ABSTRACT
As has already been described, the majority of the children in this study had developed, by the time they entered school, the reading accuracy and reading comprehension skills of children at least three years their senior. By the time they were 5, they had access, through the books, magazines and newspapers in the home, to information, views and attitudes that many of their age-peers would not encounter until half way through elementary school. The accelerative influence of this early access to an ‘information bank’ normally reserved for children several years older is evident in almost every area of development addressed in this chapter; the children’s hobbies, their enthusiasms, their preferred reading materials, their play interests and their friendship choices resemble those of children four or five years older. It is appropriate, therefore, that this chapter should commence with an analysis of the reading habits and interests of the group.
