# Can an intelligent person who has never attended school learn to read and write “in passing”? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056 "2012-10-27T17:22:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/61 "2012-10-28T23:44:02Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > You’re comparing teaching in the 70s to evidenced based practice in the 21st century? > > And you can shove those scare quotes! **Szlater** , I just want to be sure here–are you expressing skepticism that any nine year old could read (with comprehension etc) at a college level? So as not to spring any kind of gotcha, I’ll note that I read, and understood, _Asimov on Numbers_at age ten. It’s where I first learned about Cantor and diagonalization. That doesn’t seem far off from “reading at a college level at age nine.” Are you skeptical of my claim, or am I misunderstanding you? ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/62 "2012-10-28T23:45:06Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > That claim needs citation. And even if it’s true, it doesn’t support the idea that one should be “appalled” by kindergarteners who know “the abc’s”, nor the idea that it’s significantly difficult to teach those kids how to read. I don’t recall using the word “appalled”, and I was relating what I was told by a teacher who I was shadowing, I did use the phrase “and sometimes it is a nightmare for the teacher”. _I would appreciate it if you don’t use quote marks around words I didn’t use, if you were pointing them at me._ I offered some explanations referring to the standard way in which systematic synthetic phonics is taught in England following the _Rose Review of Early Reading_, which was a study and meta-analysis of the pedagogy of reading in the early years of primary school. There are, I just have learned from **Saint Cad** , significant differences between pedagogy in the US and in England, but reading the Rose Review should bring you up to speed. I did also link to a full scheme of work for systematic synthetic phonics earlier in the thread, which shows the order in which phonemes are taught. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/63 "2012-10-28T23:45:58Z")
I didn’t say they were 3 years old. I said they were pre-kindergarten. But yes, they and I did read well extremely early. Fortunately for my daughters our school system dealt with a complete range of abilities and they were soon placed in gifted/talented programs. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/64 "2012-10-28T23:46:38Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > **Szlater** , I just want to be sure here–are you expressing skepticism that any nine year old could read (with comprehension etc) at a college level? No. Nothing of the sort. I had a 9 yo girl in my class that had read Dickens’ in entirety and was moving onto Shakespeare plays, in her own time. Kids are capable of amazing levels of ability. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/65 "2012-10-28T23:48:24Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > I didn’t say they were 3 years old. I said they were pre-kindergarten. But yes, they and I did read well extremely early. Fortunately for my daughters our school system dealt with a complete range of abilities and they were soon placed in gifted/talented programs. That’s good. Recognising and differentiating for G&T pupils is as important as recognising and differentiating for SEN pupils. You can’t get away with teaching to the mediocre any more, it’s a quick way to lose your job. What kind of support did they get? ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/66 "2012-10-28T23:54:12Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > That’s good. > > Recognising and differentiating for G&T pupils is as important as recognising and differentiating for SEN pupils. You can’t get away with teaching to the mediocre any more, it’s a quick way to lose your job. > > What kind of support did they get? For mediocre read “median level”. Oops! ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/67 "2012-10-28T23:59:21Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > I don’t recall using the word “appalled”, and I was relating what I was told by a teacher who I was shadowing, I did use the phrase “and sometimes it is a nightmare for the teacher”. I thought you said “appalled,” and in any case understood you to be citing teachers’ negative feelings about early alphabetism with approval–as in, in order to express the view that these teachers are right to disapprove of it and to find dealing with it to be a “nightmare.” ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/68 "2012-10-29T00:13:07Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I thought you said “appalled,” and in any case understood you to be citing teachers’ negative feelings about early alphabetism with approval–as in, in order to express the view that these teachers are right to disapprove of it and to find dealing with it to be a “nightmare.” I said that I had never taught children that young. Everything else was talking about the teaching of phonics, and how it was plausible that being able to recite ABC’s could hamper early reading. I didn’t universalise it, I was quite clear with the “sometimes”. I don’t know why knowing the names of letters before you know the sounds they make, may make it more difficult to learn the sounds, for some children, is so controversial. I certainly didn’t doubt any one’s claims of pre-school reading, in fact I was impressed with **MLS’s** children, because they exceeded what is expected of 11 yo at 5 or 6… I thought it was 3 to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/69 "2012-10-29T01:19:32Z")
