Another thought - the persistent absolute belief that neuroscience understands the mind is disturbing. We can learn a lot from scans, but making categorical statements about human behavior based on myelination is several bridges too far.
I think it's partly about what's feasible in the home vs the classroom in the current American system. I've taught 3-6yos in Asia for many years now (to be reading Hop-on-Pop-level texts independently by 6) and there are many kids who just need strong phonics and appropriate material to set off on their own around 4-5. But there are others who aren't capable even at 6 of reliably reading CVC words. A lot of education systems (and teachers) have decided that the class should move at the pace of the slowest student, or the slowest third. Others simply don't have the resources to teach multiple levels in the same room. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to have decided that rather than trying to solve these probably solvable problems we should just give up.
Teachers also tend to be fixated on writing, probably because it's much easier to assess, and there is a developmental lag between what a child can read and what they're physically capable of writing. Many teachers are uncomfortable with teaching a child to read words they can't be made to write. In general receptive skills are undervalued relative to productive skills in early education and lower elementary, and that has all sorts of unfortunate downstream effects
You're spot on about the writing aspect of it too. Teaching good handwriting is incredibly hard. This is because you need to (a) basically know how to read already, or to some degree, to really get the point anyways, and (b) fine motor control is not your friend at that age. It can be really frustrating for kids, and is more boring too! After all, when reading, you get to be exposed to at least some sort of Bob-book level story. Writing has very little immediate payoff like that.
Reading about your experience with teaching your toddler to read has been fascinating and inspiring to me as a bookworm who plans to have children. I've tried to talk to a few people about this and have received mostly negative reactions which was surprising. It seems like this idea of early reading really hits people in some emotional way that I don’t understand.
Is it that so few people read for pleasure now that they can only see this as a way to pressure children? Is that people feel shame for not doing this with their own children even if they had never heard of teaching early reading or had valid reasons not to do it? Is that so many people identify with the “formerly gifted” label that they are against any attempt at encouraging academic skills in children? I genuinely cannot tell.
It's a really good question, and a real phenomenon. I've experienced it too.
I think, just in general, anything weird or unusual or different will always get this sort of pushback. I think a lot of your suspected reasons are probably correct, but it's more than that: it's a social deviation. And people don't like deviations. It makes them wary. No one will admit that, but it's true.
It's one reason I wrote this article: to address at least one concern, which is that early reading is about some sort of grade grubbing, or academic rat race. But actually, it's about how you'd prefer a child spends time. It has very visceral, very felt effects, in terms of day-to-day functionality.
More than sixty years ago, Glenn Doman, with whom I spent six years learning about neurological development for interpreting work, wrote a book titled "How to Teach Your Baby to Read". In Italian the title was translated to "Leggere a 3 Anni," which literally means to read at 3. I wrote about the experience in a comment to another post that has more context, including the developmental profile they used to show the interconnection of competencies, for anyone interested.
Doman, who lived to the venerable age of 97 (or 98), also believed in teaching babies anything. See "How to Teach Your Baby Math," and "How to Give Your Baby an Encyclopedic Knowledge."
I was with my niece and her two year old daughter this past June. She's well-read in the Montessori philosophy and her five year old grew up learning by doing, which includes reading. Now, his younger sister loves books. In fact, while I was holding her off the ledge where she'd climbed on the kitchen counter, I saw her read with full comprehension all the words in a card kit her mother prepared for her brother when he was a baby. The reason why second children tend to (in my experience) be precocious is often the mere exposure to knowledge. Given the choice, children would rather learn than do anything else.
Perhaps screens are pacifiers as were televisions for earlier generations. But I firmly believe that learning to read is as important as learning to walk for humans. We don't hold them back because they're too young, do we?
I enjoyed your article. I do think it's a shame kids don't read more.
My kids didn't learn to read "properly" until they were about 5. I live in Ireland, and this is typical. I was the same. However, both of my kids have *read* since they were babies, as in they have had books in their hands as soon as they could hold them.
