Precocious Readers: Past, Present, and Future · theories of emergent literacy and reading development, and confidently state whether this knowledge could be generalized beyond the

205

Precocious Readers: Past, Present, and Future

Lynn A. Olson

Regent University

James R. Evans University of South Carolina

Wade T. Keckler Regent University

Precocious readers represent a small portion of children who enter school each year. researchers have investigated the environmental characteristics, acquisition process, psycholinguistic and neuropsychological characteristics, and academic skills of these chil-dren. despite the research findings in the area, researchers and clinicians are still unable to predict who these children will be, describe how precocious readers fit into our current theories of emergent literacy and reading development, and confidently state whether this knowledge could be generalized beyond the precocious reader to the typically reading child. forty years of research in this area is reviewed. Suggestions for improving the acces-sibility and generalizability of knowledge about precocious readers are provided.

Each year, approximately 1% of children known as early or preco-cious readers enter preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade classeswith the ability to read (Clark, 1976; Durkin, 1966). An unusualcharacteristicofmostmembersofthisgroupisthattheyhadnofor-mal instruction in phonics or decoding. Furthermore, the readingabilityofthesechildrendoesnotappeartobeinfluencedprimarilyby exceptional intellectual ability or socioeconomic status (Clark;Durkin;Patel&Patterson,1982;Stroebel&Evans,1988;Thomas,1984). Research in this area has spanned nearly 40 years and haslooked at a number of variables including environment, readingprocesses, psycholinguistic and neuropsychological characteristics,

LynnOlsonisanAssistantProfessoratRegentUniversity.JamesR.EvansisProfessorEmeritusattheUniversityofSouthCarolina.WadeKecklerisaPsyDstudentatRegentUniversity.

Journal for the Education of the Gifted.Vol.30,No.2,2006,pp.205–235.Copyright©2006PrufrockPressInc.,http://www.prufrock.com

Journal for the Education of the Gifted206

andacademicskills.Despitetheamountofresearch,thephenomenaremainselusive.Thisarticleintendstoprovideathoroughliteraturereviewofwhatweknowaboutprecociousreadingabilities,aswellastherecommendeddirectionoffutureresearch.

Definition of Early Readers

Aswithmanyotherpsychologicalphenomena,theliteraturedoesnotprovideauniversaldefinitionorsetofguidelinesforidentifyingpre-cociousreaders.Closeexaminationoftheresearch,however,revealsthat,toagreaterorlesserdegree,researchersacknowledgethreecoreconceptsasfeaturesofprecociousreaders.First,andmostobviously,theveryyoungchildmustdemonstrateabilitytodecodewords.Theabilitytodecodehasbeendiverselyoperationalized.Someresearch-ersused less rigorousandobjectivedefinitions.For instance,Anbar(1986)consideredayoungsteranearlyreaderifheorshewasabletoreadsixsimplesentencesconsistingofthreetofivewords;comprehen-sionwasneverassessed.Otherresearchersspecifiedacriterionlevelofreading ability based on norm-referenced, standardized measures ofwordrecognition(Burns&Collins,1987;Clark,1976). Second, in order to rule out hyperlexia, the ability to decodewithoutcomprehension,amajorityofresearchersrequiredthatchil-dren also demonstrate comprehension of written material. Whilesomeresearcherspresumedanydegreeofcomprehensionissynony-mouswithreading(e.g.,Anbar,1986),othersrequiredthatchildrenperform at a given criterion level using norm-referenced measuresof readingability (Durkin,1966;Plessas&Oakes,1964;Stroebel&Evans,1988;Thomas,1984).Manyresearcherswhousednorm-referencedreadingtestsdefinedprecociousreadingastheabilitytodecodeandcomprehenditemsatorabovethesecond-gradelevelforpreschoolers(Plessas&Oakes;Stroebel&Evans;Thomas). Finally, several research studies also considered the role ofinstructioninreadingacquisitionasanimportantelementindefin-ingprecocious reading.Somestudiesexclude thosewhohavepar-ticipatedin“formal”orsystematicreadinginstruction(Salzer,1984;Teale, 1978). Throughout the literature, the concept of formal

Precocious Readers 207

instructionisdiverselyoperationalized.Mostresearcherscategorizeinstructionasformalifitoccurredwithinastructuredschoolenvi-ronment but acknowledge that most early readers in their studiesreceivedsomesortofinformalinstructionfromparents,caregivers,orsiblings(Durkin,1966).Inspectionofpastresearchidentifiedawidevarietyofinformalmeansusedtofacilitatereadingamongsub-jects.Someinstructionalmethodsweredescribedas“spontaneous,intuitive,andunplanned”(Anbar,1986,p.78).Ingeneral,thistypeofhelptendedtobemoreresponsiveandlessdirectivethanformalinstruction,anddescriptiveaccountsindicatedthatchildrenappar-ently learnedtoreadbecauseoftheirabilitytoasktherightques-tionsratherthanbeingdirectlytaught(Clark,1976;Torrey,1969).Otherinformaltypesofhelphavebeenmorestructuredandconsistofreadingkits,preprimers,associationoflettersandsounds,useofpicturedictionaries,alphabetgames,flashcards,andteachingsoundsof letters (Burns & Collins, 1987; Plessas & Oakes, 1964). Whatappearedcommonamongresearchfindings,withtheexceptionofa study by Briggs and Elkind (1977), was that the help providedbyparents, siblings,andcaregiversmostoftenwas initiatedbythechild’sdemonstrationofreadingabilityratherthanthedesireofthehelpertoinitiatereadingskillsdevelopment(Clark;Torrey,1969).Itshouldbenoted,however,thatitispossiblethatmoreformalread-inginstructionwasprovided.Mostoftheinformationwasgatheredthroughinterviewswithparentsandnoneoftheabove-mentionedstudiesaskedthechildrenhowtheylearnedtoread.Itislikelythatretrospective,subjectivereportsprovidedbyparentsdonotprovideanaccurateaccountofhowthechildactuallylearnedtoread.

Psychological Aspects of Precocious Readers

Durkin (1966) pioneered the first large-scale study of precociousreading ability and investigated reading, intellectual, and environ-mentalcorrelatesoftwogroupsofearlyreaders,onefromNewYorkandonefromCalifornia.Muchoftheresearchintheareahasfol-lowedhermodelandcanbedividedintothreegeneralcategories:descriptions of the personal and environmental correlates of early


readers,theprocessofearlyreading,andtheacademicandpsycho-linguisticskillsoftheprecociouslyreadingchild.

