Now Read This

    He has become a reader, a sea change in his young life. He is 7 years and almost 6 months of age, and has found reading a challenge up to now.  This is the 5th year of his education, 2 years of pre-school, Kindergarten, and this second year of primary school. 
   An older relative, let's call him Uncle Joe, began his educational journey into first grade when he was 7 years and 5 months old, just about the same age as the young student cited above is now, at the completion of  almost 5 years of formal education.  There was no kindergarten available to Uncle Joe and no school bus either, so he was unable to attend school until the age when he moved into the Village.  During the years before he attended school, there were no books in the household except for an old family Bible which was rarely if ever taken from the shelf, and an old dictionary, and no educational materials or toys either. Only a few pencils and some random pieces of paper which his mother may well have used to teach him letters.  Once he started school, he went to the head of his class, and stayed there, graduating as class valedictorian. 
     The question arises that with all the emphasis on early education, how effective is it really?  Is it more  a matter of  the brain's readiness to grow and develop, or is all that information that is crammed into the mind of  a very young child a wasted exercise, subject to  the child's innate readiness to learn. The question remains unanswerable because few parents would be willing to take a chance on skipping all the readiness programs to prove that point.  And because children aggressively exposed to learning programs can become  very advanced in their array of knowledge. But bear in mind, precociousness does  not equate with intelligence;  almost everyone will learn the alphabet eventually, and whether at 6 months or 6 years may well not matter at all. Read on...