Let’s ponder “development” for a moment. When a fertilized egg turns into an embryo, that development is indeed something that unfolds naturally. Similarly, in the first two years of life, when a child learns to walk and talk, those are natural developments that are universal in all cultures. Since the child acquires these extremely difficult skills often without conscious adult instruction, we might mistakenly extend trust in natural unfolding to the next stage of life, when a child enters school. And indeed, that is what educators do when they delay teaching the mechanics of reading until a
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