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I like your comparison to the nature v nurture debate. There is undoubtably some element of natural ability built in to learning any skill, and age is going to be a factor regardless of how well nurtured a student is. This being said, I don't see the harm in nurturing a skill before their is an expectation of real 'success'

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Right? It is one of those things where you look back at something people use to think and have no idea how they got there. Its like leeching. I know it is a gross comparison, but why was that ever a thing? I feel the same way about this, how can you think teaching reading to kids that can't read is bad?

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I wouldn't worry too much about maturation theory. Most of the students that graduated my pre-k program could either read or had many of the skills required for reading. More importantly though, some kids were way ahead of the curve with reading. I had a boy that could read at a level that I still can't fully believe. I had a poster with all of the presidents on it, and he read all the names without batting an eye lash about. Names like Rutherford and Gamaliel (Its the G in Warren G Harding)! The point is that children learn different skills at wildly different rates. For instance, this particular child's fine motor skills were well below developmental norms and he was painfully shy until he started reading books to the other kids in the class. If all of the adults around him were not nurturing his reading, his remarkable gift would be hidden and would not have flourished in all of these other important areas.

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You are definitely doing the right thing. We need to introduce them literacy, we need to read to them, and we need to support and encourage them in reading and writing. And I do not think that we are "fighting nature", we are just supporting them on something, which is in their "nature" to learn at some point in their lives anyway.
(Judith)

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When I taught Pre-K for 4 years, there was a big push for early literacy. Parents wanted to make sure their child(ren) were "ahead of the game" and really pushed for a program that would help their children to read at an early age. I loved the idea, and I worked closely with another teacher to create a program that we felt was fun and effective. By the end of each year, more than 90% of our 4-5 year olds were beginning readers. We were so proud of our stats every year........but as I read more, especially in the field  of Maturation, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Was I, in fact, fighting what nature intends for our children?
-Melissa Grupp

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Good call connecting this to the nature v. nurture debate. There certainly isn't one way that students learn, and I think it's silly that they boiled it down to age. To comment on your connection in the book, I think there should be a balance between reinforcing students for their effort (while correcting them) and congratulating them when they do well; the former should be used with caution, however. Students need motivation to read and praise can definitely be helpful when they're struggling, but it shouldn't take over the instruction.
-Katlyn

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Peter, I had a lot of the same thoughts that you did. It seems silly. What are kids "taught" before age 6.5? Why not give them the tools to prepare? Anyway, it seems to me like maturation theory generalizes kids too much. Some kids will have the ability to read much quicker than others, and some kids don't need explicit instruction while others need a lot of guidance. This theory just blows my mind.
-Katlyn

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I don't want to repeat the definition--you guys have done a good job of defining it already. I will say, however, that reading about this theory amused me more than anything. I automatically started thinking about those "My Baby Can Read" infomercials that used to air all the time (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qoqs-GeBj0). I'm sure if Morphett and Washburne could see that clip they'd freak out.
To get back on topic... I dabbled into some research articles about maturation theory and found the dark side. The article that I want to mentioned discussed Gassel, another maturation theorist, rather than Morphett and Washburne. Here's a citation so you can find it: Marchese, F. J. (1995). The place of eugenics in Arnold Gesell's maturation theory of child development. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 36(2), 89-114. doi:10.1037/0708-5591.36.2.89. I won't summarize the article, but I think it makes some good points. It kind of jars me each time that I'm reminded there are believers in the idea that certain genes that make you superior. It also largely overlooks individuality and how one's environment can shape their life.
My final thought: we have plenty of theorists that put children into stages relative to age (Piaget, Erikson), but I'm glad this isn't one that stuck around. It just seems misguided and silly to wait until this age.

-Katlyn

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Maturation theory is, with the power of hindsight, somewhat insane to me. It was the prevailing school of thought for literacy starting around 1930 and lasting until the 50s. Maturation theory is predicated on the belief that a student trying to learn a skill before they have a developmental chance to master that skill will somehow do damage to the student's life time ability to acquire that skill. I just cannot wrap my mind around the logic of that though. I agree that there are some skills that you will only be able to learn when you hit the developmental stage that allows it. I also agree that reading is one of those skills. I just don't see what the point of waiting to start working towards learning that skill until a student has a chance of learning it. If I subscribed to maturation theory during all my years as a pre-k teacher, I honestly have no idea what I would have done all day because I would have just lost 60 percent of my lessons.

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That is a really good point. Sometimes, I think it is difficult to balance all factors you have in your head as a teacher. However, we truly do have the problem of awarding maybe to much sometime and losing the focus on other things. 

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That is a really good point. Sometimes, I think it is difficult to balance all factors you have in your head as a teacher. However, we truly do have the problem of awarding maybe to much sometime and losing the focus on other things. 

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It's interesting how you mention your experience in Germany! When I first read about your experience I was reminded of how our parents and teachers sometimes allow us to make mistakes purely for the experience of making the mistake on our own and having more of a connection to not do it again. I could see how that could help some children with spelling, but not correcting them and teaching them how to correct their mistakes seems like, to me, that they are rewarding mistakes and that they are "inflating" their "learning egos."

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Maturation Theory, in a general, non-specific to literacy sense, is the thought that development is based on genetics and that our developmental stages are pre-determined by biology.   In literacy, this is/was taken one step further, by going off of the general theory and using it to modify the way that we teach children early literacy instruction.  It was proposed that children should not be taught any type of reading until the age of 6.5 years old.

To me, the Maturation Theory reminds me of the nature vs nurture debate. On one hand, we know that genetics do play a role in development but we also know that influence also plays a role.