Many people have said this, but let emphasize that you can learn the letters, learn their values, be able to sound out words and still not be “reading”. Let me illustrate by an analogy. I once had piano lessons and I can look at sheet music and say that this is a quarter note in C# and that one is a half note in E, but I still can’t “read” music. My wife can look at sheet music and “hear” the music. I can’t come close to that. My lessons lasted about 8 months and I got bored with practice. Now I regret it but that is another story. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/70 "2012-10-29T02:05:48Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > So, I wonder how many Dopers consider “I was able to read before attending kindergarten” something others will find intensely interesting. I believe it’s simply impossible to have the type of question in this OP answered. For some reason learning to “read” in however the person defines it, before entering school is such an important fact, that it must be related to the masses, however tangent to the OP. While the discussion of teaching phonics to children is interesting, I can’t see how it helps understand how an adult would learn on their own. Anyway, since the OP will never get answered, let me tell you about how my daughter is doing with numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/71 "2012-10-29T02:50:33Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > I said that I had never taught children that young. > > Everything else was talking about the teaching of phonics, and how it was plausible that being able to recite ABC’s could hamper early reading. I didn’t universalise it, I was quite clear with the “sometimes”. I don’t know why knowing the names of letters before you know the sounds they make, may make it more difficult to learn the sounds, for some children, is so controversial. A miscommunication is occuring. Let me restate what I have said. Here’s your claim, as I understand it: Teaching children the traditional letter names before they can read can, in some cases, cause them to learn to read more slowly, and in fact, it can be justifiedly characterized, in some cases, as a “nightmare” to unteach those names to some children. Here is the response I have given to the above claim: It may be true that teaching children the traditional letter names before they can read can, in some cases, cause them to learn to read more slowly. However, it seems like a dubious claim to think that the amount of slowdown is very significant or meaningfully difficult to overcome, much less that it can lead to any situation justifiedly characterized as a “nightmare.” > [@](#): > > I certainly didn’t doubt any one’s claims of pre-school reading, in fact I was impressed with **MLS’s** children, because they exceeded what is expected of 11 yo at 5 or 6… I thought it was 3 to be honest. Your posts, in context, came off as sarcastic. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/72 "2012-10-29T04:44:01Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > That’s good. > > Recognising and differentiating for G&T pupils is as important as recognising and differentiating for SEN pupils. You can’t get away with teaching to the mediocre any more, it’s a quick way to lose your job. > > What kind of support did they get? It’s been a long time – my older daughter will be 40 soon – and I don’t remember the details. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/73 "2012-10-29T14:20:12Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > It certainly wouldn’t be likely in this society, but I suspect that it has less to do with impossibility than a lack of desire. Do you really believe that illiterate adults in modern society are only illiterate because they don’t care enough to bother to learn to read? > [@](#): > > How do kids go from children’s books to functional, adult literacy? Through practice, like any other skill and increasing their general knowledge. The OP didn’t ask if an adult could learn to read through sustained practice over an extended period of time, though. S/he asked if an adult could learn to read “in passing” or “on the fly”, “i. e. by learning one letter every now and then, by paying close attention to shop signs or maybe by studying an illustrated school book for children”. I think it’s extremely unlikely that an adult could learn to read at a functional level that way. Based on my own experience in a foreign country with a different writing system, what you learn by paying attention to signs is how to read signs, not how to read newspapers, official forms, novels, etc. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056/74 "2012-10-29T14:54:10Z")
I wish I could read this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-intelligent-person-who-has-never-attended-school-learn-to-read-and-write-in-passing/639056.md?page=3)