General and Environmental Characteristics of Precocious Readers

individual characteristics. Research identified and investigated anumber of individual characteristics hypothesized to be correlatesor possible causal factors of precocity. Intelligence represents onesuchcharacteristic.WhileCox(1926)andGross(2004)reportthatmany gifted children are reading at early ages, research investigat-ingprecociousreadersindicatesthatanaveragetosuperiorlevelofintelligencemaybeanecessaryaccompanimentofearlyreadingbutdoesnotguaranteespontaneousreadingskill.Thatis,manygifted,but nonprecociously reading, preschoolers require formal instruc-tionbeforetheybegintoread(Burns&Collins,1987;Clark,1976;Torrey,1969).Mostbetween-groupstudiesfoundaveragetosupe-riorfullscaleIQ,withreportedmeanormedianlevelsofteninthesuperior range of intelligence (Burns, Collins, & Paulsell, 1991;Durkin,1966;Patel&Patterson,1982;Thomas,1984).IQscoresofsubjectsofthesestudiesarefoundinTable1.Singlecasestudiesofprecociousreadersalsoreportedarangeofintellectualskills,butthemajority reported superior levels of intelligence (Krippner, 1963;Lass,1983;Pennington,Johnson,&Welsh,1987). Inadditiontointellectualskills,anumberofresearchersinvestigatedpersonality correlates of precocious readers. Among these studies, allreliedonparentalinterviewdatatodescribepersonalitycharacteristicsofearlyreaders(Durkin,1966;Salzer,1984;Thomas,1984)ratherthanobjectivemeasuresofpersonalitytraits,suchaschildbehavioralcheck-lists. Inherfirst studies,Durkin foundthatparentsofherCaliforniagroup described their children as more “persistent,” “perfectionistic,”“curious,”“competitive,”andhavinga“goodmemory.”TheseresultswerenotreplicatedwithherNewYorkgroupwhereparentaldescriptionsofcharacteristicsdidnotdifferentiatereadersfromnonreaders.Likewise,Salzer,usingqualitativeanalysisofbothdirectobservationofstructuredandunstructuredparent-childandexaminerinteractionsandinterviewdata collection procedures, found no consistent personality factorsamongearlyreaders. DuringinterviewsperformedbyThomas,mothers


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ofearlyreaderstendedtousemore“cognitive/creative”words,suchas“positive”and“intellectual,”todescribetheirchildren,whileparentsofnonreadersusedmore“emotional/social”descriptorstodescribetheirchildren. Hence, no consistent personality correlates of early readershave been identified. The failure to identify common correlates mayreflecttheuseofsubjectiveandopen-endedmeansofgatheringdata,oritmaysuggestthatearlyreadersareaheterogeneousgroupofchildrenwhoshareexceptionalreadingskills. Investigationsofplayortoypreferenceshavefailedtoidentifyconsistentplaypatternsamongearlyreaders.Durkin(1966)foundthat early readers enjoyed solitary and quiet play. Thomas (1984)foundthatreadersenjoyedmorereadingreadinesstoyswhilenon-readersenjoyedadiversityoftoysthroughoutearlychildhood.BriggsandElkind(1977),however,foundnodifferencesinpreferencesfortoysamongreadersandnonreaders. Someresearchersidentifiedtheamountoftelevisionwatchedbyearlyreadersasavariableofinterest,but,again,fewhavefoundcon-sistentpatternsamongearlyreaders.Durkin(1966)foundthatpre-cociousreaderstendedtowatchtelevisionlessthan6hoursperweek.Otherresearchers,however,reportedthatthechildrenwatchedupto2hoursperday(Briggs&Elkind,1973;Plessas&Oakes,1964). Like the amount of television watched, reported television pref-erences also varied across studies. Durkin (1966) found that theprecociously reading children in her study did not prefer nursery-school-kindergartentypeprograms(e.g.,“SesameStreet,”“TheElectricCompany,”etc.)butpreferredcommercials,quizprograms,andweatherprograms.Otherresearchersreportedthatmanyearlyreaderspreferrededucational-type programs with some watching a particular show uptofourtimesperday(Salzer,1984).Jackson,Donaldson,andCleland(1988) found that a majority of precocious readers whose parentsresponded to their questionnaire started watching educational pro-gramsbeforetheageof2years(81%watched“SesameStreet”and67%watchedthe“TheElectricCompany”before2years).Althoughsomeresearchersfoundnodifferencesamongreadersandnonreadersintheamountoftimespentwatching“SesameStreet”(Briggs&Elkind,1973;Thomas,1984),BriggsandElkind(1973)reportedthatearlyreaderswatched“TheElectricCompany”significantlymorethannonreaders.


Environmental factors. Researchershavealsoinvestigatedanumberofenvironmentalfactorsaspossiblecorrelatesofearlyreadingabili-ties.Forexample,socioeconomicstatushasbeenstudied.Researchhas not supported socioeconomic status as a primary factor asso-ciatedwithearlyreadingskills regardlessofwhether father’soccu-pation or parental educational level is considered. Studies of earlyreadershaveindicatedthatavarietyofsocioeconomicbackgroundsarerepresentedamongprecociousreaders.Amonghertwogroups(CaliforniaandNewYork),Durkin(1966) foundthatearly read-ersemanatedfrombluecollarfamiliesintheCaliforniagroup,butwere more evenly distributed among upper lower, lower, middle,and upper middle classes in the New York study. A few research-ers reported that mothers of early readers had higher educationallevels and socioeconomic standing (Briggs & Elkind, 1973, 1977;Durkin).Otherresearchersfoundthatearlyreaderswerefrommid-rangesocioeconomicstatus(Anbar,1986;Patel&Patterson,1982).Inaqualitativeanalysisof40earlyreaders,PlessasandOakes(1964)foundthatthesechildrenoftencamefromfamilieswhowerecleri-calorprofessionalworkers.However,mostbetween-groupstudiesof readers and nonreaders found no differences between the twogroups on socioeconomic variables such as income and father’soccupation (Thomas, 1984). The fact that socioeconomic factorsplay suchaminimalrole inprecociousreading is surprising;moststudiesinthefieldofgiftednessoverallusuallyfindsocioeconomicstatustobeasignificantfactorinthedevelopmentofgiftedchildren(Konstantopoulos,Modi,&Hedges,2001). Durkin (1966) had hypothesized that socioeconomic statuswouldinteractwithparents’attitudestowardearlyreading.AccordingtoDurkin,however,failuretofindarelationshipbetweensocioeco-nomic status and early reading abilities may not be a reflection ofsocioeconomicstatusalonebutmayrepresentachangeamongmid-dle-classattitudestowardacceptingandencouragingearlyreading.Other researchers posited that parental attitude toward educationmayinfluenceachild’sabilitymorethaneitherparentalincomeorfather’s occupational status (Clark, 1976). No other studies, how-ever, have investigated parental attitude toward early reading as apossiblecontributortoearlyreadingskills.


Afewstudiesinvestigatedparentalcharacteristicssuchasreadinghabits.Theseresearchersreportedthatoneorbothparentsofearlyreadersconsideredthemselvesavidreaders(Durkin,1966;Krippner,1963;Teale,1978).Themodelingprovidedbyparentsmayhavepro-videdanimpetusfortheirchild(ren)’sinterestinreading. Among the home-environment factors investigated, manyresearchershaveexaminedthechild’sinteractionwithreadingmate-rials as a possible factor affecting early reading acquisition. Takentogether,thestudiesidentifiedanumberofwayschildrencaninter-actwithreadingmaterials.First,severalstudiesindicatedthatpar-ents and/or siblings read to the precocious reader regularly, manyonadailybasis(Anbar,1986;Briggs&Elkind,1973;Clark,1976;Durkin,1966;Krippner,1963;Plessas&Oakes,1964;Stainthorp& Hughes, 2004b; Stroebel & Evans, 1988). Some were read toseveraltimesperday(Plessas&Oakes).Instudieswhereacontrolgroupwasused,earlyreaderswerereadtomoreoftenthannonpre-cociousreaders(Briggs&Elkind,1973;Stroebel&Evans).BriggsandElkind(1973)foundthatfathersofreadersreadtotheirchil-drensignificantlymorethanfathersofnonreaders. Second, some research has indicated that these children areexposed to a variety of reading material (Brenna, 1995; Teale,1978).Inseveraloftheinvestigativestudies,researchersfoundthatparentsprovidedtheirchildrenwithanumberofchildren’sbooksfrom which to read (Clark, 1976; Durkin, 1966; Krippner, 1963;Stainthorp&Hughes,2004b;Torrey,1969).Inonestudy,parentsof readers took their children to the library more often than par-entsofnonreaders(Briggs&Elkind,1977).Books,however,werenottheonlymodalityofreadingprovided.Childrenusedtheirearlyreadingabilityinanumberofothersituations.Forinstance,childrencommonly showed interest inprint foundoncommonhouseholdobjectsandotherenvironmentalstimulisuchassigns,cerealboxes,andproductsonTV(Clark;Durkin;Krippner;Torrey). Third,earlyreadersinthosestudiesfrequentlyshowedinterestinwrittenmaterialbydisplayinginterestinwritingskills(Teale,1978).Severalstudiesindicatedthatthesechildren’sinterestsandabilitiesin reading coincided with a desire to write. Durkin (1966), Clark


