Because having more skills is good under virtually all circumstances? The child can now read if the desire or need arises, and can choose not to read under other circumstances.
Really, more skills the better? I have 3yr old son and I've been reading to him / teaching him to read only as much as he can concentrate while enjoying it. It is really easy to be too pushy and have a child lost interest. The skills does not matter nearly as much as the learning experiences. I rather hope that he grows an interest in learning itself than teach him read under 4 of age and possible hating the experience.
Huh? Yes, the more skills the better. Your post doesn't exactly read as an attack on that assumption, but as a criticism on the method of teaching.
I agree, both the learning experience and the acquired skills matter. What's often overlooked is that every child develops at their own pace, and the skills progression taught in schools is based on both normative ideals and descriptive "modal" pace. Offering a child new material that they "should not be learning yet" is not a crime, nor an offense to the child, nor a criticism on other parenting methods (or other children, for that matter).
Not to mention that skills development doesn't occur across a single line. As an example, a child of a friend of mine is now almost two years old, and still vocalizes at most two syllables. Yet she's able to comprehend (and execute) very complicated sentences and commands, in two languages. Still, she's now officially labeled a "deficient" child, with all the counselling and monitoring that that entails...
You need to define skills first and how deep you are talking about.
Someone who are good a at multitude of things but very superficially does not make them more well rounded than one that practices on area more deeply. There are many many many areas that seem to be simple to learn because you can do them very quickly. But thats not what skills are about. Sure you can fake it, but unless you tried to dig deeper into something and learn what it means to learn then you aren't really going to be at a bigger advantage later on in life.
The very act of going deeper into a specific skill is teaching you something that just brushing over a wide area of skills isn't. In fact by going deeper into some of the typical things kids learn you are more likely to be able to also become better at others because you learn what it means to dig in rather than brush over.
All things being equal, wouldn't you say it's better to be able to read than not read?
Yes you can create a circumstance where literacy is gained through onerous means, but you can use that same hypothetical with pretty much any form of parental guidance till you get to the point where children are now only learning what they want to and not what is necssary.
Yes, this touches the point that is overlooked. We are eager to assume that the cost of acquiring a (reading) skill is static and low, involving only time. The way I see this is that for toddlers the added value by hour declines rapidly, so instead of investing more time to teach my child to read properly, I prefer to teach/explore other things such as story telling, cutting shapes with scissors, etc.
The other problem is for children who superficially appear to understand reading. They may not get the help they need to progress because people thing they can read.
Isn't this a difficulty that any child would face, no matter what time they learned how to read?
I'd think in context---a child taught how to read in a one-on-one interaction with a parent is more likely to have their difficulties noted and receive help from that same parent, than a child taught how to read in a one-on-fifteen classroom setting.
Well the original commenter basically said, the article defended itself well against criticism that there would be harm caused by teaching a young child to read, so his question was "what is the benefit?"
So I wonder: isn't reading a benefit in and of itself? If there's no direct harm, then it ought to be at worst a waste of time.
Again, that's a big assumption. Plausible problems:
1. developing language skills early stunts development of more visual skills
2. too much structured time has drawbacks
3. "it ought to be at worst a waste of time" ... and additional stress. Opportunity costs could also include relationship capital (pushing your kid to do unimportant things means you can't push as hard in other areas).
The author of the article went into detail as to what possible harm there could be, and why he thought they were avoided or null.
Your stance seems to be summarized as: 'what if parents are thoughtless, naive, and too forceful?'.
In this case, the author was none of that, and really shouldn't be compared to this hypothetical worst case scenario.
> developing language skills early stunts development of more visual skills
This seems incredibly unlikely. I'd in fact bet money that developing any skill young will not stunt the growth of another skill, so long as a normal amount of time is spent invested in that other skill comparative to normal children.
> too much structured time has drawbacks
Indeed, but according to the author all they did was read to the child before dinner, and have them sound out words as they pointed to them. Does 30 minutes to an hour of reading and pointing count as too much structured time?
> Opportunity costs could also include relationship capital (pushing your kid to do unimportant things means you can't push as hard in other areas).
This sounds like a problem of methodology, not of aims. If teaching a child anything causes alienation, then you are doing it wrong, especially if that thing is a basic skill that they must learn.
Yes, more skills is better, because of the way brain works.
Learning new skill creates new connections and these come handy even in situations where the said skill is not involved at all.
Thats such a misguided way to look at things. There are plenty of dyslexic people who become successful entrepreneurs exactly because they are developing a different perspective on things than everyone else who can read. They learn to compensate. Just like a blind person learns to compensate for the lack of vision.
Sure there are many areas where reading is good, but it's not as simply as you want to present it here. Not by a longshot.
For once, I agree with your conclusion. I am not aware of any evidence showing this may be harmful, so in the end, I think it is up to the parents and the kid.
However, how do you know that "having more skills is good under virtually all circumstances" when toddlers are concerned? I have no reason to assume that learning to read at a very young age is harmful (which is why I'm not against it), but I can easily imagine ways that it could be harmful (or beneficial). But making a definitive ruling either way requires knowledge that neither I nor you possess. So I say "go ahead if that's what you want" just because I'd rather not recommend against something unless it is shown to be bad. But you seem to make a big assumption about developmental psychology that you have absolutely no basis to make.
Is there a cost of opportunity? If the toddler is learning to read instead of playing with toys, can we be sure that won't hurt it's hand-eye coordination or something?
