Research finds no advantage in learning to read from age five

says a press release from the world's southernmost university, the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Comparing children from Rudolf Steiner schools, who usually start learning to read from age seven, and children in state-run schools, who start learning to read at five, Dr Sebastian Suggate found that the later learners caught up and matched the reading abilities of their earlier-reading counterparts by the time they were 11, or by Year 7.  Of his third series of experiments, he says:

“It was very exciting and unexpected – one of those science moments. The results concurred with the results of the other two studies and there were no differences in the abilities of the early and later readers by 11.”

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I wonder.  How about readers of this column?