(1976),andPlessasandOakes(1964)allindicatedthatearlyreadersshowedadesiretowriteandprintbycopyinglettersandnumbers. Fourth,oneresearchstudyinvestigatedthesocial-linguisticenvi-ronmentofearlyreaders.DavidsonandSnow(1995)usedaqualitativeanalysistoperformabetween-groupcomparisonofthesocialinterac-tionsofparentsandtheirchildren.Sixearlyreaderswerematchedtosix nonearly readers by age, sex, and receptive vocabulary. Variablesof interest included language complexity, conversational devices,and topic. Children’s decontextualized language was also assessed.Complexity referred to the mean length of the utterance and themeanlengthoftheturn.Conversationaldevicesreferredtothespeak-ers’ roles and included inquiries, clarification, information, explana-tion,andtopicinitiations.Decontextualizedlanguagewasassessedbyrequestingdefinitionsofagroupofnouns(e.g.,knife,diamond),aswellasrequestingproceduraldescriptions(e.g.,howtoplaycheckers).Resultsindicatedthatparentsofprecociousreadersprovidedamorechallenging and rich linguistic environment for their children thandidparentsofnonprecociouslyreadingchildren.Fathers,inparticu-lar,providedmorecomplexspeechpatterns.Differencesinthechil-dren’suseofdecontextualizedlanguageshowedthatearlyreadersweresuperior at providing procedural descriptions but not in providingdefinitions.Whiletheresultssuggestthatearlyreadershavearicherlinguisticenvironment, theauthors recognized theneed for furtherresearchtodeterminewhetherthericherenvironmentwasacauseoforconsequenceofthechildren’sreadingability. Finally, and possibly one of the most important factors corre-latedwithearlyreading,istheparents’abilityanddesiretorespondto theirchild’sability.Brenna(1995)notedthatparentsprovidedindirectsupportbyspendingtimewiththeirchildren,playing,andtalking,whichprovidedrolemodelingoforalandwrittenlanguageskills. Furthermore, several researchers noted parents’ response tothechild’squestionsregardingletters,words,andspellingwhen thechildneededthathelpasaprimarycontributortothechild’sread-ing ability (Brenna; Clark, 1976; Durkin, 1966; King & Friesen,1972;Krippner,1963;Plessas&Oakes,1964).InBrenna’squalita-tiveinvestigationoftheparent-childinteraction,shereportedthatparentsencouragedearlyreaderstouseavarietyofproblem-solving


strategiesandtendedto“gowiththechild’scommonstrategies”(p.59)astheprimarymeansoffacilitatingprogress.AccordingtoTeale(1978),parental responsivenessprovideschildren immediate feed-backbasedonthechild’sinterest. Insummary,despitethenumberofgeneralandenvironmentalfactors investigated, none of the factors (intellectual, personality,or environmental) appear to provide a definitive explanation fortheexceptionalreadingabilityoftheseyoungsters( Jackson,1992;Teale, 1978). Consequently, some researchers have looked beyondtheenvironmentalcorrelatesofearlyreadingtoprocessesandpsy-cholinguistic skills in an attempt to understand the expression ofearlyreadingmoreclearly.

Developmental Process of Precocious Reading

Priortodiscussingtheextantliteratureontheprocessofprecociousreading,itisimportanttonotethatwhilethelastfewdecadeshavemadeimportantdiscoverieswithregardtoemergentliteracy(seeElbro,1996;Snowling,2002),asingletheorydoesnotyetexist(Snowling).However, some brief comments can be made. It is clear that bothprocedural(e.g.,phonemeawareness, letterknowledge)andcontex-tual(e.g.,functionalaspectsofreading)knowledgearenecessary,butresults of studies vary depending on methodological issues (Korat,2005).Itfollowsthattheoriesofreadingdevelopmentshouldaccountforbothaspects.However,nonehavecurrentlyfullyexplainedreadingdevelopment.Existingtheoriescanbeidentifiedintooneoffourlev-els:stagemodels,evolutionarytheoriesbasedonempiricalknowledge,cognitiveprocessingtheories,andbiologicaltheories(Rack,Hulme,&Snowling,1993).Additionally,somecommonalitiescanbeobservedfromstagetheories,includingalogographicorvisualapproachstageandanalphabeticstrategystage(Snowling).

Justastheliteratureintypicalreadingdevelopment,theresearchinvestigating the process among precocious readers also has lookedattheseexplanatorylevels.Afewstudieshaveattemptedtodescribethe process of early reading. Forester (1977) reviewed the work ofDurkin(1966)andTorrey(ascitedinForester,1977)inconjunctionwithotherinformationonteachingreadingskills,paralleledreading


acquisitionwithlanguageacquisition,and,subsequently,identifiedanumberofkey factors in theirdescriptionof theprocessof readingacquisition.First,shefoundthatprecociousreadingislearnedbutnotdirectlytaught.Likelearningtospeak,earlyreaderstendedtobeginbyactuallyreadingfamiliarmaterial;asightvocabularydeveloped.Liketherulesofgrammar,therulesofthealphabetanddecodingwerenotexplicitlyknown.Second,Foresternotedthatfluentreadingwasmod-eled.(Relatedly,theimportanceofbeingreadtointheearlyreadingprocesshasbeendocumentedbyseveralresearchersandwasdiscussedearlier [Anbar, 1986; Briggs & Elkind, 1977; Clark, 1976; Durkin;Krippner,1963;Plessas&Oakes,1964;Stroebel&Evans,1988]).Asaconsequenceofmodeling,readingapparentlywasacquiredthroughatop-downprocessratherthanabottom-upprocess.Thatis,childrenwerenot taught theprerequisite skillsof reading suchasphoneme-graphemecorrespondencesorletter-namingskillsbut,instead,learnedtoreadfamiliar,meaningfulsightvocabulary;therulesofreadingwerenotexplicitlytaughtbutapparentlyinferredovertime.

