Do Children Learn to Read Because of Nature or Nurture?
Nature vs. nurture? When it comes to literacy, a professor is saying it's nurture , all the way. According to newswise.com, a University at Buffalo education professor has found that a child’s ability to read "depends mostly on where that child is born, rather than on his or her individual qualities." Ming Ming Chiu says that individual characteristics make up only 9% of the differences between a child who can read and one who cannot. What affects this heavily is the country in which a child is born, says Chiu, lead author of an international study that explains this connection and a professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction in UB’s Graduate School of Education. He adds that this largely determines whether he or she will have at least basic reading skills, according to newswise.com. The Web site reports that it's clearly a case where 'nurture' — the environment and surroundings of the child — is more important than 'nature — the ...