Interesting

Regrettably, I fell from a tree trunk while crossing a stream on Friday and dislocated my knee. As a consequence, I am immobilized in bed for the next few days. The silver lining is that it gives me the opportunity to catch up on magazine reading from the past few months.

In the July 10, 2009 edition of New Scientist, there is an article, Genes drive IQ more as kids get older by Andy Coghlan. The report is interesting and based on a fairly robust methodology and large numbers of participants but as with anything, it needs to be seen how it weathers.

"People assume the genetic influence goes down with age because the environmental differences between people pile up in life," says Robert Plomin of King's College London. "What we found was quite amazing, and goes in the other direction."

The article is truncated and there is not, that I can found, a full text version available. The original report is abstracted here. However the main point is captured in the accompanying graph.



In our Growing a Reading Culture methodology for increasing the probability that a child will become an enthusiastic and habitual reader, we point out that it can be applied at any point in time but that it has the greatest impact when used from the youngest ages. This article reinforces the importance of establishing the culture and habits of reading in the earliest years, when parents have the greatest opportunity for shaping long term outcomes.