Do experts in reading, early childhood education, or other relevant topics ever show up here? I can’t think of one.
I’d like to think that hearing and auditory processing would come under ‘relevent others’ and therefore I am an expert! Haha, not really, but I have the letters after my name to suggest I am! I don’t think we would achieve a lot of what we’re doing with early learning if the child wasn’t hearing or processing properly? Maybe not what you were looking for but it’s the best I have!
Lisa (Audiologist - BSc, GradDipAid(Melb), MClAud(Melb), MAudSA(CCP))
Well, thanks–it’s nice to know. I guess the measure of relevance, anyway, is whether the area of expertise has some bearing on evaluating the feasibility and advisability of teaching babies to read.
Can’t say that I know of anyone in particular. I know that there are plenty of certified teachers here, and some of us were/are early elementary teachers, but I don’t think that there are any certified EARLY Childhood experts.
I doubt it Dad Dude!!
I guess they are tooo busy trying to undermine the work of others rather than working on any real studies in the field of early learning. (Sorry I sound soooo cynical) Hopefully once I get my degree in Early Learning I hope to be able to conduct many clinical studies on the positive effects of early childhood education!
Kimba
What do you mean by an expert?? well I guess I know … but I have a Bach Degree in Early Childhood Education.
not sure if that is an expert or not…
I also have a 3 and a 4 yr old who read at an 8 and 9 yr old level respectively and to achieve this I used NONE of what I learnt in 4 years of uni…!
The criteria of expertise vary from field to field, of course. For academic fields, if you are capable of producing and publishing peer-reviewed research on a subject, you’re often regarded as an expert on that subject.
Invoking the concept of expertise does not mean that I believe we should always bow down to expert opinion (obviously, I don’t always do so).
The reason I ask is that I made a claim in my essay (which I’m trying finally to clean up and get out there) that online communities devoting to teaching babies to read, which I’m a member of, never get attention of experts. So, the relevant expert communities are basically not engaging with the phenomenon, as far as I can tell–at least, not online, in these communities.
It’s a great point you’re making DadDude.
If they really wanted to research what we do, how we do it and what the results are this would be their ideal playground.
And yet…
Good luck with your essay - hope you shake things up a bit. 
Expert? The only experts are the children…in fact, being a child is natural…being a parent is not. I wish you the best…your topic line really caught my eye and thought I’d throw in a comment…hope you don’t mind. 