Third grade reading scores = prison bed projections?

Children who are very intelligent sometimes have trouble in school, for some reason, which I believe to be that our education systems dont account for the differences between people well enough.

Besides the man who wrote that book, Albert Eisten was famous for having had quite a lot of problems in school, I think his teachers even said he was just plain "dumb". My favorite author, Douglas Adams, was considered retarted then he was a kid, but grew up to be an extremelly intelligent and respected man.

There really is just one kind of intelligence that is rewarded by schools. A few people who don't fit the model succeed beyond anyone's wildest dreams but most of them fall through the cracks.

But still, it kind of gives me hope. I live in a fairly affluent area of my city. Almost everyone here has an advanced education. People are always telling me how smart my son is. And he really is smart. (For example: I volunteer at the parent run art program at this school. The other day the lesson was on Picasso. They were supposed to do a portrait. He drew a man in a gas mask. The instructor tried to nudge him in a different direction. He replied "Picasso painted a lot of pictures of the Spanish Civil War" and went on with his work.)

At schools he's in special education and gets teased a lot for being "stupid".

I firmly believe that there would be fewer prison bed projections and more lives saved if families knew the lasting effect an early childhood steeped in language and books has on literacy. Dump the $ into early literacy education. Mandatory programs, based on the importance of language and literacy in the home, should be delivered in hospitals to parents before they take their babies home.


Students deprived of language in the early years have a very difficult time "catching up" to their peers in reading. If a child is not reading on or near grade level before grade 3, it takes about 17 times longer to teach the child to read as it would have, had the child been exposed to rich language through "motherese" and conversation, rhymes, riddles, stories and books.
With all of the funding cuts in education, it is unlikely that a teacher instructing in grade 3 or above would have the time to teach a non-reader how to read.


The time to "teach" children to read begins at birth, and continues throughout school and beyond. But to "catch up" 7 years of irreplaceable language is impossible. We should be paying it forward.............never backward!!!!!!

Yes, many factors predict difficulty later in life. However, a life without literacy is like every day without sunshine..... or wine!!

I had a teacher tell me one time that kids leveled out by 2nd or 3rd grade. In other words those parents that had their babies reading by 3 and 4 years of age and those who didn't learn to read until they got to kindergarten usually evened out by the time they reached those grades.

I think that reading well certainly has something to do with the child's abilities or disabilities - but it also may have to do with interactions at home. If the parents are not involved and let the kids fend for themselves or if the parents are actually parenting. That would also account for a child's behavior and what and who they became involved with as they got older.

But I can't imagine that reading levels would be a very good indicator without having other things to consider as well.

I recall reading something similar a decade or more ago, and I think they related it specifically to the Head Start programs. Head Start aside, I just don't believe it. The kids who have been read to, and are reading by ages 3 and 4 simply have parents who are motivated and value education.

Okay, I admit it. That's just opinion.

I'm agreeing with Mismi's and Roger's views - haven't reread all the thread.

Patently I think that attention to a baby and toddler with eye contact, touching, talking to or singing to, holding, pointing at things and saying the names, showing words that match the names, is important, and probably gets tricky with a parent who isn't very engaged with what is around him or her, or has trouble hearing or speaking - thus sign language, a whole other subject, it's so great that was developed.

I just know anecdotal stuff, mixed with long time observations which are just mine. On the latter, I think raising a child with curiosity is key, best one can, and there are many versions of curiosity.

On the anecdotes, my mother often (enough) told me I didn't speak until I was four. At this point, I think she meant a full sentence, and that was "New car, Dad". And that was in post war 1945, when I turned four. But I have childhood memories of an oil cloth "book" to read and slobber over, and some blocks, and a rag doll named Daisie, and so on. I was an only child in a family that moved a lot, and went to kindergarten and 1st grade as shy as a post, having only rarely been around other children (no day cares). But I had love, and did fine in school. And now you can't shut me up, eh?

A cousin was the worst reader and speller for miles around, flunked latin twice, went through college using a tape recorder. She was dyslexic, but that wasn't all that known about back then. She went on in schooling and spent her work life as a CPA for the US gov. Very able and good human. Sixty years later she reads for pleasure. I'm sure she was behind in reading in third grade.

I highly doubt governors make prison building decisions on that basis.