Why expect your child develop a habit you don’t have?

I was always in the slow reading group. But eventually I became proficient and went on to a good university etc… I attribute my reading habits to the fact that my parents set a good example. My father was an especially passionate reader. And yet, for all this, I never learned to read until I was taught at the age of 6. I’m still a relatively slow reader.

At twelve I mostly gave myself over to classics and adult literary fiction. This had everything to do with a lack of development and very little do with my brilliant mind (since I don’t have one).

Most of the YA stuff I was being handed by teachers or friends was too emotionally advanced. Too much boyfriend/girlfriend stuff and other issues I didn’t understand. I was a late bloomer but on track academically. That left a gap which I filled with select classics, adult literary fiction and a couple of romance series.

I could deal with romance, but I preferred it chaste, repressed or Victorian. By the time I was ready to have sex, I was studying Baudelaire and Nietzsche at University. A little late for Judy Blume.

Oh, and I never much liked mysteries, fantasy or sci-fi, which are also popular with this age group. Purely personal taste and nothing more.

True, early reading doesn’t mean academic success. I was reading at 3, and am still a voracious reader. However, I did very badly in school. I got more Fs than anyone I knew. People in High School assumed I was a nerd because I was always reading, but generally I had the worst grade in the class. Knowing how to read does not mean knowing how to be a good student. They are totally different skill sets. I didn’t learn how to be a good student until I went back to college (community) at around 25 years old.

Thank you, Madeline, for your regular infusion of sanity. Slater, obviously meant well in encouraging picture books for all ages but the “Eragon” irony there was not lost one me either. The message seemed to be “stop pushing” but the delivery was off. What she should have emphasized is that this rush to read books beyond a child’s maturity level provides little or no benefit to that child’s development or academic success. On the other hand, judging by the confessions of “early reader” braggadocios over on the Slater piece, it provides a great benefit to childhood psychologists. The anecdotal evidence over there suggests that if your 10-year old is reading Cervantes, then at least some of that college fund is going to therapy.

My perspective: Why waste the classics on children? What a mistake it seems to be to set them on a course of saying “Oh, I read the Brontes in grade school.” Because they won’t have “read” it. Reading a good book is as much about what you bring in with you as what the author creates for you. What would my 8- yr. old daughter be able to bring to the inspired social commentary of Jane Eyre? (Even if she could decipher all the words–which, btw, she can’t.) What will any grade schooler make of the alluring cruelty of Heathcliff? This is nonsense on stilts to me. Stick with the dots, those librarians typically know their business.

Incidentally, I meet so many people of my 40-something generation who are inordinately proud of the fact that they could read at 3 or 4 years old that it makes me think this mania is a hold-over from a day gone by. Maybe we should be blaming our mothers for this? (I’ll check with my therapist and get back to you).