When is the Right Time to Learn How to Read?

The world today, as we know it, has become a literal hive of data. As an invention, over time, it has kept us safe, informed, and healthy, but the obsession with statistics has crept into every part of our lives. An important and controversial area of collection has become Education.

In the public school, as parents and teachers know, there is an endless cycle of data-gathering that occurs during the course of a year. Physiological, psychological, medical, and educational testing result in a slew of interpretive measures including:

Progress Monitoring
Test Percentiles (projected and actual)
Case Studies
Rating Scales
Academic/Behavioral Observations
And many others

Assessments such as these are meant to let us predict when a child ought to be crawling, walking, speaking, adding, subtracting, reading, writing, and maturing into a properly (or at least conventionally) socialized human being. The role of experts is to pinpoint ages and stages of development during which something ought to be happening and understand why, for any number of reasons, it is not. Darren should be walking but isn’t. Esther should be writing sentences but has yet to spell a word.

The situation is complicated further when schools’ teaching methods change or curricula get updated due to shifting political winds. Many strategies and courses also fail to accommodate individual learning differences, maturation levels, and, perhaps most significantly, reading and writing readiness.

A modern-day evaluation for a 1^st grader with reading delays might just look something like this:

Ava is able to identify most sight words on the Pre-Primer Dolch list, but at six years of age should be confident with the first-grade list. In addition, her reading fluency is lacking which may indicate inefficient decoding, poor automaticity, and potential indication of a specific learning disability.

Evaluations like these (more common in passing years due to the current emphasis on testing) are meant to pinpoint weaknesses and hopefully, via the use of early interventions, head them off. But the simple truth many ignore is that the child is neither interested in nor developmentally ready to read. That phrase: ‘developmentally ready’ strikes fear into the hearts of parents, but in the majority of cases there is a simple solution: Time.

Just as they learn to crawl, walk, or speak at different rates, kids read and write the same way. Every individual brings different strengths to the table (proclivities, interests, mental, physical and emotional timetables), yet with time, positive encouragement, consistent exposure to words and patience, these strengths coalesce to produce a functionally literate adult who is well able to navigate the world.

“But what does that matter?” parents may say, “When no school will wait until my son is ‘ready’ to read?”

This is a very good point, and the pressures families face in these situations are very real. But the good news is that there is a great deal you can do to ensure your child reaches the accepted benchmarks in good time without stress.

Below are a few tips to encourage reading in the home that will inevitably translate to school:

Most importantly, regardless of education or background, families must model the reading process. Using materials of any level including books, magazines, comics, or even newspapers, catalogs, and bills, they must demonstrate that reading is important and a means of conveying information. For those adults who find reading a challenge due to disabilities or lack of access early in life, storytelling can be a wonderful alternative and just as effective.
Read (or tell stories) daily to your children. Make a habit of spending this time together to both reinforce meaning and create a positive association between togetherness and words.
Speak to your children often. Hold conversations, listen, and express interest in their opinions.
Make reading and writing materials readily available in the home (the dollar store is an excellent resource for both).
Model the use of reading and writing whenever possible, whether it is an actual book, letter, email, text, or simply reading catalogs or writing down lists.

No school, program, or curriculum of any caliber can take the place of regular, consistent practices at home. If at some point a disability should become evident, it will still resolve more quickly if the basic constructs are in place, and more importantly than that, you will have created a lifelong learner.

Finally, what are the most common signs that a child is ready to read?

You will know their tools are evolving when:

They take an avid interest in books and the meaning of print.
They request stories, books, and print media. They seek them out at home or in the library, and enjoy having them read.
They notice the details of text without prompting, and ask general questions about words.
They inquire as to the meaning and pronunciation of letters and words

Once a child’s reading foundation has been set, there is no need to do anything other than sit back and serve as an everyday resource. With regular exposure to stories and print, every child is capable of achieving their literary potential eventually. The moral of the story (and this article) is: Never let the fear of assessments or ‘experts’ disrupt this process.