Are child development experts getting it wrong?

I just came across this Psychology Today blog by Richard Gentry, author of Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write — from Baby to Age 7.  He poses the question, “Are Commercial-Product Claims that Babies Can Read Overblown?”  He goes on:

Or are too many child development experts from prestigious universities getting it wrong?

There is a controversy brewing over the definition of reading and whether babies and toddlers can learn to read. Driven by negative reaction to some of the commercial products that claim to teach babies and toddlers to read, print media and major news reports on television have recently quoted child development experts who state emphatically that “the baby’s brain is not developed enough to read.” WAIT A MINUTE! Sit back and take a deep breath. It may be a very good thing for a pre-school age child to learn to read words and phrases before age three and it may be a bad thing to equate this remarkable accomplishment with “the brain of a parrot.” Show me a parrot that reads scores of flash cards with words and phrases through paired associate learning or operant conditioning! Reading word cards is not something trivial. When child development experts were asked if babies who pronounced the words or demonstrated actions to word cards such as “clap” or “arms up” were reading, many were emphatic: “No! The babies memorize cue cards. That’s not reading.” But automatic recognition of words, repetition, and memory are all aspects of proficient reading at any level. Joyful parent-child interaction helping the baby learn to read word cards is a good thing!

Read the whole thing, including the “What Does the Research Say?” section.  It’s nice to know that there are some experts who are willing to buck the establishment on this.