Teaching toddlers to read at 3 no better than at 5

LONDON - Kids who are taught to read at a very young age perform no better by the age of 5 than those who begin to read later, a new Brit study reveals.

Research from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will reinforce calls for the under-5 curriculum to be reformed in order to bring England into line with mainland Europe, where children learn through play until the age of 6.

It found that in a sample of the results of 7,000 five-year-olds “on average . . . early years education had no impact on any of [the] outcome measures”, reports The Times.

The study demonstrated that although children from the lowest socioeconomic groups did slightly better at the age of 5 if they had learnt to read and write from a very young age, the finding was only 90 per cent reliable - too low to be statistically credible.

Overall, children who had been taught letters, numbers and how to read simple words under the age of 3 on average did no better at putting names to pictures or at spotting patterns at the age of 5 than those who had not had formal training. (ANI)