I recently learned that physical therapist Dr. Glenn Dorman has celebrated his ninetieth birthday. His book, “How to Teach Your Baby to Read,” co-written with Janet Dorman over forty years ago, pioneered an entirely new approach to teaching young children to read.
It all started when Glenn Dorman was teaching brain-damaged preschoolers to read at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia. Dolman claims that a baby will learn the written word as easily as the spoken language and may even learn to read before learning to speak. .That is on the basis that the written word is presented repeatedly and in large letters. His book lays out step-by-step teaching sessions, beginning when the child is two years old. There are several daily periods of less than five minutes each. In a sample session, the father touches the baby’s toes, says the word “toes,” holds up a large sign with the word on it. It is important that each session be a “game” that both participants find “fun” and should always end before the baby gets bored.
Dorman’s approach was and remains controversial. No one has a problem with parents reading to their babies from birth. However, claims by experts that most reading problems could be eliminated if reading was taught at a younger age are not really proven. In Finland, the literacy rate is 99.9%, but students don’t start learning to read until they are seven years old. Four of the top ten countries do not begin formal reading instruction until they are seven years old.
Certain physical and mental skills must be developed before a child can learn to read. The child must be able to correctly hear differences in phonic sounds, he must be able to accurately move his eyes across the page. They must be able to sit still and concentrate and, of course, they must be able to understand what is being read. These are all skills that improve with age.
Educators and child psychologists are generally skeptical about the value of children learning to read at a very young age. They do not doubt that some parents can teach three- and four-year-olds to read. They feel that the motivation of many parents is that it “represents status.” Some critics even fear that early instruction could be harmful. Dr. Paul J. Kinsella, director of the Lake Forest Reading Development Clinic, believes that a young child’s vision and hearing are so disorganized that parental pressure to read can only confuse children or cause emotional blocks that would permanently impair your reading. Burton White of the Harvard School of Education even goes so far as to call homeschooling “part of the overemphasis on brain development.”
However, there are no reliable studies on the long-term effects of parental preschool education. However, there is a general consensus that impatient and uptight parents should not embark on early reading programs with their children.
Supporters of Gentle Revolution propose that young children have within them the ability to learn just about anything while they are young. They believe that what children learn without any conscious effort at two, three, or four years of age can only be learned with great effort, or not learned at all, in later life.
Personally, I do not dispute that very young children can be taught to read. But like so many other current ideas, one must ask whether in the long run it increases the chances of producing well-rounded individuals who can cope with life. She was clearly an exceptionally gifted child.
Babies are wonderfully preprogrammed to do things at the right time for them. A baby learns to lift his head, sit, stand, crawl, and walk when he feels ready. I really wonder if a nine month old should have her brain energy directed at learning to read. Some programs even recommend starting reading at this age.
Starting to teach three or four year olds is something else. About thirty years ago I began using Dorman’s book to teach my three-year-old son to read. He was clearly intelligent and loved books and had an extensive library of his own. Despite his interest, things did not go well. I was very patient, not pushy, but convinced myself that he was a useless teacher. I soon stopped the program because I didn’t want to risk my son feeling like an academic failure before he started kindergarten. This son was a very late reader, like me, and for the same reason.
In his second year of college, my son was diagnosed with severe dyslexia in some areas. This was at a time when many school teachers were unaware of dyslexia, much less the general public. Neither I nor my son had any special help dealing with our reading problems. My late father, who was a doctor, was convinced that I was smart and never gave up on me despite my teachers’ attitude towards my abilities. I continue to be grateful that both my son and I reached a point where suddenly everything fell into place on its own and we could read without any further problems. My son and I, despite the fact that we learned to read late, went to university. Now he is an excellent high school teacher.
Looking back I realize that I had not been able to practice one of the most important precepts of the Dolman, that is, to be “cheerful”. It was only as a Dance and Movement Therapist working with children with special needs that I learned to be joyful in my teaching. Being genuinely cheerful completely changes the student-teacher dynamic. The feeling of joy is powerful, contagious, creative, empowering, and nurturing. In this troubled world, we should try to live our whole life with this energy. Joy and wonder can still be found in the midst of disaster and conflict if we know where to look.