Inacasestudy,Lass(1983)describedthereadingprocessofa3-year-old early reader. She identified two primary phases of theprocess. During the first stage, the child demonstrated prereadingskills.Prereadingskillsincludedaperceptionofselfasareader,read-ingpreferences,andgainingmeaningfromreadingsimplematerial.FromLass’spointofview,however,thechildwasnotyeta“reader”becausehenotabletodecodewordsorreadbooksindependently.Duringthesecondstage,thechilddemonstratedtruereadingskills.The process proceeded through a number of substages. The childfirstshowedavastsightvocabularybasedonwordsinfavoriteandfamiliarbooks.Next,thechildusedwordstructuretoidentifynewwords; words with only differing beginning or ending consonantswere identified first, and later the child unsystematically coveredlettersegments inanattemptto identifythewordsbyparsingthewordintorandomsegments,independentofsyllablesorlefttorightsequencing.Duringthenext stage, thechilddemonstrateddecod-ingabilitiesthathelearnedthroughinstructioninletter-soundrela-tionships.Useofcontextualcues,includingpreviousknowledgeofcommon phrases and visual cues, constituted the final substage oftheprocess.Basedonherobservations,Lassbelievedthattheearly


reader approached reading in an integrated manner, neither top-downnorbottom-up.Thatis,thechildexecutedthereadingprocessfrombothameaningandaphoneticapproach. Anbar(1986)studiedsixearlyreadersages2years9monthsto4years10monthstodeterminewhetherauniversalprocesscouldbeidentifiedamongthechildren.Usinganunstructuredinterviewwith parents, as well as a more structured interview addressingfamily background, play experiences, preschool experiences, read-ing-relatedactivities,progressionof readingmaterial, andparentalattitudestowardreading,theauthoridentifiedsixtosevensequen-tialstagesthroughwhichreadersprogressed.StageIwascharacter-izedbyawarenessofprintandbooksasevidencedbychoosingbooksandeducationaltelevisionprogramsasplayinterests.DuringStageII,thechildrenbegantonamelettersandshowevidenceofasightvocabulary.StagesIIIandIVwerecharacterizedbylearningletter-sound associations and making words with these sounds, respec-tively.Thechildbegantoactivelyreadfamiliarbooksduringthefifthstage.Theabilitytosoundoutnewwordsandsubsequentlytoreadunfamiliar books occurred during Stages VI and VII, respectively.Anbaralsospeculatedthataneighthstage,readingforenjoyment,completedthereadingprocess. Giventhesubjectivenatureofthemethodologiesandthelackof specific criteria defining the stages, it is somewhat difficult todetermine whether the stages reported by Anbar (1986) and Lass(1983) corroborate or contradict each other. Anbar, who com-paredhermodeltoLass’s,statedthatthestrikingsimilaritybetweenthe two models support the basic stages found in her model (seeTable 2). She argued that differences in the two models were duetodifferingdesignsandmethodologiesusedwithineachstudy.Noresearchstudies,however,haveusedmoreobjectivemeanstodefinethestages,and,withoutsuchresearch,atrueunderstandingoftheprocessofearlyreadingremainssubjective.Irrespectiveofthestagesdefinedbyeitheroftheauthors,theresearchdoessuggestthatpre-cociousreadersareabletoapproachreadingasmaturereaders.Earlydescriptionsofreadingdevelopmentindicatethatearlyreadersareabletousebothaphonemic,skills-basedapproachandasemantic,meaning-basedapproach.


Morerecently,researchershaveattemptedtodefinemetacogni-tiveprocessesusedbyearlyreaders.Inaqualitativestudythatusedacombinationofroleplaying,semistructuredinterview,anddirectobservation, Brenna (1995) investigated the metacognitive read-ingstrategiesoffiveearlyreadersages4years11monthsto6years.Metacognitivestrategies investigatedincludedself-knowledge(i.e.,understandingofcognition)andtaskknowledge(i.e.,mechanismsofself-regulation).AccordingtoBrenna,earlyreadersusedavarietyof metacognitive skills. Within the self-knowledge category, earlyreaderswereabletovarytheirapproachbasedonthetaskandsitua-tion.Forexample,onechildrelayedthatstrategiesvariedwhenfeel-ing tired. Furthermore, early readers chose reading material basedontheirunderstandingoftheirownskills.Bookselectionstrategiesincludedexaminingthebookjacket,surveyingcontents,andassess-ing text familiarity.Within the task-knowledgecategory, theearlyreadersapproachedreadingasaproblem-solvingprocess.Self-regu-latory behaviors included rereading the text, asking for assistance,soundingoutwords,andusingcontextualcuesandpreviousknowl-edge.Overall,Brennaconcludedthatearlyreaders’abilitytousea

Table 2

A Comparison of Developmental Models of Early Reading Skills

Lass’sStagesofReadingAcquisition CorrespondingStagesofAnbar’sModel

PrereadingSkills StageI—AwarenessofPrintReadingAcquisitionPhaseSightVocabulary StageII—LetterIdentification&

SightVocabularyUsingWordStructure StageIV—PuttingTogetherWordsDecoding StageIII—LearningLetterSoundsActiveParticipationinReading StageV—ActiveReadingContextCues StageVII—ReadingEasyUnfamiliar

Books

note. Adapted from Anbar, A. (1986). Reading acquisition of preschool children without sys-tematic instruction. Early childhood research Quarterly, 1, 69–83.


varietyofself-knowledgeandtask-knowledgemetacognitivestrate-giesinaflexiblemannercontributedtotheirsuperiorreadingskills.

Psycholinguistic Characteristics of Precocious Readers

Whilestagemodelsandmetacognitiveapproacheshelpdescribethereadingprocess,anumberofresearchersinvestigatedspecificskills,orpsycholinguisticabilities,ofearlyreaders.Psycholinguisticskillsinvestigatedincludephonemicawareness,memory,andvisual-motorskills,aswellasletter,word,andtextreadingspeed. A great deal of research has investigated phonemic awarenessof early readers, a metacognitive skill that involves being sensitivetoandabletomanipulatethephonologicalstructureofwords(Bus&vanIJzendoorn,1999).Earlyresearchtendedtoviewphonemicawareness as a monolithic concept and measured single aspects ofphonologicalawarenesssuchasphonemeblendingorsegmentation.Recent research, however, suggests that phonological awareness ishierarchicalinnature.Perfetti,Beck,Bell,andHughes(1987)dividephonologicalawarenessintophonologicalsynthesis(e.g.,phonemeblending)andphonologicalanalysis(e.g.,phonemesegmentation).From this perspective, phonological synthesis represents a prereq-uisitetoreading,whereasphonologicalanalysisrepresentsahigherlevel skill that has a reciprocal relationship to reading (Stainthorp&Hughes,1998).Althoughearlyresearchersdidnotsubcategorizephonologicalawarenessinthismanner,thedivisionappearshelpfulinunderstandingtheskillsofearlyreadersandwillbediscussedassuchhereafter.

StainthorpandHughes(1998)providedadevelopmentalper-spectivetoearlyreadingskills.Inanattempttounderstandthedevel-opmentofphonologicalawarenessincludingsynthesisandanalysis,StainthorpandHughes(1998)administeredagroupofnonstandard-izedstimulusitemstotwogroupsofchildrenwhosemeanagewas5years.Onegroupconsistedof17earlyreaderswhowerematchedby verbal intelligence to same-aged nonreaders. Instruments wereadministeredthreetimesovera3-yeartimespan(Time1=5years,Time 2 = 5 years 11 months, and Time 3 = 6 years 11 months).Results indicated that early readers were significantly more profi-


cientatphonologicalsynthesistasks(rhyming,phonemeaddition,phonemedeletion,andblending)atalltestingperiods.Basedonanonsignificantdiscrepancybetweenearly readersonprevious test-ingandnonearlyreadersonthefollowingyear’stesting,researchersinferredthatnonearlyreadersdisplayedphonologicalsynthesisskillsapproximately1yearbehindtheearlyreaders.Whileearlyreadersdidnotperformatceilinglevelsat5yearsofage,theyhadreachedceilinglevelsbythetimetheywere7yearsold.Onthetaskofpho-nemeanalysis(i.e.,phonemesegmentation),whichrequiredpartici-pantstoseparatewordsintocomponentphonemes,StainthorpandHughes(1998)foundthatalthoughearlyreaderssignificantlyout-performedthenonearlyreadersoneachadministration,at6years11months,earlyreadershadstillnotcompletelymasteredthephonemesegmenting task. As on the phoneme synthesis tasks, comparisonsbetweenearlyandnonearlyreadersonphonemeanalysistasksindi-catedthatnonearlyreaderslaggedbehindtheearlyreadersby1year.Theauthorsinterpretedthisresultasevidencethatphonemeanaly-sisrepresentsthemoredifficulttaskthathasareciprocalrelationshipwithreading.Integratingofthedevelopmentalresultsofthetasksofphonologicalsynthesisandanalysis,StainthorpandHughes(1998)concludedthatthehierarchicalsequenceofphonologicalawarenessisrhyming,blendingandphonemeaddition,phonemedeletion,andsegmentationofwordsintophonemes.