There are books appropriate for all ages, picture books, comics are great too. For instance my son loved The Investigators series long before he knew what the words meant because he could look at the pictures and understand the story more or less.
I think too, parents need to read or at least encourage it. Our kids mirror us. If we are on screens we can't expect our kids to want to pick up books suddenly.
I'm not a parenting expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think there is such a wealth of books out there, keeping them around, easily accessible and interesting is half the battle.
In my opinion, and knowing my children, I don't think they were developmentally ready to read words or write before the time they learned- give or take a few months perhaps- and because we always considered reading to be more than just words, it's meant that now at 7 and 9 they read every single day for hours.
Instilling the love for reading is the hard part. To be clear we also allow screens, not a tablet, but TV and video games. I think it's a healthy balance for them (most of the time!)
Reading is an entirely different experience for the minds, it's more active than passively watching a cartoon, but I believe there is space for both.
"the English language presents them with a far more difficult learning problem." That's very interesting because one often-cited reason why the English language has become the world's lingua franca is that it's supposed to be much easier than Latin or other Germanic languages. Which is true especially related to gender, plurals and tenses. But that’s apparently only true after you already mastered the gap between spelling and pronunciation which is extremely inconsistent in English where a single vowel can be pronounced 8 different ways, and the tonic stress is very varied.
It would be interesting to see the reading progression at later stages of development between French, German and English speakers.
Stanislas Dehaene wrote about this, although I’m not sure he has been translated to English. Of all the alphabetic languages, English is the hardest to learn how to read, followed by French (French is the hardest to write, however). His studies showed that the average German native speaker needed about 9 months to go from first academic encounter with the alphabet to being able to decode anything; the average French child needs 18 months to do the same and the average English speaker needs 24 months.
Thoughtful piece. I have kids ages two and three and basically not being aware of modern research, I’ve just gone ahead and taught them letters and phonics at whatever the rate they’ll take them.
One thing I’ll disagree with is that preschools aren’t engaging with reading and that play gets in the way. My daughter has a half day of preschool twice a week and came home writing her name. She gets exposure to some of PA’s state pre K program and I’m seeing plenty of evidence of phonics. So apparently they haven’t read the research either haha!
After reading Larry Sanger’s reflections on early literacy, I started doing phonics with my two-year-old. He’s now four and reads independently. I only bring it up because it’s been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding parts of parenting—watching him connect meaning through words, signs, and books has been a real joy.
I’m wary of the “delayed reading” camp, not just because of the research but because it doesn’t square with experience or intuition. If you want to build proficiency in anything—whether it’s music, sports, or reading—waiting longer rarely helps. Yes, phonics with a toddler is hard. But humans are naturally curious, and language is how we structure the world. Why fight that?
Great post. The arguments here are reminiscent of the findings by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene in his Book Reading in the Brain. His concept of 'neuronal recycling', that the brain repurposes its object recognition area for reading is most efficient in early childhood due to high plasticity.
Ha, I recommended this book to another commenter above. Super insightful. I remember he had interesting findings about reintroducing naps in first grade just after reading lessons and how much of a difference that extra sleep did for retention; if the child is receptive, might as well start when they’re still napping daily
When my wife was in first grade, in 1962, the principal asked her mother to discourage her from reading, because she was too far ahead of the other kids in the class. The principal suggested "spool knitting" as an alternative.
Thank you, Erik, for this brilliant and much-needed piece.
The parallels you drew between early reading and early screen exposure struck me deeply. Especially this: “Reading and tablets are directly competitive media for a child’s time.” It reframes the discussion from developmental readiness to opportunity cost. It makes the delayed rollout of literacy feel far less benign than it’s often portrayed.
Your critique of the neuromyth around myelination and its supposed link to reading readiness was particularly clarifying. The reliance on a 60-year-old anatomical speculation as a gatekeeping mechanism for reading instruction seems, at best, outdated, and at worst, a quiet surrender to digital dominance.
One question your piece raised for me:
If early reading can stimulate brain development rather than wait for it, could we reframe literacy as a scaffold for plasticity, not just a product of it?
