months or years, not decades.  
4. Many people forget just how much children learn through activities that have nothing to do with reading, such as play, having imaginary friends, and talking with their parents and siblings. These experiences relate to language development and thus may indirectly improve a child’s reading later on.
5. If we look at which is really important in reading, we have to say that children need good skills at deciphering text PLUS good language, and good cognitive and learning skills (such as ability to reason, good memory, motivation and holding attention). Not only do language and cognitive skills take much longer to develop than reading, they develop well regardless of whether a child can read or not.
6. Reading skills themselves are easier to learn for older children. We know this because children who are older at school entry often do better in school. Probably, older children’s greater language and cognitive development gives them a slight edge that they maintain.

At the close of the article Suggate says, “Ableness is not readiness. Just because some children can learn to read, it does not mean that they will gain special benefits from doing so…Instead of teaching reading to disadvantaged pre-school children to improve their reading in the long term, it may be better to focus on activities that foster language development, or even play or experientially learning about the world around them.”

What do you think about Suggate’s opinions on early reading? Please email us your views.

Tags: Early Reading Connects, Early Years, Early years sector, Talk To Your Baby

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