Backman(1983)examinedearlyreaders’abilitytoidentifythenumberofphonemesinaword(phonemesegmentation).Accordingtotheauthor,phonemesegmentationfacilitatesdecodingandthere-foretheabilitytosoundoutnewwords.Inacomparisonstudyofearly readers, nonearly readers matched for age, and older readersmatched for reading level, Backman measured segmentation skillsthroughatappingtestandasounddeletiontask.Thetappingtestrequiredstudentstotaponthetableforeachindividualphonemeinagivenword.Thesounddeletiontaskrequiredchildrentosayanewwordformedwhenasoundhadbeendeletedfromtheword.Resultsindicatedthatearlyreaderswerenobetterthannonreadersatindi-catingthenumberofphonemesinaword,andneithertheearlyread-ersnorthenonreadersweresignificantlydifferentfromolderreadersatthetask.Further,resultsonthetappingtestwerenotsignificantly


correlated with spelling or reading achievement. In contrast, earlyandolderreaderswereequallyproficientandbothweresignificantlybetterthannonreadersatidentifyingnewwordsinthesounddele-tiontask.Thiswastheonlypsycholinguisticskillmeasuredthatsig-nificantlycorrelatedwithspellingandreadingachievement(soundblendingandspeech-sounddiscriminationwerenotconsideredandwillbediscussedlater).Within-groupresults,however,werevariable,withsomeearlyreadersperformingbelowthe30thpercentileonthesounddeletion task.According toBackman, these results indicatethatalthoughbothtasksappeartomeasurephonemesegmentation,thetappingtestrepresentsanabstracttaskthatisnotaprerequisitefororaconsequenceofearlyreadingability.Sounddeletion,ontheotherhand,whilenotaprerequisiteforreading,mayprovideacon-textualreadingstrategythatfacilitieswordrecognition. However,Backman’s(1983)resultscouldbeinterpretedinthelightofandassupportforStainthorpandHughes’s(1998)descrip-tion ofthehierarchicalorderofphonemicawareness.Backmanfoundthatearlyreadersoutperformednonearlyreadersandperformedlikeolderreadersonthesounddeletiontask.Furthermore,resultsofthesound deletion task correlated with reading and spelling achieve-ment.ThiswouldsupportStainthorpandHughes’s(1998)conten-tionthatphonemedeletionisaskillofphonemesynthesis,aswellasarequisiteskillforreading.Furthermore,Backmanreportedthatearlyreaderswerenotasproficientasolderreadersatphonemeseg-mentationandthatphonemesegmentationwasnotcorrelatedwithreading and spelling achievement. These findings provide furthersupport for Stainthorp and Hughes’s (1998) belief that phonemesegmentationrepresentsahigherlevelskillthathasareciprocalrela-tionshipwithreading,ratherthanaprerequisite. A number of studies investigated sound blending, the abilityto combine phonemes into words. Results of Evans and Smith’s(1976)studyindicatedthatall19childrenintheirstudyscoredatorbeyondthreestandarddeviationsabovethemeanonthemeasure.Briggs and Elkind (1977) also found that early readers performedsignificantlybetterthannonreadersonthesound-blendingsubtestand concluded that sound blending represents a requisite skill forearly reading. Stroebel and Evans (1988) found that early readers


performed significantly better than nonreaders on tasks requiringsound blending. Backman (1983) assessed syllable and phonemeblendingskillsofthreegroups(earlyreaders,age-matchednonread-ers, and older readers). Backman found that while older readersweresignificantlymoreproficientatphonemeblendingandsyllableblendingthanbothearlyandnonreaders,earlyreadersweresignifi-cantlybetteratphonemeblendingthannonreaders.Syllableblend-ingwassignificantlycorrelatedwithreadingandspellingskillsonlyin older readers. Based on these results, she concluded that soundblendingisneitheraprerequisitenoraconsequenceofreadingandsuggestedthatitmayrepresentadevelopmentalskillthatisrelatedto a third variable, such as working memory. In light of currentresearchonphonologicalawareness,itisalsopossiblethatthethirdvariablemaybe related to thecomplexityof the taskandrequiresadditionalreadingexperience.Earlier, itwasnotedthatPerfettietal.(1987)foundareciprocalrelationshipbetweenphoneticaware-nessandreadingability.Thefactthatolderreadersaremoreskilledatphonemeblendingandsyllableblendingmaythenbearesultofadditionalexperienceinreading. Auditory discrimination, the ability to discriminate betweenspeechsounds,isalsoconsideredanimportantskillforreading,butresults do not unequivocally support its importance as a necessaryskillforreading(Backman,1983).Clark(1976)comparedtheskillsofearlyreaderstothoseofnonreaders.Shefoundthatearlyreadershadfewdifficultieswithanauditorydiscriminationtaskwhilenonread-ersusuallyhadsignificantdifficultieswiththetask(59%hadinvalidscores).Backman’sstudyinvestigatedauditorydiscriminationusingameasurethatcontainedbothabackgroundnoiseandaquietsubtest.Backmanreportedthattheolderreadersperformedsignificantlybet-teronthenoisesubtestthanearlyreaders,andearlyreadersdidnotdiffersignificantlyfromnonreadersoneithersubtest. A few studies investigated speed and accuracy of letter, word,and text-naming skills. A 6-month longitudinal study performedbyJacksonandMyers(1982)investigatedtheroleofletter-namingspeedonthereadingachievementofearlyreaders.Resultsindicatedthatoverall, letter-namingtimeswereslowerforearlyreadersthanforoldernonprecociousreadersofthesamereadinglevel.Further,


