In 1936, Mabel Vogel Morphett and Carleton Washburne wrote When Should Children Begin to Read? a research paper published in The Elementary School Journal.

This is a critical question because if children are pushed to read before they’re ready, they might not get it, then hate it, fail to read later and decide that reading is more trouble than it’s worth.

For twenty-two years, mainly since NCLB, learning to read has been pushed down to younger ages, with higher expectations not only for preschoolers and kindergartners but also for third graders in danger of retention if they don’t pass a reading test.

Morphett and Washburne were concerned about the age at which they should teach reading so that children wouldn’t have a distaste for the subject.

They examined 141 first graders’ intelligence, providing them with twenty-one steps of reading material and looking at sight word scores and mental ages as measured by the Detroit and Stanford-Binet Tests, with moderate to high correlations—enough to be believable and important.

Stanford-Binet test results indicated that children would gain considerably in speed of learning if they could wait until they had attained a mental age of seven years and six months before beginning to read.

By curving results, they also found that children taking the Detroit Test with mental ages of six years and six months made progress practically as satisfactory as those with higher mental ages.

So they deemed six years and six months the breaking point in the curve, that is, the point beyond which postponing the teaching of reading yields little gain.

It seems that six and a half is the sweet spot, the age to start teaching formal reading, which is when most schools used to start.

Also, the study looked at mental, not chronological age (how old a child is). Most schools today don’t consider mental ages because they’re connected to Intelligent Quotients, which have generated valid concerns over the years.

What this means, of course, is that some first graders could be six and have mental ages on the high side of seven or eight, and others the lower side of age four or below. In both cases, the instruction to effectively teach each child would be different.

Astute teachers recognize such contrasts and adjust their lessons, especially if they have class sizes that are small enough. But today, more often, we see children seated together, watching teachers teach direct instruction. It looks like one-size-fits-all, and one wonders how each child is learning.

Sadly, also, formal reading instruction has become a big part of the kindergarten experience for kindergartners, mostly five. I’m not talking about simple prereading skills, but full blown reading instruction with the expectations that children be reading by first grade!

Today, the pressure for children to read early is paramount in school and at home. This pressure can easily be found on social media, with parents and educators arguing about the Science of Reading and how to teach children sounds, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. There are many rules and voices about the right and wrong way to teach reading.

Few consider a child’s age or readiness.

It’s always hard to know why a child is failing at reading because we don’t have access to assessments and information. We aren’t clear if they have a disability or needed a little more time. Parents conditioned for early reading to take place, don’t always appreciate the more time reason.

And the fear of third grade failure and retention is real. Parents know if their children fail third grade it will change their lives dramatically, and the child might eventually drop out of school.

So it isn’t any wonder that teachers and parents drill preschoolers and kindergartners to sound out letters and expect them to sit in groups and listen with little questioning about whether children are ready to learn to read.

Note, too, that when children at the chronological age of five, and also those with lower mental ages, fail to read, teachers and public schools look like they’re failing.

Google Scholar shows that the above study has been cited 513 times, including about 40 since 2020. It needs to be clarified if these are favorable citations, but the study seems sound despite a relatively small sample size and the limitations of the single school source. It would be interesting to hear about follow-up studies or replications.

Meanwhile, experts often say children should read when they’re developmentally ready, but that can be unclear.

For example, U.S. News and World Report (2021) also asked: When Do Kids Learn to Read? Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, former director of reading for Chicago Public Schools, and member of the National Reading Panel, Timothy Shanahan said:

These days, kindergarten reading skills are pretty universal. There is no particular age at which one has to learn to read, but starting early provides the greatest opportunity for children’s success.

Shanahan doesn’t elaborate on what starting early means. Parents may think formal, rigorous instruction is important, so they turn to online reading programs, of which there are many, even for preschoolers, programs promising reading success for three-year-olds or younger.

I’m not talking about reading lovely picture books to children they enjoy. Research increasingly indicates that even reading such books to babies can be helpful. Or talking with children, teaching alphabet sounds, or helping them with vocabulary words in a relaxed fashion.

Creating a rich and enjoyable literacy and language environment for children differs from organized, pressurized instruction, directly teaching letters and sounds, or sending a child online to learn, with serious before-and-after assessments.

Think how frustrating it must be for kindergartners and preschoolers when they likely would have an easier time of it later.

However, many parents and teachers are now conditioned to believe that if students aren’t reading by first grade, they didn’t get the help they needed, and as children fall further behind at each grade level, they may hate reading even more.

It’s unlikely to change since kindergarten is a full day now, and teachers must fill up the time and are under pressure to get kids reading earlier.

What’s done now is to push all preschoolers and kindergarteners to read ages three, four, and five and few are questioning whether maybe they’d do better and have an easier time of learning to read if formal reading instruction began at age six and a half.

This study ultimately showed that children with the mental ages of six years and six months and seven years learned to read satisfactorily. Isn’t this worth considering?

Reference

Morphett, M. V., & Washburne, C. (1931). When Should Children Begin to Read? The Elementary School Journal, 31(7), 496–503. https://doi.org/10.1086/456609