Similarly, each of the editions of Spock’s child-raising manuals published
in the 1990s (1992; 1998) included new or expanded sections on the importance
of home reading to school success, and on parental involvement in schooling.
The sixth edition of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care appeared in 1992.
It varied in small but important ways from previous editions. Discussion of
“reading”
still appeared in the index under “reading problems,”
and the maturation, or as he called it, “reading early”
perspective,
continued to dominate Spock’s advice in the 1990s as he considered reading
before school under the topic of “gifted children.”
Parents of “early
readers”
remained under suspicion for succumbing to societal pressures
to engage their children in this “unnatural”
activity before they
were ready. However, the section on “school”
in the same edition
was greatly expanded to make space for new categories of difference and difficulty
children may experience in relation to the school system, including “rebelliousness,”
“the hyperactive child,”
those with “reading and writing difficulties,”
and the “over conscientious child.”
Under the category, “reading
and writing difficulties”
, Spock still equated “poor reading”
with visual problems and (in the 1998 edition) linked gender to learning disabilities,
pointing out that:
10% of children — most of them boys — have much more than the average difficulty recognizing and remembering the appearance of words. They continue to reverse many words and letters for several years. It takes them a lot longer to learn to read reasonably well and some of them remain poor spellers for life, no matter how much they are drilled. (Spock, 1998, p. 558)
In keeping with the majority of advice texts, Spock cited explicit phonics instruction as the most effective remedy for reading difficulties:
Most of these children can be helped by extra practice in phonics in which they sound the letters and syllables for words, and point at them with their fingers at the same time. In this way, they can make up for some of their weaknesses in recognizing words visually. (p. 559)