4 ms·

> What? It's just the opposite. What about the books that a parent typically reads kids that age at bedtime? Those are generally above the reading level, but at

by mlyle 6y ago

> What? It's just the opposite. What about the books that a parent typically reads kids that age at bedtime? Those are generally above the reading level, but at the developmental level. All those "adult-directed" books, heavy on pictures, etc-- are not optimal for a skilled early reader. Yes, they can read them, but they read them fast. There's also what e.g. Lexile calls "NC" https://lexile.com/parents-students/find-books-at-the-right-level/about-lexile-text-codes/#NC https://lexile.com/parents-students/find-books-at-the-right-... -- nonconforming. These are great. Simpler, developmentally-appropriate situations, higher level writing. But there's not many... E.g. you can't even find the book they name as an example anymore. When you have a kid who is ready to read chapter books with long words, but all of them talk about social situations he doesn't really have the experience to understand, you have a problem. My boys would read books and know everything that happened in them... but really not be able to understand why someone would do something described or how they'd be feeling in a given situation. > Learning to read early is in no way a curse, or a "party trick." It's not a curse, but it's not well-correlated with better outcomes. > For my kids, and many others, it has instilled a love of reading. My kids eventually got back to a love of reading, but the hole in reading material around 2nd grade and having to read below-level books was a speedbump in it. And it's still hard. My 4th grader should be reading young adult books, but he still thinks kissing is gross... > like it's something the parents do to show off. Oh, trust me, that applies too, to plenty of families. > Ah, so you're just biased against kids who read early. ??? I say that my kids read very early above. My kids could have read Charlotte's Web at age 5, and given you the play by play, and known an appropriate amount of the vocabulary... but they would not understand any of the subtexts or real messages until much later.