in comparing two age levels of precocious readers (mean ages 49and56months),theauthorsfoundthattheoldergroupwasmoreproficientatletternamingthantheyoungergroupregardlessofcur-rentreadinglevel.Thatis,eventhebestreadersintheyoungergroupperformed worse than readers of equal or lower reading ability intheoldergroup.AccordingtoJacksonandBiemiller(1985),theseresultssuggestthatrapidletteridentificationskillsarenotaprereq-uisite of successful reading. Jackson and Myers did find, however,that letter-naming speed was a significant predictor of concurrentandfuture(approximately6monthslatencyperiod)readingachieve-ment.Theseresults,moreover,corroboratethefindingofPerfettietal.(1987),whonotedareciprocalrelationshipbetweenphonemicawareness and orthographic knowledge. It is possible that preco-ciousreadersaremorematureintheirreadingabilitiesbuthavenotyethadtheexperienceandinteractionwithwrittenmaterialneces-sarytosomereadinessskills(i.e.,letter-namingskills). In a study designed to expand these findings, Jackson andBiemiller (1985) investigated the letter, word, and text readingtimesofearlyreadersascomparedtoolderreadersinthesecondandthirdgrades.Theauthors foundassociationsbetween letter,word,andtextreadingspeedandcomprehension.LikeJacksonandMyers(1982), results showed that precocious readers performed letter-namingtasksmoreslowlythanolderchildrenat the samereadinglevel.Theydiddiscover,however,thatprecociousreadersreadwordsatthesamelevelandreadtextfasterthanthegroupofsecond-andthird-gradereaders.Becauseofcorrelationsbetweenspeedandcom-prehension, the authors interpreted these results as offering somesupportforextendingbottom-uptheoriesofreading,whichwouldpredictthatletterandwordreadingskillsareprerequisitetoreadingcomprehension skills. The authors, however, do acknowledge thatthe relationships were modest and seem to imply that precociousreaderssomehowcompensatefortheirrelativelyslowerletter-nam-ing speed by using orthographic information more efficiently andthatsuperiortextreadingspeedandcomprehensionistheresultofmorebalancedtop-downandbottom-upskills. Using the same sample of precocious readers as Jackson andBiemiller(1985),Jacksonetal.(1988)investigatedthereadingstruc-


tureofprecociousreaders.Jacksonetal.hypothesizedthat,likeaver-ageindividualsandindividualswithreadingdisabilities,precociousreaders would demonstrate a uniform reading structure consistingof a conceptual dimension, which represented global comprehen-sionskill,andananalyticdimension,whichconsistedofthebasicskillsnecessaryforreading.Resultsofthestudydidnotsupportthehypothesizedtwo-factor simple structure.Althoughthehierarchi-cal structure was supported, results indicated that with regard tospecific skills and reading style, precocious readers show no singlepatternbutarevariableintheirabilities;thatis,earlyreadingabilitywasonlymoderatelycorrelatedwithverbalability,short-termmem-ory,andname-retrievalspeed.Subsequently,theauthorsconcludedthatforearlyreaders,nospecificprerequisiteskillsorreadingstyleisnecessary,but,rather,thecurrent levelofreadingabilityreflectsthechild’sabilitytoeffectivelyuseknowledgeandreadingstrategiesappropriately.Itisalsopossible,however,thattheconclusionmadebytheauthorsiserroneousandthatthetrueprerequisiteskillsforreadingwerenotmeasured. In a study that further explores the precursors to precociousreading, Silven, Poskiparta, and Niemi (2004) found that preco-cious reading was 30 times more common among Finnish-speak-ingchildrenthanamongEnglish-speakingchildren.Intheir studyof61Finnish-speakingchildren,18(30%)childrenwereidentifiedasprecociousreadersbeforeenteringthefirstgrade,asmeasuredbya specifiedreadingcriterion.Theauthors suggest linguistic factorssuch as the nearly perfect grapheme-to-phoneme correspondenceinFinnish,togetherwithlaterschoolentrythanexperiencedintheUnitedStates(7years3months),increasetheprevalenceofpreco-ciousreadersinFinland.Theauthors’analysisoftheirresultsindi-catedthat,onthebasisofvocabularysizeat2yearsandmasteryofinflectionsat3years,theycouldidentifythecorrectreadingstatusof56%oftheirsample.

Neurological Correlates of Precocious Reading

Anumberofresearchershavealsoinvestigatedtheneurologicalcor-relatesofprecociousreading,includingmemoryandvision-related


skillsofearlyreaders.EvansandSmith(1976)andJacksonandMyers(1982)foundthatperformanceontasksofvisualmemorywerecor-relatedwithearlyreadingskills.However,Clark(1976)foundthattherewasvariabilityinimmediatevisualmemoryamongprecociousreaders, ranging from below average to average. Furthermore, pre-cociousreaderswereadvancedinskillsrequiredforproficientread-ing, suchas fastertextreading( Jackson&Biemiller,1985).Thus,these latter results could suggest that some early readers may per-form at advanced levels on measures of reading because they areusingavisualapproachtowardreadingratherthanaphonologicalapproach, which is consistent with previous descriptions of earlyreaders(Forester,1977). Thefewstudiesinvestigatingvisual-motorskillsamongprecociousreaders have not supported superior visual-motor skills among thisgroup.Theperformanceofprecociousreadersontestsofvisual-motorintegrationvary frombelowaverage tocomparable to their readingskills(Clark,1976;Evans&Smith,1976).Clarkhypothesizedthattheabilitytoreadrequirestheabilitytorecognizespatialorientationbutnottheabilitytomotoricallyreproduceageometricfigure. In an attempt to define some neuropsychological correlates ofearlyreading,StroebelandEvans(1988)matched21earlyreaderswith21controlsubjectsbasedonintelligencetestscores.Theauthorsusedaseriesofneuropsychologicalassessmenttechniquesbelievedtoassessfunctionofdifferingbrainareas.Incontrastwiththepredic-tionthatearlyreaderswouldshowsuperiordevelopmentinposte-riorlefthemisphericfunctioning,theauthorsfoundthatprecociousreaders scored significantly higher on tests associated with righthemispheric functioning(lefthandtapping)and leftfrontal func-tioning(verbalfluency).AccordingtoStroebelandEvans,becausemostlefthemispheremeasureswerehighlycorrelatedwithgeneralintelligence, this unforeseen finding may have been a result of thesubjectmatchingprocessratherthanatruephenomenon.Mostlefthemispheremeasuresusedmayhaveprovidedanindicationofover-allintellectualabilityratherthanhavinganyuniquerelationshiptoreadingskills.Asaresult,differencesinlefthemisphericfunctioningwerenotfoundbetweentheseprecociousandnonreadersmatchedonIQ.Nostudieshavefurthertestedthishypothesis.


Finally,inasimilarattempttoidentifysomeneuropsychologicalcorrelatesofearlyreading,Suldo,Olson,andEvans(2001)comparedpeakfrequencyinthealphabandof15childrenwithprecociousread-ingabilitytothatoftwocontrolgroups.Thefirstcontrolgroupcon-sistedof15age-levelmatchedchildrenwhoweresimilarincognitivefunctioningandage,butreadingatgradelevel.Thesecondcompari-songroupconsistedof15reading-levelmatchedchildrenwithsimilarintelligenceandreading level scores,exceptthattheywere2.5yearsolder.Theresearcherscomparedelectroencephalogram(quantitativeelectroencephalogram) data on each participant obtained from 19scalpelectrodesites.Thepeakfrequencyinalphadidnotdiffersignifi-cantlybetweentheprecociousreadersandthereading-levelmatchedcontrolgroup.Incontrast,theauthorsfoundthattheearlyreadershadsignificantlyhigheralphapeakfrequencythantheage-levelmatchedgroupat16ofthe19electrodesitesexamined.Thus,thisstudysuggeststhatpeakfrequencyinthealphabandmaybeassociatedwithpreco-ciousreadingability,possiblyanindicatorofadvancedbrainmatura-tion.However,eachofthetwocontrolgroupsandtheexperimentalgroupwasrelativelysmall(n =15)providinglimitedgeneralizationofthisstudyatthepresenttime.