In other words, rather than seeing myelination and cortical maturation as prerequisites for reading, could early reading accelerate or shape those very developmental pathways, especially in the fronto-temporal language circuits and attention networks? If so, how much could intentional and structured early literacy enhance certain brain functions compared to more delayed instruction?
Yup, you're spot on. There's a good paper, by Yeatman et al., on this: "Development of white matter and reading skills." It does indicate that reading can stimulate brain development. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23045658/
love reading your pieces on child development and how you're teaching your son. I'm curious if there's a certain curriculum you're following or things you're hoping to teach him by a certain age?
also curious to hear your thoughts on how to handle "good" media like well-made animated movies, certain YouTube videos and other digital content. How do you go about introducing them? Do kids inevitably gravitate towards them even after learning to read and valuing reading so early? And what about when school starts and other kids just simply aren't engaging in the same spare-time activities?
im a good 10ish years away from kids myself lol but I think of these questions often. How am I going to explain using AI in a healthy way to a kid born in 2035?
I'll write more about this in the future, but I liken anything on a screen to hypnosis. If they are not screen native, that's what screens do: hypnotize them. It is THE most interesting thing in the world. This is a power than can be used for great good.
Also, one thing about the great cultural slowdown is that it's a lot easier for kids to have the same touchstones. They're changing much slower now for a lot of areas. Like wow, you like Minecraft! Me too! It's been the most popular game for the last 15 years.
Education, like as a field, seems like it suffers from the same issues that led to reckoning in “public health” five years ago: an over-reliance on received wisdom, the tendency to rebrand what is essentially ideological content as value-free “expertise”, a lack of modern statistical rigor and replication.
Another thought - the persistent absolute belief that neuroscience understands the mind is disturbing. We can learn a lot from scans, but making categorical statements about human behavior based on myelination is several bridges too far.
I actually agree - there are *very* few conclusions from neuroscience that should be taken as prescriptive.
I think it's partly about what's feasible in the home vs the classroom in the current American system. I've taught 3-6yos in Asia for many years now (to be reading Hop-on-Pop-level texts independently by 6) and there are many kids who just need strong phonics and appropriate material to set off on their own around 4-5. But there are others who aren't capable even at 6 of reliably reading CVC words. A lot of education systems (and teachers) have decided that the class should move at the pace of the slowest student, or the slowest third. Others simply don't have the resources to teach multiple levels in the same room. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to have decided that rather than trying to solve these probably solvable problems we should just give up.
Teachers also tend to be fixated on writing, probably because it's much easier to assess, and there is a developmental lag between what a child can read and what they're physically capable of writing. Many teachers are uncomfortable with teaching a child to read words they can't be made to write. In general receptive skills are undervalued relative to productive skills in early education and lower elementary, and that has all sorts of unfortunate downstream effects
You're spot on about the writing aspect of it too. Teaching good handwriting is incredibly hard. This is because you need to (a) basically know how to read already, or to some degree, to really get the point anyways, and (b) fine motor control is not your friend at that age. It can be really frustrating for kids, and is more boring too! After all, when reading, you get to be exposed to at least some sort of Bob-book level story. Writing has very little immediate payoff like that.
Reading about your experience with teaching your toddler to read has been fascinating and inspiring to me as a bookworm who plans to have children. I've tried to talk to a few people about this and have received mostly negative reactions which was surprising. It seems like this idea of early reading really hits people in some emotional way that I don’t understand.
Is it that so few people read for pleasure now that they can only see this as a way to pressure children? Is that people feel shame for not doing this with their own children even if they had never heard of teaching early reading or had valid reasons not to do it? Is that so many people identify with the “formerly gifted” label that they are against any attempt at encouraging academic skills in children? I genuinely cannot tell.
It's a really good question, and a real phenomenon. I've experienced it too.
I think, just in general, anything weird or unusual or different will always get this sort of pushback. I think a lot of your suspected reasons are probably correct, but it's more than that: it's a social deviation. And people don't like deviations. It makes them wary. No one will admit that, but it's true.