The example in the book, explained by the third-grade teacher Elizabeth Soriero reminds me of a current issue in today's society, being the "participation award crisis." It seems as though, in this example, the teachers were trying to build self-esteem rather than building resourceful literacy skills to be further developed. Essentially, they were rewarding the effort rather than the product.

The video that I've linked is more of a "skim the top" kind of basis for maturation but includes that we must all have some type of similar genetics that allow for development in the same time periods.

I'm interested to learn more about how we have updated the past into our current teachings (especially for the younger kids) if anyone has anything that they can share.

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Uploaded by Pierre Bondoc on 2014-02-06.

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The Maturation Theory                                                           The Maturation Theory was the theory, of Morphett and Washburne in 1931, which stated that children should not been taught reading until they reach the age of 6 ½. Furthermore it said that parents and teachers could cause damage to the children, if they teach them reading before that age. Morphett and Washburne researched the perfect age (in their eyes) for children to be mature enough to be ready to start reading. Even though this concept has been disparaged, due to the reason that studies have shown that it is important to teach children and to get children involved with reading at the youngest age possible, the concept of maturation is essential. Maturation has influence on how fast a child learns; every child has a different maturity and develops differently.                                                              After the explanation of the theory Elizabeth Soriero, a third-grade teacher, talked about her experience of the Maturation Theory (Tracey and Morrow, 2012, p. 94-95). She describes how the children would write their words, how they think they might be spelled and that they did not get corrected by their teachers. This immediately reminded me of a classroom I had an internship in. Some schools in Germany started “Writing according to your hearing” couple years ago. Then, I had this one class with 1-3th graders (some elementary schools also have the concept of mixing 1-4th graders), who would write how they would hear the word. After a dictation most students were completely confused, because almost every child wrote the complicated and more difficult words wrong and in various ways. We, as the teachers, were only allowed to correct a few mistakes and only the mistakes of the older students. I think this way of learning is really bad, because in the end the child will get used to how to write words wrong. And then, when it is time to correct them and teach them the correct spelling the student will have a much harder time accepting the correct spelling over his spelling, which he used for months or even years. We had enormous discussions in Germany, because of this education theory. In the end, it showed that most children in the end of elementary school had a difficult time spelling correctly. In my eyes it is important to teach the students how to write correctly and if the make a spelling mistake to correct them right away so they can remember the correct way of spelling the word and do not have the wrong spelling stuck in their head.                                                                             This link:             https://www.slideshare.net/tele1957/chap-5-theories-of-literacy-development                                                                    , is really good. It shows and sums up some the Theories of Literacy Development in one slide show.                                                                                                                               (Also interesting, but not really exactly on our topic are the youtube videos of CrashCourse. It is about the Psychology of us humans. Each video has a different topic. Video #18 for example is about Schemes, Four-Stage Theory of Cognitive Development, and Vygotsky's Theory of Scaffolding. This would be the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nz2dtv--ok                                                                 and yes it is not on our topic, but I thought it is really cool and he explains the different roles off those theories and how children think and it is really, really interesting, so it is just to check out if you are interested)

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The Maturation Theory                                                           The Maturation Theory was the theory, of Morphett and Washburne in 1931, which stated that children should not been taught reading until they reach the age of 6 ½. Furthermore it said that parents and teachers could cause damage to the children, if they teach them reading before that age. Morphett and Washburne researched the perfect age (in their eyes) for children to be mature enough to be ready to start reading. Even though this concept has been disparaged, due to the reason that studies have shown that it is important to teach children and to get children involved with reading at the youngest age possible, the concept of maturation is essential. Maturation has influence on how fast a child learns; every child has a different maturity and develops differently.                                                              After the explanation of the theory Elizabeth Soriero, a third-grade teacher, talked about her experience of the Maturation Theory (Tracey and Morrow, 2012, p. 94-95). She describes how the children would write their words, how they think they might be spelled and that they did not get corrected by their teachers. This immediately reminded me of a classroom I had an internship in. Some schools in Germany started “Writing according to your hearing” couple years ago. Then, I had this one class with 1-3th graders (some elementary schools also have the concept of mixing 1-4th graders), who would write how they would hear the word. After a dictation most students were completely confused, because almost every child wrote the complicated and more difficult words wrong and in various ways. We, as the teachers, were only allowed to correct a few mistakes and only the mistakes of the older students. I think this way of learning is really bad, because in the end the child will get used to how to write words wrong. And then, when it is time to correct them and teach them the correct spelling the student will have a much harder time accepting the correct spelling over his spelling, which he used for months or even years. We had enormous discussions in Germany, because of this education theory. In the end, it showed that most children in the end of elementary school had a difficult time spelling correctly. In my eyes it is important to teach the students how to write correctly and if the make a spelling mistake to correct them right away so they can remember the correct way of spelling the word and do not have the wrong spelling stuck in their head.                                                                             This link:             https://www.slideshare.net/tele1957/chap-5-theories-of-literacy-development                                                                    , is really good. It shows and sums up some the Theories of Literacy Development in one slide show.                                                                                                                               (Also interesting, but not really exactly on our topic are the youtube videos of CrashCourse. It is about the Psychology of us humans. Each video has a different topic. Video #18 for example is about Schemes, Four-Stage Theory of Cognitive Development, and Vygotsky's Theory of Scaffolding. This would be the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nz2dtv--ok                                                                 and yes it is not on our topic, but I thought it is really cool and he explains the different roles off those theories and how children think and it is really, really interesting, so it is just to check out if you are interested)