Academic Skills of Precocious Readers

Few researchers have investigated the present and/or future aca-demic skills of early readers. Clark (1976) reported the spelling,writing,andarithmeticskillsofthe32precociousreadersthatsheinvestigated. Group scores were variable, but all spelled above ageexpectancy for their chronological ages of 4.5 to 6.5 years (spell-ing performance ranged from 5–12 years; median = 7 years). Shemadetwoprimaryobservations.First,thechildrenwerecognizantofwordstheydidanddidnotknow;theytendedtorespelldifficultwordsindicatingdissatisfactionwithwhattheyproduced.Second,misspellings were often consistent with irregular English spellings(e.g.,“fihgt”for“fight”).Withrespecttowritingskills,andinaccor-dancewithvisual-motorskillspreviouslyaddressed,Clarkfoundthatearlyreaderstendedtohaveaverageandbelowaveragewritingskills


(e.g.,legibility).Furthermore,Clarkfoundthatmathskillstendedtobeinthesuperiorrange(>95thpercentile). Durkin(1966)followedreadingachievementofherCaliforniaandNewYorkgroupsthroughout6and4years,respectively.Resultsindicatedthat,asexpected,earlyreadersdemonstratedasignificantlyhighermeanlevelofachievementthanIQ-matchednonearlyread-ers. Furthermore, achievement was greater for those children whoweredoublepromoted.Bothstudiesalsorevealedthatmoreintelli-gentearlyreaders(medianIQ=146.5)failedtomaintaintheearlierlargegapbetweentheirskillsandthoseofnonearlyreaders.Thegapbetween more intelligent early readers and IQ-matched nonearlyreaderstendedtodecreaseovertime.Incontrast,precociousreadersofaverageintelligencetendedtoincreasethegapbetweentheirper-formanceandthatofnonprecociousreaders.Thatis,althoughpre-cociousreaderswithhigherintelligencetendedtomaintainhigheroverall reading achievement, their reading achievement test scoresfailed to increase at the same rate as the nonearly readers. Durkinexplainedthisphenomenaintermsofregressiontowardthemean,thenaturaltendencyofextremelyhigh(orlow)testscorestoregresstowardthemeanovertime,andceilingeffects,thetests’limitedabil-itytoaccuratelyassesstheprogressoftheprecociousreadersduetoscoresthatwerealreadynearthetests’ceilingoninitialassessments. Inauniquestudycomparingcognitiveskillpatternsofbilingualandmonolingualearlyreaders,JacksonandLu(1992)foundanum-berofinterestingdifferencesbetweenthetwogroups.Overall,bilin-gualprecociousreadersperformedslightlybelowmonolingualearlyreaders on all cognitive measures but displayed a similar pattern offunctioningonallmeasures.Significantdifferencesoccurredonlyonmeasures of oral English where bilingual early readers scored lower.Interestingly, despite difficulties with oral English, bilingual preco-ciousreadersdidnotreadorallymoreslowlythanmonolingualread-ers.Basedontheaforementionedresults,JacksonandLuconcludedthat difficulty in fluent oral language should not preclude bilingualprecociousreadersfromparticipatinginadvancedreadingprograms. MillsandJackson(1990)performedalongitudinalstudyinves-tigating reading abilities of a group of 59 precocious readers 5–6yearsafterinitialassessment.Usingstandardizedmeasuresofreading


achievement,theauthorscomparedreadingperformancetothefourreadingfactors(generalability,speed,decodingruleuse,andgraphicprecision)identifiedbyJacksonetal.(1988)andtoverbalandnon-verbalreasoningmeasuresofintelligence.Comparativeresultsofthereadingmeasuresindicatedthatalthoughchildrencontinuedtoper-formwellaboveaverage,scoresdidnotremainextraordinarilyhighontestsofverbal intelligenceandlanguageachievement; lessthan20%ofthechildrenscoredmorethanonestandarddeviationabovethemeanonthreeoftheintelligencesubtests,and36%ofthechil-drenperformedwithintheaveragerangeonthelanguagemechanicstestofthereadingachievementtest.Inaddition,readingability5–6yearslaterwaspredictedequallywellbyinitialreadingmeasuresandverbalabilityportionsoftheintelligencetest. Inafollow-upstudy,Burnsetal.(1991)investigatedtheread-ingandwritingskillsofagroupofearlyreadersafter4years.Intheoriginalstudy,BurnsandCollins(1987)investigatedthehomeenvi-ronmentsof30intellectuallysuperiorchildren(FullScaleIQof120orabove).Intheirfollowupstudy,Burnsetal.administeredreadingandwritingstandardizedachievementteststoassessacademicskillsof19oftheoriginal30subjects.Resultsindicatedthatoverallthereweresignificantbetween-groupdifferencesonreadingachievement,withacceleratedreadersoutperformingnonreaders.However,whenindividual subtests were considered, the accelerated readers onlyoutperformednonearlyreadersonmeasuresofdecodingandspell-ing.Ontasksofwordidentificationandcomprehension,nonreadersandearlyreadersdidnotperformdifferently. In a small-group longitudinal study, Stainthorp and Hughes(2004a)tracked14precociousreadersalongwithacomparisongroupof14nonearlyreaders,assessingtheirliteraryperformanceattheagesof5,6,7,and11.Inanattempttoidentifythepatternofliteraryprog-ressofprecociousreadersinthelaterprimaryyears,thewritersmea-suredreadingaccuracy,speed,andcomprehensionandphonologicalprocessing.StainthorpandHughes(2004a)foundthattheearlyread-ersmaintainedtheirsignificantadvancedabilitiesabovethecompari-songroupatage11onreadingaccuracy,speed,andcomprehension,aswellasphonologicalprocessing.Whiletheprecociousreaders’advan-tageonreadingaccuracydeclinedslightlyoverthecomparisongroup


fromage5to11,itremainedsignificantlyhigher.However,ontestsofreadingspeedandcomprehension,aswellasphonologicalprocess-ing,thedifferencesbetweenthetwogroupsremainedsteadythroughage11.Thoughlimitedinsubjects,thisstudysuggeststhatprecociousreadersmaintainmostoftheirliteracyadvantagesthroughtheirlaterprimaryyears.Inafurtherdescriptionoftheirstudy,StainthorpandHughes(2004b)describeoneoftheirearlyreadersinanillustrativecasestudyashavingabalanceinheradvancedabilitiesacrossvariousacademic assessments measuring literacy development. While thewriters mention how other case studies of precocious readers haveshowndeficits insomeliteracyabilitiessuchasspellingandphono-logicalawareness,theircasestudyillustratesadvancedabilitiesinalloftheliteracyabilitiesassessedbytheresearchers,includingphonologi-calawareness,spelling,andwriting. Giventhatfewresearchershaveinvestigatedtheacademicabilitiesofprecociousreaders,itisdifficulttodeterminewhetherthegroupasawhole laterperformsathigher levelsthanwouldbeexpected.Thefewstudiesthathaveprovidedlongitudinalreportsofacademicskillsindicatethatearlyreadersoutperformnormalreadersontasksrequiringspecificreadingskills,particularlyearlyintheiracademiccareers.However,overtimeasthechildrengetolder,andespeciallywithmoreintelligentearlyreaders,thesedifferencesseemtoplateau.Manyotherskillsdonotseemtobeaffectedbyreadingability.Onlyonestudyreportedacademicskillsotherthanreading-relatedskills.Clark(1976)foundthatprecociousreadersalsohadsuperiormathskills.Thegeneralizabilityofthesefindings,however,couldbecalledintoquestionbasedonthefactthathersamplewasrelativelysmall(n =32)andtwothirdsofhersamplehadIQsgreaterthan140.

