Parents consider it their duty to teach their children to read before school. But it happens that even in the first grade, children do not have the prerequisites for acquiring these skills.
And as a temptation, development centers offer their services, promising to teach all the skills to children from 3 years old. Is this right?
In reality, many people don’t even know when it’s actually possible to teach a child to read.
Thanks to the rapid development of neuroscience in recent decades, the idea of intensive brain development, especially before the age of three, has become increasingly vocal. Some parents strive to educate their children from the earliest years, trying not to miss the moment when they can most effectively invest in the child the knowledge and skills that they will need in adulthood, - said Alexander Kornev, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Head of the Department of Speech Pathology at the St. Petersburg Pediatric Medical University, in an interview with FederalPress .
Supply and demand
According to the expert, parental demand is not just driving the emergence of educational centers. Even teachers are now expecting children to come to school prepared – able to read and write.
Responsibility for this is shifted to parents and kindergartens, while schools pay less and less attention to developing basic skills in the first grade.
When to teach reading
It happens that some children who learn to read early do not develop a love for reading, noted Professor Kornev.
Before learning can begin, a child's brain and psyche must reach a certain level of maturity.
A sign that a child is ready to learn is his ability to learn the language of graphic symbols.
He must also understand the structure of a word, be able to divide it into syllables and sounds, and have a developed working memory.
According to the expert, most children develop all these skills by the age of 6.
But if the child demonstrates such skills earlier, then the parents must make decisions about training themselves.
