Policies

Contact Us

This is the second most pernicious myth, and it is closely related to the first.  Many who argue that reading is natural also argue that children need to be given time to develop their reading skills at their own pace.  This is a double-edged sword because while it is true that children should be taught to read in developmentally appropriate ways, and that we should always address instruction to each child's zone of proximal development, we should not simply wait for children to develop reading skills in their own time.  A child who is not developing reading skills along with his or her peers is a reason for great concern.

Research has revealed an extremely dangerous phenomenon that has been dubbed the "Matthew Effect."  The term comes from the line in the Bible that essentially says that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  That certainly describes what happens as children enter school and begin learning literacy skills.  Over time, the gap between children who have well developed literacy skills and those who do not gets wider and wider.  At the early grades, the "literacy gap" is relatively easy to cross, and with diagnostic, focused instruction, effective teachers can help children with poor literacy skills to become children with rich literacy skills.  However, if literacy instruction needs are not met early, then the gap widens -- the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer until the gap gets so wide that bridging it requires extensive, intensive, expensive and frustrating remedial instruction.  The gap reaches this nearly insurmountable point very early -- research has shown that if a child is not reading grade-appropriate materials by the time he or she is in the fourth grade, the odds of that child ever developing good reading skills are very slim.  It is still possible, but it is much more difficult, and the child's own motivation becomes the biggest obstacle to success.

 
Return to 10 Myths of Reading Instruction