answer:Their theory is that the brain has not developed in appropriate ways until second grade. There’s apparently some research to show this is true. If you learn other stuff (twiddling?) before you are 7, then your brain ends up being ready to learn to read at that point, and you lose no time compared to any other kid. It just drives me nuts that mothers are constantly freaking out that their children have to be ahead, so they make their kids do flash cards at age 3 or something. They want them to read before kindergarten. It’s ridiculous. The problem is, that some children can read that young, more often, those kids are girls, not boys. Boys really aren’t ready to sit down and study or whatever it takes to learn to read until that age. But people believe the rat race starts as soon as you are born, and you have to stimulate the baby… hold on, I forgot. It starts before they are born: playing Mozart so they’ll have little math brains or something. Turns out that research isn’t even true. Oh well. SO parents freak out, and there are very few who can deal with their anxiety about their kids falling behind. But those that can will send kids to more alternativy kinds of schools, like Waldorf schools. So Waldorf doesn’t waste people’s time with wasted work. They learn just fine at age 7 and no one can tell the difference in a year or so. Fuck, I was the second to last person to learn to read in my first grade class. I didn’t catch on until nearly the end of the year. I was almost 7. But I sure felt stupid not knowing if I would ever get it. I only say this because a number of people have been accusing me of being smart, and I use this as evidence to show you that I am and always have been somewhat slow. ;-)