Conclusion

Afternearly40yearsofresearch,precociousreadingabilityremainsamysteriousphenomena.Whileseveralfactorshavebeenfoundtocorrelatewithprecociousreadingabilities,includingfamilyenviron-mental factors such as value placed on education and responsive-nesstochildren’squestions(Clark,1976;Durkin,1966);qualitative


differences in interaction with reading materials (Clark; Durkin;Plessas & Oakes, 1964; Teale, 1978); and psycholinguistic vari-ables including visual memory and word- and text- reading speed(Backman, 1983; Briggs & Elkind, 1977; Evans & Smith, 1976;Henderson,Jackson,&Mukamal,1993;Jackson&Biemiller,1985;Patel & Patterson, 1982), current research has limited applicationandgeneralizability.Researchinthisareahasnotprogressedpastthedescriptivelevelofunderstandingtothemorepracticalandappliedlevel.Cliniciansarestillunabletopredictprecociousreadingabil-ityorconfidentlydiscusshowitemerges.Additionally,theabilitytogeneralizeknowledgeaboutprecociousreaderstothetypicallyread-ingchildorevenstatewhetherthisisappropriateremainslimited. Thereareseveraldirectionsbothpossibleandnecessarytofur-therunderstandprecociousreaders.First,researchersandcliniciansneedtounderstandhowprecociousreadersaresimilarto,ordifferentfrom,thetypicallyreadingchild.Perhapsoneofthemostdevastatingomissionsintheresearchonprecociousreadersisthefailuretofullyintegratecurrentresearchandknowledgeaboutreadingwithknowl-edgeaboutprecociousreaders.Forexample,wehavenotdeterminedwhy precocious readers do not have the same reading structure asreaderswithdisabilitiesandaveragereaders( Jacksonetal.,1988),nordoweunderstandtheunderlyingneuropsychologicalfunction-ingincomparisontoaveragereaders(Stroebel&Evans,1988;Suldoetal.,2001).Consequently,researchershavenotprovidedanunder-standingofprecociousreadersfromamoretheoreticalperspective.There are areas of research that could benefit from incorporatingprecociousreadersintotheirperspective:emergentliteracy(precur-soryreadingandwritingskills)andreadingdevelopment(earlyandlaterreadingandwritingskills).Currentlythereisnotasingletheorydescribingeitheremergentliteracyorreadingdevelopment.Withinthefieldofemergentliteracy,currentmodelsvaryonthedegreetowhichtheyexplaintheprocedural(e.g.,phonologicalawarenessandwordreading)andconceptual(e.g.,functionalknowledgeofprint)aspectsofreading,aswellasfocusonlanguageandcognitiveskills(Korat, 2005). Similarly, current theories of reading developmentvarytothedegreetheyfocusonthemechanicalandtheconceptualprocesses.Thesetheoriescanbecategorizedintooneoffourlevels:(a)


descriptionsofthestagesofreadingdevelopment,(b)theevolutionofreadingskillsbasedonempiricalknowledge,(c)theorganizationof reading processes, and (d) biological bases of reading develop-ment(Racketal.,1993).Inboththecaseofemergentliteracyandreadingdevelopment, a solid theory shouldbeable todescribeanarray of performance. From this point of view, precocious readerscouldbeusedtovalidatecurrenttheoriesofreadingdevelopment.Asoundtheoryofreadingdevelopmentmustencompassthefullrangeofreadingabilityinordertofullyexplainindividualdifferencesinreadingdevelopment( Jackson,1992).

Additionally,aclearerunderstandingofthedevelopment,skills,andprognosisoftheprecociousreaderwillrequireadrasticrefine-mentoftheresearchmethodology.Inthepast,severalfactorsmadeitnecessarytouseweakermethodologies,includingrarityofthephe-nomenaandthelackofunderstandingoftheetiology.Asaresult,muchofthepublishedresearchonprecociousreadersinvolvedcasestudies (e.g., Henderson et al., 1993; Krippner, 1963; Lass, 1983;Mills&Jackson,1990;Penningtonetal.,1987;Teale,1978;Torrey,1969;Zirkelbach,1984).Althoughcasestudiescanprovideafoun-dationfornewhypothesesandprovidesomeunderstandingofthephenomena,themethodologylacksthecontrolledconditionsthatcould help provide explanations of the mechanism underlying theabilitytoreadearly(Barlow&Hersen,1984).Furthermore,whileretrospective,quasi-experimentalstudieshaveinvestigatedanumberofenvironmental,neuropsychological,andpersonalitycorrelatesofearlyreading,nonehasshedmuchlightonthephenomenaatamorebasic causal or predictive level (Backman, 1983; Briggs & Elkind,1973;Clark,1976;Durkin,1966;Evans&Smith,1976;Stroebel&Evans,1988;Hendersonetal.;Jackson&Biemiller,1985;Teale).Theresultofusingquasi-experimentalandcasestudieshasbeenthatinterested parties are left with only a descriptive understanding oftheskillspossessedbythesechildren.

Arefinementoftheresearchmethodologywillrequireresearch-erstomovebeyondcaseandretrospectivestudiestothosethatareabletopredicttheoccurrenceofprecociousreadingability(Silvenetal.,2004).TherecentstudybySilvenetal.exemplifiestheuseoflongitudinal data to investigate the relationship between language


and early reading skills. These authors were able to provide initialevidenceoftheprecursoryskillsofprecociousreaders.Theirmeth-odologyshouldbereplicatedinEnglish-speakingcountries.

There are other ways to refine the research methodology. Forexample,researchersshouldmaximizetheuseofdiagnostictoolstoidentifyearlyreadersandmonitortheseskillsovertime.Therehavebeensignificantimprovementsinstandardizedtoolsformonitoringearly literacy skills (e.g.,Dynamic IndicatorsofBasicEarlyLiteracySkills; Kaminski & Good, 1996). These measures are increasinglybeingusedacrossschoolstoidentifychildrenwhoareatriskofread-ingproblemsandareadministeredclasswideinmostcases.Therefore,precociousreadersarealreadybeingassessedinmanycases.Thestrongpsychometric and diagnostic properties of these measures could beusedtomorefullyunderstandprecociousreaders’earlyreadingandlanguageskills,monitorreadingskillsovertime,andaccuratelydocu-menttheprogressionofspecificreadingskillsacrosstime. Thus,inordertoprovidemorethanadescriptiveanalysisofpre-cociousreaders,researchandtheoryneedstointegrateandexpandcurrent knowledge and research about precocious readers with anefforttomakeapplicationoftheknowledgeaccessibletoclinicians,teachers,andparents.Furthermore,understandinghowprecociousreadersfitintothecurrenttheoryonreadingdevelopmentandemer-gentliteracymayhelpilluminatethereadingprocessmoreclearlyandcouldfacilitategreatereffectivenessforteachersandearlyinterven-tionprograms.Finally,incorporatingdiagnostictoolsalreadywidelyusedinclinicalpracticetoidentify,atanearlyage,children’sprob-ablereadingabilitiescouldgreatlyimprovetheabilityofclinicianstomorefullyunderstandtheprecociousreader.Asresearchprogresses,knowledgeneedstobe integratedintheoryandmadeavailabletoparentsandprofessionals.

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Documents

Precocious Readers: Past, Present, and Future · theories of emergent literacy and reading development, and confidently state whether this knowledge could be generalized beyond the