11 ms·

I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school unt

by n0us 11y ago

I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school until everyone else had the chance to learn who did not have their parents expose them to this. On the other hand I learned to read in kindergarten like most people but had trouble reading until late in 1st grade when it "clicked" rather quickly and from that point forwards I was reading a higher level than most of my classmates until things evened out over the period of several years. My point is that development happens at different paces for different people. I would like to know if there are any pediatric studies on how this teaching affects a child and if trying to make them learn too early could have negative effects. Most parents just think "the earlier the better" because they can then talk to other parents and say "did you know my kid is already reading." I don't think this is necessarily a productive approach and when children are not able to live up to their parent's expectations it can cause confidence issues. Edit: I also have read more of this now and the author makes the point that children did not need to "re-learn" to read but from what I remember my friends did in fact have to re-learn because they had learned to memorize words, or read incorrectly some way or another so it was in fact more difficult for them as they had already learned bad habits.

xvolter 11y ago
I'd be interested to learn about parents who continued focused eductions throughout childhood. While I can see that entering a public school and knowing to read won't give a lot of benefit since the child would be held back by the other students catching up, if the parent homeschooled or similar, the child may be able to continue accelerating. I'd also be interested to know if children who learn early develop better habits for learning, and therefore can learn new subjects more easily. Even an increased interest level in reading has benefit though, and I suspect a child who can read can find entertainment in books and that seems like it may help them as well.
ngoel36 11y ago
My parents taught me how to read and do some relatively complex math prior to kindergarten - today I feel that I owe nearly all of my academic & career success to that. Of course, your first point is valid - this was only useful because I was lucky enough to have amazing teachers who took the time to issue me a tailored curriculum at a significantly higher level than my peers. I had teachers and programs which allowed me to stay at a cutting edge until early high school when these initiatives existed naturally (and I had the resources to explore intellectually outside of school). More than that, it gave me a ton of confidence as I found things easier than my peers. That's not to say that all of this didn't come at a cost - my social growth was definitely stunted. Instead of playing sports I did homework, and instead of sleepovers with friends I worked on school projects. In the end, I wish I'd had a bit more balance, but I'm really glad I was lucky enough to have the opportunities I did early. I truly believe our ability to learn slows down every single day, and the early years are most formative.
- yareally 11y ago
  My experiences were similar in some ways. My parents taught me to read and basic math before and during my early school years. I had some teachers that tailored the curriculum for students like me (special projects, more advanced literature) and then others that kind of just left us to our own devices. In my case, I ended up doing all my schoolwork before lunch. The second half of the day I'd tinker around on the old Apple PCs my school had, read through the limited selection of interesting books in the school library or help some of my classmates with their schoolwork. Some teachers encouraged a few of us to tutor/mentor some of our peers, but I don't think it was encouraged enough. I can't directly relate that to where I am now, but I know overall it contributed to my ability to work/learn independently with minimal guidance. Might have also spurred my interest in problem solving and programming since I would be bored and become curious about how things worked around me. If there was a negative, it made me think much of school was really boring the first 8-9 years. When I had a teacher that was too busy to adjust their curriculum for more advanced students, I assumed this was how school would always be. I didn't want to have a negative opinion of the education system, but it was hard at the time to have a positive one. When I reached high school, I had to get out of the habit of thinking schoolwork (and homework) was some "busy work" chore I had to do in order to move onto the next grade. This was a bit harder in some courses than others--since I had to train myself to pay attention and actually take notes versus memorizing. Thankfully, I had some great high school teachers that helped me along the way. My high school education was overall a positive experience. Do I think I would have been better off being home schooled or in a private school with more attention? Hard to say. Perhaps better in some ways, but not in others. Always a trade off.
  - ngoel36 11y ago
    I think we had extremely similar childhoods! I too spent much of my free time tinkering with old Apple PCs - I started programming in QuickBASIC in the 5th grade because of it, and I owe my career today at a major tech startup to that. I also empathize with the transition in high school - I always found history class to be a relative struggle due to the change from repetitive memorization to actual understanding/notes.
c3534l 11y ago
A scroll through google scholar seems to show it has no positive benefits. For instance, the abstract at http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1360889 http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=13608... gave kids reading lessons "delivered at 4, 12, 18, and 42 months" and concluded that it "provided neither the anticipated benefits to literacy and language nor enhanced uptake of literacy activities at 4 years of age, even when targeted to relatively disadvantaged areas." Everything seems to show little to no effect, but as far as I can tell it's not inherently a bad thing to do. Kids just happen to learn to read at about the time they're intellectually ready for it.
- zappo2938 11y ago
