Early Reading Can Prevent Dyslexia

A recent longitudinal study, published by professors at Yale University in 2003, has yielded fresh insights into the potential environmental causes of reading disability. While there is some research to indicate that genetic factors may predispose certain individuals to certain types of dyslexia, this is not the whole story.

Scientists including Timothy Kailing have posited that learning to read too late might actually be the cause of certain types of dyslexia. (For more on Kailing's hypothesis, go to the dyslexia debate under Whole Language Vs Phonics.)

What the Yale scientists found was that different types of dyslexia do indeed have different causes. Most interesting of all was the finding that the more severe form of dyslexia - one that is not resolved by adulthood - is produced by environmental rather than genetic factors.

In this study, subjects' reading ability was tested annually from first grade up to the age of 22. Participants in the study fell into one of three categories: those who scored poorly in reading in second and fourth grade, and also as adults; those who scored poorly in elementary school, but had made improvements by adulthood; and those without problems with reading at any age.

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) to track brain activity patterns in the participants during two separate reading tasks. In the case of the subjects who had shown an improvement in reading over the course of their schooling, the fMRI indicated that alternative pathways in the brain were compensating for a disruption in the neural systems for reading. In other words, these individuals had started off with a natural disadvantage in reading, but their brains had learned successful coping strategies.

In the case of the subjects with problems reading both in elementary school and in adulthood, the fMRI indicated that the neural systems were intact, but were not connected properly. While there was nothing to predispose these individuals to reading disability, their brains had not received the types of experiences necessary to produce reading success. These individuals tended to come from families that did not promote early reading.

What we know about early reading :

• Children of average IQ are capable of learning to read before first grade.

• Early readers maintain, on average, a two-grade advantage in reading ability over their non-early-reading peers.

• Failing to stimulate the neural systems for reading early enough in childhood can produce reading disabilities that last into adulthood.

In Dolores Durkin's day, the general consensus was that children were not ready to learn to read until they had reached a mental age of six and a half. Durkin continued her studies into reading age into the 1970s. Her later research suggested that children who learned to read at age three or four maintained their advantage over children who learned at five or six for as long as eight years. What's more, children who learned to read at seven or eight remained furthest behind over the course of Durkin's study period.

From six and a half in the late 1950s, the general reading age has now moved up to five. Yet, rates of reading disability remain as high as ever. As more children learn to read before first grade - and more parents witness the benefits of early reading - perhaps it will be only a few more years before learning to read at age three or four becomes the norm, instead of the exception. When it does, our children will only thank us.