Myths of Early Reading 2

1.Babies should be playing, not learning to read!

Nothing is more fun for a baby than learning! So, provided you are teaching your baby in the right way, it would be safe to say that he does not know the difference between learning to read and playing.

At the same time, however, it should be noted that teaching your baby to read will not take up much time of each day. It will not cut into time your baby would otherwise spend engaged in free, unstructured play. No one is suggesting that reading lessons replace the time your child spends messing around, experimenting, and playing in a random, haphazard fashion.

How short is lesson time? To begin with, around 5 minutes or shorter is appropriate - but it all depends on how long your baby's attention is maintained. As you increase the time you spend on reading, take your cue from your child. If you have her attention after 5 minutes, then try extending the lesson by another minute or two. Keep increasing gradually, up to a maximum of 20 minutes. If you lose your child's attention, stop immediately. Be consistent: spending a few minutes every day is far better than trying to give an extended lesson once a week. As your child gets older, you may find that she asks for her lessons two or three times per day!

2.The only type of reading you should be doing with your baby is reading books to him

Some people think that if you are teaching your baby to read, you must be doing so instead of reading to him. In fact, tools such as flash cards, DVDs and computer-based learning systems are just that - tools - and are not meant to replace anything - especially not reading to your child. 

However, it is highly unlikely that your child will learn to read simply through having books read to him. And the fact is that he is capable of learning to read, if you give him the chance. We recommend that parents make use of all the tools at their disposal - books, DVDs, their computer, as well as toys and games involving letters and words.

Reading to your child on a regular basis is one of the most important things you will ever do as a parent. Reading to your child demonstrates the importance you place in books. Reading to your child helps her to follow the linear progression of a story, which in turn helps her learn to tell her own stories.

Reading to your child helps get her used to the rhythm and cadence of language. It introduces her to life lessons and topics that may not come up in everyday conversation. It is a wonderful bonding experience, too! So be sure you read to your child, daily or as close to daily as possible.

3.It's bad for your baby to be stuck in front of the TV or computer screen.

This is not exactly a myth. 

We agree that it is bad for a baby to be stuck in front of the television - and by "stuck" we mean left to watch TV without adult supervision. 

Using the TV as an "electronic babysitter" is fairly common, and while the tendency to do so is understandable, the practice should definitely be kept to a minimum. But this is not the only form that TV can take in a child's life. When parents carefully select programs to show their baby - and above all, when parents sit down with their baby to interact with him over the program shown - then babies can learn a great deal with the help of television. 

(For more on making TV use safe and beneficial for babies, see Babies and Television).

As for the computer, it's pretty clear that a baby can't use it by herself! Indeed, one advantage of computer-based learning over DVD-based learning is that it necessitates parent involvement. Some have argued that seeing and hearing things on a computer is inferior to seeing real objects and hearing a parent's voice.

Once again, the two are not mutually exclusive. The computer is a tool - it is not meant to replace showing your child real objects or reading words aloud. Indeed, during lessons we encourage parents to repeat each word that their child hears off the TV or computer. 

4.Kids who learn to read early start off at an advantage, but end up the same as their peers.

In fact, studies have shown that children who learn to read earlier (at age three or four) maintain their advantage over children who learn at an average age (five or six) or late age (seven or eight) for as long as eight years.

What's more, being able to read well from an early age has an impact on learning as a whole. Since reading is the gateway to acquiring knowledge, early readers have a head start when it comes to learning just about anything. 

This has a tendency to make them perform better in a range of academic subjects. 

For more on the scientific support for early reading, go to The Promise of Early Reading, part of the Why Teach Reading Early? article on BrillBaby.

5.A child who learns to read early will be too far ahead, which is bad for him emotionally

Sad but true: some parents would actually like their child to be less smart than he is capable of being. 

Why? 

Because they fear that their child will be different, will not fit in, and may feel left out. But what are we saying here? Do we really want to dumb down our children, just so they conform to the norm?

The problem here is not the child who learns to read before starting school. The problem is the norm, which dictates that children should not learn to read before first grade. In the words of the 20th-century American inventor and visionary Buckminster Fuller: "All children are born geniuses, but we spend the first six years of their life degeniusing them."

If you're concerned about how your "too bright" five-year-old will fit in at school, then relax. For a start, most children starting school can at least read some whole words, even if they do not know how to sound them out. Just because your child is a phonetic or phonemic reader will not make her a freak. Besides, in every other way besides reading, your child will be a typical five-year-old with typical five-year-old thoughts and feelings. She will still belong in a classroom of her peers. It's just that when it comes to reading, she may need more challenging books than most of the other children - and a different kind of support from the teacher.

We hope that a day will come, in the not too distant future, when the child who can read before he starts school is the norm rather than the exception. The fact is that the vast majority of children are capable of learning to read before age five - and they would benefit vastly from being given that opportunity.