Teacher Asks Mom To Stop Reading To Her First-Grader Because It’s Made Her Too Smart
Is there really such a thing as "too smart?"
Kitreel | Shutterstock When I was little, my mom read to me all the time. Because of her, I developed a lifelong love of books and started reading when I was quite young, jumping ahead of some of my peers. But this was a good thing. My teachers praised both of us for it.
Another mom did the exact same thing for her daughter, but her teacher was not impressed. Instead, they suggested it was causing a problem for the class as a whole because the girl was ahead of her fellow first-graders. Admitting that she was completely “flummoxed,” the mom wrote in to Slate’s parenting advice column, “Care and Feeding,” for help.
A first-grade teacher asked a mother to stop reading to her daughter because it was making her 'too smart.'
“My daughter ‘Karina’ just entered first grade,” she began. “Just last evening, I got a call from her teacher about her behavior. Karina reads well and is apparently well ahead of the rest of her class.” When asked, the mom shared that she read to Karina each night and taught her to read at a basic level. This all sounds like it should be seen as a good thing, but that’s not the perspective that Karina’s teacher had.
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“This apparently set off her teacher, who told me I was creating all sorts of problems, as Karina was pulling ahead of the others and getting bored,” the mom said. “And that I needed to cut it out and encourage her to go and play outside more, or something. I’m still a bit flabbergasted. I thought that a child reading ahead of her age expectations would be a good thing, not a bad thing.”
The advice columnist, who is an educator herself, was pretty confused too.
Arionne Nettles was writing the advice for the column when this mom wrote in. According to her Slate bio, in addition to being a reporter, Nettles is also the Garth C. Reeves Eminent Scholar Chair and instructor of digital journalism at Florida A&M University. She alluded to this in her response. “As an educator, I have never heard of a teacher being upset about a student reading ahead of her class,” she said.
“I suspect the teacher is overwhelmed by their class and is complaining about Karina’s boredom because it means she is disruptive,” she inferred. “This is not your fault, though, and it’s the teacher’s job to figure out how to best manage a class with kids at different educational levels."
She went on to say, "The answer, certainly, is not to curb your daughter’s reading.” Nettles ended her reply by suggesting that the mom meet with Karina’s teacher, as well as any relevant support staff, to discuss the issue.
Experts agree that there is nothing wrong with a child reading above their grade level.
Timothy Shanahan is a literacy expert who is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, former director of reading for Chicago Public Schools, and previous president of the International Literacy Association. It seems that he wouldn’t agree with Karina’s teacher when it comes to her reading ability. In a blog post, he explained that it is difficult for teachers to adapt their curriculum to students of varying levels.
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“One option is to do nothing special,” he said. “Simply teach those kids with everyone else. Their reading is not likely to improve much from that — and it is possible that they may be a bit bored — but it will allow teachers the opportunity to catch up some of the less advantaged kids.”
Shanahan doesn’t necessarily see boredom, like what Karina is experiencing, as a bad thing. After all, isn’t it the mother of invention? Surely the answer is not for her mom to send her outside to play. Maybe her teacher can come up with an alternative plan for her instead.
The answer is obviously not to stop their nightly reading routine. We are in the midst of a literacy epidemic. Add to that the overconsumption of technology and kids choosing screens over books, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any child-development expert saying the answer is to stop reading with your kids. This mom is doing everything right, and her child's advanced reading skills are a testament to that.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
