Q: "My six-year-old son is very good at reading. Does this mean he's intelligent, or is his intelligence not related to his reading ability?"
A: Psychologist Dr Stuart Ritchie of the University of Edinburgh, who led a recent study which examined the results of reading and intelligence tests taken by identical twins at various ages, says: "Reading and intelligence are strongly correlated together; that is, children who are good at reading tend to be more intelligent, outside of cases of specific learning disabilities like dyslexia.
"This was the reason we did our recent study, because we wondered if it might be that learning to read actually improves intelligence, and that there is a causal link as well as a correlation. We studied a large group of pairs of identical twins, and found that the twin with better reading ability earlier in their development tended to have higher intelligence later on, controlling for any intelligence differences to begin with.
"So it might be the case – and more research is needed, as always – that learning to read actually makes kids smarter, even as measured on tests that have nothing to do with reading ability.
"Overall, our research indicates that not only might higher intelligence have helped your son to learn to read well, but also that his learning to read might have improved his intelligence."