It's one reason I wrote this article: to address at least one concern, which is that early reading is about some sort of grade grubbing, or academic rat race. But actually, it's about how you'd prefer a child spends time. It has very visceral, very felt effects, in terms of day-to-day functionality.
More than sixty years ago, Glenn Doman, with whom I spent six years learning about neurological development for interpreting work, wrote a book titled "How to Teach Your Baby to Read". In Italian the title was translated to "Leggere a 3 Anni," which literally means to read at 3. I wrote about the experience in a comment to another post that has more context, including the developmental profile they used to show the interconnection of competencies, for anyone interested.
https://onvalueinculture.substack.com/p/on-doing-value-aligned-work
Doman, who lived to the venerable age of 97 (or 98), also believed in teaching babies anything. See "How to Teach Your Baby Math," and "How to Give Your Baby an Encyclopedic Knowledge."
I was with my niece and her two year old daughter this past June. She's well-read in the Montessori philosophy and her five year old grew up learning by doing, which includes reading. Now, his younger sister loves books. In fact, while I was holding her off the ledge where she'd climbed on the kitchen counter, I saw her read with full comprehension all the words in a card kit her mother prepared for her brother when he was a baby. The reason why second children tend to (in my experience) be precocious is often the mere exposure to knowledge. Given the choice, children would rather learn than do anything else.
Perhaps screens are pacifiers as were televisions for earlier generations. But I firmly believe that learning to read is as important as learning to walk for humans. We don't hold them back because they're too young, do we?
I enjoyed your article. I do think it's a shame kids don't read more.
My kids didn't learn to read "properly" until they were about 5. I live in Ireland, and this is typical. I was the same. However, both of my kids have *read* since they were babies, as in they have had books in their hands as soon as they could hold them.
There are books appropriate for all ages, picture books, comics are great too. For instance my son loved The Investigators series long before he knew what the words meant because he could look at the pictures and understand the story more or less.
I think too, parents need to read or at least encourage it. Our kids mirror us. If we are on screens we can't expect our kids to want to pick up books suddenly.
I'm not a parenting expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think there is such a wealth of books out there, keeping them around, easily accessible and interesting is half the battle.
In my opinion, and knowing my children, I don't think they were developmentally ready to read words or write before the time they learned- give or take a few months perhaps- and because we always considered reading to be more than just words, it's meant that now at 7 and 9 they read every single day for hours.
Instilling the love for reading is the hard part. To be clear we also allow screens, not a tablet, but TV and video games. I think it's a healthy balance for them (most of the time!)
Reading is an entirely different experience for the minds, it's more active than passively watching a cartoon, but I believe there is space for both.
I would inject a comment about Montessori, which teaches letter shapes very early and says reading should be taught by age 3
"the English language presents them with a far more difficult learning problem." That's very interesting because one often-cited reason why the English language has become the world's lingua franca is that it's supposed to be much easier than Latin or other Germanic languages. Which is true especially related to gender, plurals and tenses. But that’s apparently only true after you already mastered the gap between spelling and pronunciation which is extremely inconsistent in English where a single vowel can be pronounced 8 different ways, and the tonic stress is very varied.
It would be interesting to see the reading progression at later stages of development between French, German and English speakers.
Stanislas Dehaene wrote about this, although I’m not sure he has been translated to English. Of all the alphabetic languages, English is the hardest to learn how to read, followed by French (French is the hardest to write, however). His studies showed that the average German native speaker needed about 9 months to go from first academic encounter with the alphabet to being able to decode anything; the average French child needs 18 months to do the same and the average English speaker needs 24 months.
Thoughtful piece. I have kids ages two and three and basically not being aware of modern research, I’ve just gone ahead and taught them letters and phonics at whatever the rate they’ll take them.
