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Comment by c3534l | Hacker News Reader

A scroll through google scholar seems to show it has no positive benefits. For instance, the abstract at http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=13608... gave kids reading lessons "delivered at 4, 12, 18, and 42 months" and concluded that it "provided neither the anticipated benefits to literacy and language nor enhanced uptake of literacy activities at 4 years of age, even when targeted to relatively disadvantaged areas."

Everything seems to show little to no effect, but as far as I can tell it's not inherently a bad thing to do. Kids just happen to learn to read at about the time they're intellectually ready for it.

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I've got several problems with your comment...

Firstly, that link you posted "determined the emergent literacy and language effects of a LOW-INTENSITY LITERACY PROMOTION PROGRAM". So if it had not much effect, that's not very surprising since its not actually talking about the same thing as the original link. It would back up what we know about most education programs and schooling: it generally has a very small/negligible effect after you control out for genetics and home environment.

But I will just quote some lines from the linked article, just so we're clear what it actually says:

"Children who are read to more often and earlier in life have better academic and social outcomes at school,1 which in turn predict their future work and life outcomes"

"Recent literature reviews11- 14 have identified several features of early literacy environments that most consistently predict better outcomes. These reviews suggest that children who achieve at school typically have more books in the home, have parents that report reading to them more frequently (usually every day but at least 3 times per week), and begin shared reading at a very early age (usually before 18 months of age). How parents read to children also appears to be important. The dialogic approach is a child-adult interactive approach to reading aloud that, compared with other styles,15 predicts better emergent literacy skills, such as print motivation, vocabulary, print awareness, narrative skills, letter knowledge, and phonologic awareness."

This makes me want to ask the question if teaching children complex activities very early is pointless because they have not developed the neurological wiring in their brains at the early stages of development to make learning math and reading at a complex level worth while. At what point to children start to understand abstract concepts?

I always thought the greatest thing a parent can do with a child is to read to them, Dr. Seuss. That does not mean teaching children to read before they are ready positively effects them.

I think sometimes parents my age (late 20s early 30s) try to force their kids to engage in a lot of activities the kids aren't ready for and aren't interested in because they want to show everyone how much better their kid is from everyone else's. Helicopter parents are one extreme. Kids should have some room to breath, explore, and play. You shouldn't force them into something they're not ready for and of course every kid is going to develop differently. There's a good middle ground, I'm sure. Just my 2 cents anyway.

ha.

dr. seuss is a tricky one because the "things" in his book are so totally made up. i often find myself reading him to my toddlers and wondering if any of it makes sense.

There are a lot more reading materials available for children than when The Cat in Hat was first published. Interest and attention at the task of reading something, anything is more important than fantastic content. I don't have children but if I did I'd read What Do People Do All Day and The Way Things Work. Richard Scarry books are the best.

The twenty somethings are back from college. Last Saturday they collectively entered a fantasy world with the Santa Con pub crawl. Two guys were wearing Thing 1 costumes. Men acting like children just can't be healthy. Perhaps they grew up in a fantasy they never left.

For me imagination is the greatest thing. I produce so much thought and ideas -- new stuff every day. I sit at a computer with the IDE open and want to make something happen. That is where imagination comes in. I can't stop it, ideas just keep coming, but that doesn't mean they are good. I had a boss whose ego was so big she treated anything she thought as a good idea just because she thought it. The real power of imagination is that I can take new ideas and further imagine the different outcomes without typing a single key. As a coder looking at a blank new JS file, when I ask myself, "What should we do?" I'm quoting Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. I should probably go to work now, and like in the book, I'll be spending most of my day breaking perfectly fine things cursing myself for not writing more tests.

dr. seuss can confuse a toddler who's still trying to come to terms with basic, concrete things. that's all i was saying.

My 3 year old, who is otherwise enthusiastic about reading (or being _read to_) dislikes Dr Seuess books more than anything we've read to her thus far, which was surprising to me since kids are supposed to universally adore them. It may just be finding the right stage in her development where she'll enjoy stories that sound like they were written by a complete fucking lunatic.

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