When Should Children Begin to Read?

In tracing back to their origins the reading difficulties of some children and their distaste for the subject, the Department of Educational Counsel in Winnetka found that in several instances the children's mental ages on entering the first grade had been low and that discouragement had resulted from their first attempts to learn to read. This discouragement sometimes resulted in a mental set against reading, which lasted for years and which hampered all their school work. The research department, therefore, with the aid of the primary-grade teachers, set about the task of discovering the period in the mental development of children when, as a rule, there is the best chance of their learning to read readily. In September, 1928, all Winnetka first-grade children, 141 in number, were given the Detroit First-Grade Intelligence Test. The eight first-grade teachers were not told the mental ages of the children and attempted to teach all of them to read. The method, in accordance with the Winnetka technique, was largely individual, so that the slow children did not retard the fast ones. In February, 1929, the reading progress of these children was measured for the purpose of determining the amount of progress made by children at each mental level. In order that the reading progress might be measured, the first large teaching unit was divided into definite steps, which were measurable by the teachers. Twenty-one steps took the children through the beginning reading materials.' Each further step represented the reading of a primer or first reader. Reading progress was