One thing I’ll disagree with is that preschools aren’t engaging with reading and that play gets in the way. My daughter has a half day of preschool twice a week and came home writing her name. She gets exposure to some of PA’s state pre K program and I’m seeing plenty of evidence of phonics. So apparently they haven’t read the research either haha!
After reading Larry Sanger’s reflections on early literacy, I started doing phonics with my two-year-old. He’s now four and reads independently. I only bring it up because it’s been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding parts of parenting—watching him connect meaning through words, signs, and books has been a real joy.
I’m wary of the “delayed reading” camp, not just because of the research but because it doesn’t square with experience or intuition. If you want to build proficiency in anything—whether it’s music, sports, or reading—waiting longer rarely helps. Yes, phonics with a toddler is hard. But humans are naturally curious, and language is how we structure the world. Why fight that?
Great post. The arguments here are reminiscent of the findings by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene in his Book Reading in the Brain. His concept of 'neuronal recycling', that the brain repurposes its object recognition area for reading is most efficient in early childhood due to high plasticity.
Ha, I recommended this book to another commenter above. Super insightful. I remember he had interesting findings about reintroducing naps in first grade just after reading lessons and how much of a difference that extra sleep did for retention; if the child is receptive, might as well start when they’re still napping daily
When my wife was in first grade, in 1962, the principal asked her mother to discourage her from reading, because she was too far ahead of the other kids in the class. The principal suggested "spool knitting" as an alternative.
Thank you, Erik, for this brilliant and much-needed piece.
The parallels you drew between early reading and early screen exposure struck me deeply. Especially this: “Reading and tablets are directly competitive media for a child’s time.” It reframes the discussion from developmental readiness to opportunity cost. It makes the delayed rollout of literacy feel far less benign than it’s often portrayed.
Your critique of the neuromyth around myelination and its supposed link to reading readiness was particularly clarifying. The reliance on a 60-year-old anatomical speculation as a gatekeeping mechanism for reading instruction seems, at best, outdated, and at worst, a quiet surrender to digital dominance.
One question your piece raised for me:
If early reading can stimulate brain development rather than wait for it, could we reframe literacy as a scaffold for plasticity, not just a product of it?
In other words, rather than seeing myelination and cortical maturation as prerequisites for reading, could early reading accelerate or shape those very developmental pathways, especially in the fronto-temporal language circuits and attention networks? If so, how much could intentional and structured early literacy enhance certain brain functions compared to more delayed instruction?
Thanks again for this wonderful article!
Yup, you're spot on. There's a good paper, by Yeatman et al., on this: "Development of white matter and reading skills." It does indicate that reading can stimulate brain development. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23045658/
Thank you Erik! I will definitely check it out. Cheers.
A wonderful morning read for this happy grandfather of a busy 2.5 year old. Thank you.
love reading your pieces on child development and how you're teaching your son. I'm curious if there's a certain curriculum you're following or things you're hoping to teach him by a certain age?
also curious to hear your thoughts on how to handle "good" media like well-made animated movies, certain YouTube videos and other digital content. How do you go about introducing them? Do kids inevitably gravitate towards them even after learning to read and valuing reading so early? And what about when school starts and other kids just simply aren't engaging in the same spare-time activities?
im a good 10ish years away from kids myself lol but I think of these questions often. How am I going to explain using AI in a healthy way to a kid born in 2035?
I'll write more about this in the future, but I liken anything on a screen to hypnosis. If they are not screen native, that's what screens do: hypnotize them. It is THE most interesting thing in the world. This is a power than can be used for great good.
Also, one thing about the great cultural slowdown is that it's a lot easier for kids to have the same touchstones. They're changing much slower now for a lot of areas. Like wow, you like Minecraft! Me too! It's been the most popular game for the last 15 years.
"director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at UCLA"
This is a clue. How do you solve the problem of people falling behind in reading? Slow everyone else down.
Education, like as a field, seems like it suffers from the same issues that led to reckoning in “public health” five years ago: an over-reliance on received wisdom, the tendency to rebrand what is essentially ideological content as value-free “expertise”, a lack of modern statistical rigor and replication.