Are there studies which support the practice of late readers?

Steiner–Waldorf education is renowned for intentionally deferring reading and writing until around age seven, preferring to emphasize creativity and love-of-language techniques, such as first learning to become great listeners. Steiner–Waldorf adherents routinely cite evidence of late readers catching up over a couple of years to the reading levels found in conventional schools, then typically taking off and ultimately faring better than early readers. Then there’s also the long-standing argument that children learning to read under age five end up preferring to read much more than children taught after age five.