  This makes me want to ask the question if teaching children complex activities very early is pointless because they have not developed the neurological wiring in their brains at the early stages of development to make learning math and reading at a complex level worth while. At what point to children start to understand abstract concepts? I always thought the greatest thing a parent can do with a child is to read to them, Dr. Seuss. That does not mean teaching children to read before they are ready positively effects them.
  - c3534l 11y ago
    I think sometimes parents my age (late 20s early 30s) try to force their kids to engage in a lot of activities the kids aren't ready for and aren't interested in because they want to show everyone how much better their kid is from everyone else's. Helicopter parents are one extreme. Kids should have some room to breath, explore, and play. You shouldn't force them into something they're not ready for and of course every kid is going to develop differently. There's a good middle ground, I'm sure. Just my 2 cents anyway.
  - lintiness 11y ago
    ha. dr. seuss is a tricky one because the "things" in his book are so totally made up. i often find myself reading him to my toddlers and wondering if any of it makes sense.
zappo2938 11y ago
There are two links to educational websites in the article. One of them is to Starfall (http://www.starfall.com/ http://www.starfall.com/) and I'm impressed with simple presentation of lessons. The author presented a lot of studies that show learning to read early has beneficial effects. It would be nice if he at least presented some anecdotal evidence how his son fared academically and intellectually. I have heard of a study that says people who read books are happier and another study shows they have longer attention spans. I couldn't find any studies supporting those assertions when I searched just now. Sounds plausible. Also, an early start can counteract a relative age effect [1] likely in this case where older children have an advantage entering kindergarten and first grade. It's possible to have a child a full 11 months older than her classmate in kindergarten. If they are 4 or 5 then that is a big difference in growth giving the advantage to the older child. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect
maaku 11y ago
> I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school until everyone else had the chance to learn who did not have their parents expose them to this. This tells me that their parents failed at step 2, perhaps thinking the school would take care of the rest.
scotty79 11y ago
> how this teaching affects a child and if trying to make them learn too early could have negative effects I know this question is always asked. But if you love your child and give it all attention it needs does any teaching have any negative effects on the child? Apart from knowing too much without the need, which affects many people even as adults.
- m0skit0 11y ago
  >> knowing too much without the need How is knowing "too much" ever? One never knows enough.
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    In general, you're correct. The problem is differentiating useful knowledge from trivia. Knowing pop culture references is useful from a social participation standpoint. Knowing the top 10 songs for each week of the past decade, not so useful except as a party trick. Or, less trivia more general knowledge, for most of us it doesn't pay to know the ins and outs of every world conflict. They're beyond our control (mostly), so knowledge past a certain point only really helps create a sense of despair and helplessness. There's no reason to remain glued to those news feeds after a time because they'll only keep you from living your life. However, when it comes to skills like reading, math, logic, athletics, creative, or production type things, you can only know too much if there's a set of skills you can't use or your breadth is so great you're mediocre or worse at most of them.
- leppr 11y ago
  That's just an intuitive hypothesis, but wouldn't the early focused teaching of a skill (especially a communication one) naturally introduce a kind of "thought determinism"? [1] It's something I think about often and the first critique that came to my mind when seeing this book, but the author's defense only seems to be about emotional well-being and performance. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#Linguist...
- kohanz 11y ago
nthcolumn 11y ago
People like to try crackpot theories and experiments on their children apparently. I'm sure they mean well. My kid is gorgeous too BTW! She learned to walk really early. Kind peoples said 'ooh look! so bright! so more advanced than Jonny or Bea!' I said that I didn't think that she is going to be any better at walking than Jonny and Bea ultimately.
- nightspirit 11y ago
  > Kind peoples said 'ooh look! so bright! so more advanced than Jonny or Bea!' I said that I didn't think that she is going to be any better at walking than Jonny and Bea ultimately. Now you reminded me how I hated when parents used me for such dick waving contests. My typical reaction was to stop whatever I was being praised for and quickly do something to piss off both them and whomever happened to be the target of their bragging. If you are a parent - just don't do that.
murbard2 11y ago
> I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school until everyone else had the chance to learn who did not have their parents expose them to this. It sounds like the issue was putting them through school, not teaching them to read early.
zeidrich 11y ago
One thing that I want to teach my child(ren) is how to function in school, and what the purpose of school is. I was always ahead of the class, and similarly I was bored and it actually hurt me in grades (but not what I learned). I learned later in life that the purpose of school isn't to learn. The purpose of school is to try to guarantee a standard of knowledge. The other lesson to learn in school is that it's your teacher who determines your qualification, and that they're a person who gets frustrated, tired, can be lazy, can be angry or petty, but can also be happy, proud, encouraged, inspired, etc. As an adult, I know how to behave in a classroom. I understand why showing off is not appreciated. I know why I have to go over things that I already know. Because I know these things, they don't bother me. There's always boredom, but you pay attention not because you need to, but because it helps the teacher, and making the teacher's life easier is better for the class and your evaluation. The goal of the game isn't to understand the material, the goal of the game is to be evaluated highly. Understanding the material is only half the game.

