Language Magazine – Stephen Krashen
“The goal of the task force is that every child in California learns to read by third grade. I suspect that third grade was chosen because of the common assumption that reading ability in grade three is a good predictor of later reading ability and educational success. It is, but there is nothing magic about grade three. Reading ability can improve a great deal after that, in fact at any age, given access to highly interesting and comprehensible reading material (Krashen and McQuillan, 2007).” (more)