em-bee 6y ago
is it necessary to understand the subtext or messages when reading a book the first time? isn't it enough for the kids to enjoy the story at the level they can understand it? sure, teenage romance novels are inappropriate for a 10 year old, but there are plenty of adult adventure stories that do make sense to a 10 year old even if they don't understand every detail in it. white fang, horatio hornblower, adventures of people traveling the world on bikes, horseback or other ways were among my favorites where i can't remember anything inappropriate for any age. i think huckleberry finn too, but i didn't read that one myself. in fact i don't even remember reading anything that was targeted at a particular age. but even among childrens books i think there is plenty of choices with a wide age range. roald dahl, erich kästner and many other well known childrensbook authors have written stories that are enjoyable at a wide age range. i find it hard to imagine that there wasn't anything enjoyable for your 2nd grader.
KMag 6y ago
> My 4th grader should be reading young adult books, but he still thinks kissing is gross.. Do most kids actually feel it's gross, or do adults and other kids just condition them to say they feel it's gross? I remember in kindergarten a girl named Meghan playing some kind of trick where she trapped my hand and then kissed me as if it were some kind of punishment. I remember feeling a bit awkward, but also good about it. Meghan was the one girl I invited to my birthday party later that year. I remember starting to tell my mom the story about being kissed that day after school, being a bit worried she might make fun of me. I'm sure she was just trying to help me process my feelings, but I felt like the way she asked me how I felt was very leading. I got worried my mom would make fun of me and so I lied and said I found it gross. Now, I think misread my mom, and maybe I'm projecting, but I think a lot of kids like kissing much earlier than they'll admit. The next year, we went to different schools. That year we prepared for at least a couple weeks for the first teacher going into space. We all went into the school library to watch the Space Shuttle launch. It exploded. Teachers were visibly shocked. I announced that it exploded, and a teacher told me "No, Karl, we don't know what happened. Let's go back to our classrooms now." and I responded "Those are the rocket boosters. The rest of it is gone. It exploded." With 20/20 hindsight, I would have prepared something better than a transparent lie, but it's hard to blame them for lying. At that age, I didn't have a sense that adults lied, but I realized sometimes they hid information from kids. I had heard rumors that "Santa is just your parents" from older kids. That was around the time I brought up the reality of Santa with my parents, and their response was "well, what do you think?". So, I didn't feel lied to or angry about the shuttle explosion, but I remember feeling confused as to why something was being hidden. Another year or two later, my grandmother became very ill. I remember coming down to the basement quite a bit after my bedtime and finding my dad at the Apple IIe. When he asked me why I wasn't sleeping, I told him I was worried, and asked him how we knew heaven existed. Thank Goodness Dad gave me an honest age-appropriate answer, explaining that he hoped there was a heaven but didn't have any evidence, and trying to explain that worrying about it wasn't fruitful. Anything less honest could really have screwed up my trust in any authority figures for a long long time. In general, I think kids understand way more than they let on. Addendum: Meghan and I were back in the same school starting in 9th grade, and we were in the same 9th grade science class. She told me "My mom said we were in the same preschool." I'm not sure if she was trying to see if I remembered my crush. I wasn't interested in her in high school, but I did remember that the Gobots paint-by-numbers painting she gave me as a birthday present in kindergarten was still hidden away between my bookshelf and the wall. No socially awkward 14 year old is going to admit to a mad kindergarten crush on a girl who doesn't remember who they are, so my response was just something like "Oh, okay."
SamBam 6y ago
> It's not a curse, but it's not well-correlated with better outcomes. You seem to have been implying in all your posts that it's not just "not well-correlated," but that it's explicitly correlated with worse outcomes. Use of such scientific terminology implies that there is evidence of this. Is there?
- mlyle 6y ago
  No, I'm not saying it's correlated with worse outcomes. I'm saying there's barely any signal of being an early reader years later in academic performance (and some of what little remains may be explained by those with disabilities being less represented in early readers), and there's plenty of small practical downsides. Therefore, it's something that's OK if it happens, but quite alright if you go down another path. And there's especially little evidence of receiving explicit reading instruction in school earlier results in better academic outcomes. But lots and lots of parents now try and seek out more "academic" kindergartens and pressure their kindergarten to spend more time on literacy skills. You can even find studies that show minor disadvantages in later performance from earlier reading instruction (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200612000397 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08852... ) but I don't really believe these.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    > No, I'm not saying it's correlated with worse outcomes. You said it leads to "You end up with a kid who is really bored in school and not using the time to build good study and homework habits." That's what I've been pushing back against. Perhaps in your personal anecdote it did, but I don't think it's fair to say that parents should discourage their kids from reading early because they'll get bored in school and do worse. I don't think there's any evidence that your personal "downsides" are necessarily the norm in any way, or that they are worse than the "downsides" of a kid who takes their time learning to read (which can also exist). I agree that there's no evidence that there's an advantage, but you've certainly been saying that there are disadvantages, and I don't agree that those are much beyond anecdotes.
    - 6y ago

by mlyle 6y ago

em-bee 6y ago

is it necessary to understand the subtext or messages when reading a book the first time? isn't it enough for the kids to enjoy the story at the level they can understand it? sure, teenage romance novels are inappropriate for a 10 year old, but there are plenty of adult adventure stories that do make sense to a 10 year old even if they don't understand every detail in it. white fang, horatio hornblower, adventures of people traveling the world on bikes, horseback or other ways were among my favorites where i can't remember anything inappropriate for any age. i think huckleberry finn too, but i didn't read that one myself. in fact i don't even remember reading anything that was targeted at a particular age. but even among childrens books i think there is plenty of choices with a wide age range. roald dahl, erich kästner and many other well known childrensbook authors have written stories that are enjoyable at a wide age range. i find it hard to imagine that there wasn't anything enjoyable for your 2nd grader.