by n0us 11y ago

xvolter 11y ago

I'd be interested to learn about parents who continued focused eductions throughout childhood. While I can see that entering a public school and knowing to read won't give a lot of benefit since the child would be held back by the other students catching up, if the parent homeschooled or similar, the child may be able to continue accelerating. I'd also be interested to know if children who learn early develop better habits for learning, and therefore can learn new subjects more easily. Even an increased interest level in reading has benefit though, and I suspect a child who can read can find entertainment in books and that seems like it may help them as well.

ngoel36 11y ago

My parents taught me how to read and do some relatively complex math prior to kindergarten - today I feel that I owe nearly all of my academic & career success to that. Of course, your first point is valid - this was only useful because I was lucky enough to have amazing teachers who took the time to issue me a tailored curriculum at a significantly higher level than my peers. I had teachers and programs which allowed me to stay at a cutting edge until early high school when these initiatives existed naturally (and I had the resources to explore intellectually outside of school). More than that, it gave me a ton of confidence as I found things easier than my peers. That's not to say that all of this didn't come at a cost - my social growth was definitely stunted. Instead of playing sports I did homework, and instead of sleepovers with friends I worked on school projects. In the end, I wish I'd had a bit more balance, but I'm really glad I was lucky enough to have the opportunities I did early. I truly believe our ability to learn slows down every single day, and the early years are most formative.

yareally 11y ago
My experiences were similar in some ways. My parents taught me to read and basic math before and during my early school years. I had some teachers that tailored the curriculum for students like me (special projects, more advanced literature) and then others that kind of just left us to our own devices. In my case, I ended up doing all my schoolwork before lunch. The second half of the day I'd tinker around on the old Apple PCs my school had, read through the limited selection of interesting books in the school library or help some of my classmates with their schoolwork. Some teachers encouraged a few of us to tutor/mentor some of our peers, but I don't think it was encouraged enough. I can't directly relate that to where I am now, but I know overall it contributed to my ability to work/learn independently with minimal guidance. Might have also spurred my interest in problem solving and programming since I would be bored and become curious about how things worked around me. If there was a negative, it made me think much of school was really boring the first 8-9 years. When I had a teacher that was too busy to adjust their curriculum for more advanced students, I assumed this was how school would always be. I didn't want to have a negative opinion of the education system, but it was hard at the time to have a positive one. When I reached high school, I had to get out of the habit of thinking schoolwork (and homework) was some "busy work" chore I had to do in order to move onto the next grade. This was a bit harder in some courses than others--since I had to train myself to pay attention and actually take notes versus memorizing. Thankfully, I had some great high school teachers that helped me along the way. My high school education was overall a positive experience. Do I think I would have been better off being home schooled or in a private school with more attention? Hard to say. Perhaps better in some ways, but not in others. Always a trade off.
- ngoel36 11y ago
  I think we had extremely similar childhoods! I too spent much of my free time tinkering with old Apple PCs - I started programming in QuickBASIC in the 5th grade because of it, and I owe my career today at a major tech startup to that. I also empathize with the transition in high school - I always found history class to be a relative struggle due to the change from repetitive memorization to actual understanding/notes.

c3534l 11y ago

A scroll through google scholar seems to show it has no positive benefits. For instance, the abstract at http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1360889 http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=13608... gave kids reading lessons "delivered at 4, 12, 18, and 42 months" and concluded that it "provided neither the anticipated benefits to literacy and language nor enhanced uptake of literacy activities at 4 years of age, even when targeted to relatively disadvantaged areas." Everything seems to show little to no effect, but as far as I can tell it's not inherently a bad thing to do. Kids just happen to learn to read at about the time they're intellectually ready for it.

zappo2938 11y ago
This makes me want to ask the question if teaching children complex activities very early is pointless because they have not developed the neurological wiring in their brains at the early stages of development to make learning math and reading at a complex level worth while. At what point to children start to understand abstract concepts? I always thought the greatest thing a parent can do with a child is to read to them, Dr. Seuss. That does not mean teaching children to read before they are ready positively effects them.
- c3534l 11y ago
  I think sometimes parents my age (late 20s early 30s) try to force their kids to engage in a lot of activities the kids aren't ready for and aren't interested in because they want to show everyone how much better their kid is from everyone else's. Helicopter parents are one extreme. Kids should have some room to breath, explore, and play. You shouldn't force them into something they're not ready for and of course every kid is going to develop differently. There's a good middle ground, I'm sure. Just my 2 cents anyway.
- lintiness 11y ago
  ha. dr. seuss is a tricky one because the "things" in his book are so totally made up. i often find myself reading him to my toddlers and wondering if any of it makes sense.

