READING READINESS
I read with interest the letter from Debbie Chambers (4 March) in response to 'No grounds for learning to read at five, says researcher' (News, 14 January), reporting research conducted by myself and others. I am pleased that the points in her letter have been raised because three assertions in her letter are well worth considering.
The first assertion is that children who do not read, when they could have learned to, 'will miss out on a lot of constructive language development, social confidence and maturity and years of pleasure'. It is highly unlikely that children's language is improved by reading, until they are in their fourth or fifth year of school, simply because the richness of language found in books that young children read is inferior to what they could obtain from oral discourse. Social confidence and pleasure can be gained in many ways during childhood - without touching a book. If social confidence is undermined by not reading early, then that must be the fault of the educators and parents more than the child.
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