KMag 6y ago

> My 4th grader should be reading young adult books, but he still thinks kissing is gross.. Do most kids actually feel it's gross, or do adults and other kids just condition them to say they feel it's gross? I remember in kindergarten a girl named Meghan playing some kind of trick where she trapped my hand and then kissed me as if it were some kind of punishment. I remember feeling a bit awkward, but also good about it. Meghan was the one girl I invited to my birthday party later that year. I remember starting to tell my mom the story about being kissed that day after school, being a bit worried she might make fun of me. I'm sure she was just trying to help me process my feelings, but I felt like the way she asked me how I felt was very leading. I got worried my mom would make fun of me and so I lied and said I found it gross. Now, I think misread my mom, and maybe I'm projecting, but I think a lot of kids like kissing much earlier than they'll admit. The next year, we went to different schools. That year we prepared for at least a couple weeks for the first teacher going into space. We all went into the school library to watch the Space Shuttle launch. It exploded. Teachers were visibly shocked. I announced that it exploded, and a teacher told me "No, Karl, we don't know what happened. Let's go back to our classrooms now." and I responded "Those are the rocket boosters. The rest of it is gone. It exploded." With 20/20 hindsight, I would have prepared something better than a transparent lie, but it's hard to blame them for lying. At that age, I didn't have a sense that adults lied, but I realized sometimes they hid information from kids. I had heard rumors that "Santa is just your parents" from older kids. That was around the time I brought up the reality of Santa with my parents, and their response was "well, what do you think?". So, I didn't feel lied to or angry about the shuttle explosion, but I remember feeling confused as to why something was being hidden. Another year or two later, my grandmother became very ill. I remember coming down to the basement quite a bit after my bedtime and finding my dad at the Apple IIe. When he asked me why I wasn't sleeping, I told him I was worried, and asked him how we knew heaven existed. Thank Goodness Dad gave me an honest age-appropriate answer, explaining that he hoped there was a heaven but didn't have any evidence, and trying to explain that worrying about it wasn't fruitful. Anything less honest could really have screwed up my trust in any authority figures for a long long time. In general, I think kids understand way more than they let on. Addendum: Meghan and I were back in the same school starting in 9th grade, and we were in the same 9th grade science class. She told me "My mom said we were in the same preschool." I'm not sure if she was trying to see if I remembered my crush. I wasn't interested in her in high school, but I did remember that the Gobots paint-by-numbers painting she gave me as a birthday present in kindergarten was still hidden away between my bookshelf and the wall. No socially awkward 14 year old is going to admit to a mad kindergarten crush on a girl who doesn't remember who they are, so my response was just something like "Oh, okay."

SamBam 6y ago

> It's not a curse, but it's not well-correlated with better outcomes. You seem to have been implying in all your posts that it's not just "not well-correlated," but that it's explicitly correlated with worse outcomes. Use of such scientific terminology implies that there is evidence of this. Is there?

mlyle 6y ago
No, I'm not saying it's correlated with worse outcomes. I'm saying there's barely any signal of being an early reader years later in academic performance (and some of what little remains may be explained by those with disabilities being less represented in early readers), and there's plenty of small practical downsides. Therefore, it's something that's OK if it happens, but quite alright if you go down another path. And there's especially little evidence of receiving explicit reading instruction in school earlier results in better academic outcomes. But lots and lots of parents now try and seek out more "academic" kindergartens and pressure their kindergarten to spend more time on literacy skills. You can even find studies that show minor disadvantages in later performance from earlier reading instruction (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200612000397 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08852... ) but I don't really believe these.
- SamBam 6y ago
  > No, I'm not saying it's correlated with worse outcomes. You said it leads to "You end up with a kid who is really bored in school and not using the time to build good study and homework habits." That's what I've been pushing back against. Perhaps in your personal anecdote it did, but I don't think it's fair to say that parents should discourage their kids from reading early because they'll get bored in school and do worse. I don't think there's any evidence that your personal "downsides" are necessarily the norm in any way, or that they are worse than the "downsides" of a kid who takes their time learning to read (which can also exist). I agree that there's no evidence that there's an advantage, but you've certainly been saying that there are disadvantages, and I don't agree that those are much beyond anecdotes.
  - 6y ago