zappo2938 11y ago

There are two links to educational websites in the article. One of them is to Starfall (http://www.starfall.com/ http://www.starfall.com/) and I'm impressed with simple presentation of lessons. The author presented a lot of studies that show learning to read early has beneficial effects. It would be nice if he at least presented some anecdotal evidence how his son fared academically and intellectually. I have heard of a study that says people who read books are happier and another study shows they have longer attention spans. I couldn't find any studies supporting those assertions when I searched just now. Sounds plausible. Also, an early start can counteract a relative age effect [1] likely in this case where older children have an advantage entering kindergarten and first grade. It's possible to have a child a full 11 months older than her classmate in kindergarten. If they are 4 or 5 then that is a big difference in growth giving the advantage to the older child. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect

maaku 11y ago

> I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school until everyone else had the chance to learn who did not have their parents expose them to this. This tells me that their parents failed at step 2, perhaps thinking the school would take care of the rest.

scotty79 11y ago

> how this teaching affects a child and if trying to make them learn too early could have negative effects I know this question is always asked. But if you love your child and give it all attention it needs does any teaching have any negative effects on the child? Apart from knowing too much without the need, which affects many people even as adults.

m0skit0 11y ago
>> knowing too much without the need How is knowing "too much" ever? One never knows enough.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  In general, you're correct. The problem is differentiating useful knowledge from trivia. Knowing pop culture references is useful from a social participation standpoint. Knowing the top 10 songs for each week of the past decade, not so useful except as a party trick. Or, less trivia more general knowledge, for most of us it doesn't pay to know the ins and outs of every world conflict. They're beyond our control (mostly), so knowledge past a certain point only really helps create a sense of despair and helplessness. There's no reason to remain glued to those news feeds after a time because they'll only keep you from living your life. However, when it comes to skills like reading, math, logic, athletics, creative, or production type things, you can only know too much if there's a set of skills you can't use or your breadth is so great you're mediocre or worse at most of them.
leppr 11y ago
That's just an intuitive hypothesis, but wouldn't the early focused teaching of a skill (especially a communication one) naturally introduce a kind of "thought determinism"? [1] It's something I think about often and the first critique that came to my mind when seeing this book, but the author's defense only seems to be about emotional well-being and performance. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity#Linguist...
kohanz 11y ago

nthcolumn 11y ago

People like to try crackpot theories and experiments on their children apparently. I'm sure they mean well. My kid is gorgeous too BTW! She learned to walk really early. Kind peoples said 'ooh look! so bright! so more advanced than Jonny or Bea!' I said that I didn't think that she is going to be any better at walking than Jonny and Bea ultimately.

nightspirit 11y ago
> Kind peoples said 'ooh look! so bright! so more advanced than Jonny or Bea!' I said that I didn't think that she is going to be any better at walking than Jonny and Bea ultimately. Now you reminded me how I hated when parents used me for such dick waving contests. My typical reaction was to stop whatever I was being praised for and quickly do something to piss off both them and whomever happened to be the target of their bragging. If you are a parent - just don't do that.

murbard2 11y ago

> I had friends who learned how to read when they were toddlers and it had literally no effect on them later in life other than that they were bored in school until everyone else had the chance to learn who did not have their parents expose them to this. It sounds like the issue was putting them through school, not teaching them to read early.

zeidrich 11y ago

One thing that I want to teach my child(ren) is how to function in school, and what the purpose of school is. I was always ahead of the class, and similarly I was bored and it actually hurt me in grades (but not what I learned). I learned later in life that the purpose of school isn't to learn. The purpose of school is to try to guarantee a standard of knowledge. The other lesson to learn in school is that it's your teacher who determines your qualification, and that they're a person who gets frustrated, tired, can be lazy, can be angry or petty, but can also be happy, proud, encouraged, inspired, etc. As an adult, I know how to behave in a classroom. I understand why showing off is not appreciated. I know why I have to go over things that I already know. Because I know these things, they don't bother me. There's always boredom, but you pay attention not because you need to, but because it helps the teacher, and making the teacher's life easier is better for the class and your evaluation. The goal of the game isn't to understand the material, the goal of the game is to be evaluated highly. Understanding the material is only half the game.