Poverty levels influence children's learning

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Statesman Journal

Educators often point to poverty as a factor in sub-par student achievement. And there is research to back them up.

A landmark 1995 study showed that how fast children's vocabularies grow is greatly influenced by how often their parents talk to them — and that children from lower-income families hear significantly fewer words than their wealthier counterparts.

The study found that, in a year, children of professionals hear 11 million words on average, while children of working-class families hear 6 million words, and children of families on public assistance hear 3 million words.

And that difference can affect children years later, according to that study "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children."



Read more: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090524/NEWS/905240331/1001

[sakabatou]

1. So how come we have rich. stupid Republicans?

[AlphaCentauri]

4. We just denied college education to the smart poor

and opened the door to reach folks who can afford to pay for their educations so in the future they can defend their interests.

[quidam56]

8. Because they understand how greed works

They make a killing, killing U.S. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[hedgehog]

14. Because rich, stupid Republicans turn their children over to

undocumented nannies for their formative years?

[Thothmes]

33. Like Zoe Baird & Kimba Wood?

[elleng]

2. No SH**, Sherlock.

:nuke:

[proteus_lives]

32. Just what I was going to say.

[earthside]

3. Wow! What a Revelation!

I never would have guessed that there was a correlation between poverty and learning!

I mean there have been studies done for about a hundred years demonstrating this fact, but now ... with this study, well, what more proof do you need?

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

Of course, what is the answer to this problem from the present 'schooling' establishment?

More testing and evaluation and then some more testing and evaluation. Oh, and a lot more money so that they can do some more testing.

I suggest folks read John Taylor Gatto's "Weapons of Mass Instruction" if they are interested in honest to god education reform. Only if we pursue that understanding of learning will we be able to break-out of this cycle of testing and juvenilization and regimentation and "dumbing down" that our current 'standards-based' scheme is foisting upon our children.

[UrbScotty]

5. In other news, the Pope is Catholic (nt)

[8 track mind]

11. THIS JUST IN: A BEAR HAS JUST TAKEN A DUMP IN THE WOODS!!!!! n/t

[YvonneCa]

6. Really. This does not belong in LBN. Educators have...

...known this for YEARS. But... just for the sake of promoting ctitical thinking/discussion :7 ...imagine the challenge presented by students coming from poverty who get those first 3 million words in a language other than English (ELL students)?

They...and educators who teach them...face a 'double-whammy'. :) Which is why universal preschool in Title 1 districts is so critical. We will get the future we invest in...and children IMHO are the best investment.

Under NCLB, educators in those districts are PUNISHED. Now there's a great topic of discussion. ;)

[reggie the dog]

9. the kids will be bilingual

especially if the parents are too. I fall into the category of professionals (teachers) and I speak English to my daughter, my wife speaks French to her, we live in France. She is just starting to talk but she knows words in the 2 languages already.

[YvonneCa]

12. They will also be bilingual...

...if that is supported by an educational system that teaches English AND supports cognitive skills in their first language. However, in some circles (English only, for example :) ), there is resistance to supporting that first language...especially if money appears to be needed to do so.

I'm of the belief that these students should be supported to become truly bilingual. I think what you and your wife are doing is excellent. I know educators in the US who are doing the same.

[Igel]

36. Yes and no.

I've known kids who grew up bilingual with no support from their schools. Their parents went out of their way to make sure that they were bilingual, exposed to both parents' L1s (or to their parents' L1 if surrounded by a different language). They've often come out better balanced than those kids who did receive support from their shools.

It's generally poorer folk who don't go out of their way. Sometimes they can't, they're too busy working. Often they could, but don't see a point in it. "That's the school's responsibility."

It's the same for class effects on vocabulary. Most middle/upper-middle class folk I know go out of their way to make sure that their kids have good vocabularies and are ready to read. Most poorer families don't see a point in it.

[Confusious]

13. I Heard there was a study

Saying that kids who come from homes with 2 languages don't do as well. I'd have to look it up if you want a link.

French? German!

[YvonneCa]

17. If you find it, post it here. I'd like to...

...read it. Everything I have ever read about language acquistion disputes that.

[Confusious]

22. eh, I can't find it

Maybe it was some BS study. It really didn't apply to me since I couldn't speak anything other then English, so I only gave it top of the skull attention. If I come across it in my wanderings, I'll post it.

[Igel]

37. No, bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies in any single language.

Even balanced bilinguals.

It's a question of exposure. If you're exposed to a wide-ranging monolingual vocabulary through college you'll have maybe 10k words under your belt. If you're exposed to a wide-ranging bilingual vocabulary you'll have more words, but not 10k in either language. You just won't be exposed to as many obscure words in either language, or if you are, you won't take the time to learn them--there simply isn't time.

Bilingualism can also produce the same effect early on, in childhood, for the same reason.

There are exceptions, those who make language their careers. Translators and interpreters are exceptions to the rule, but then again they've taken time to make sure they're balanced and have large vocabularies.

Making sure a kid knows his L1 and is literate in it improves his acquisition of L2, which is what educators focus on. Esp. when the "L2" is English, under Lau and Flores and who knows what all. But educators are an advocacy group--first for themselves, second for their profession, and only maybe "fifthly" or "sixthly" (being generous here with the counting) for good, fairly unbiased language acquisition research.

[Quantess]

27. No, but children with speech-language delays

make greater progress if they hear primarily one language. Trying to learn two languages at the same time increases the difficulty for children who have speech-language delays.

[EFerrari]

10. I didn't speak English very well when I started school

so they put me in the slow reading group for the first two years.

No one figured out that I could read and write in Spanish and I guess I was too shy to tell anyone. Those were two really boring years!

[YvonneCa]

15. That's a shame. Sadly, I've seen that happen...

...in my years teaching, too. I DO think the diagnostics have improved, so now it happens less often.

[EFerrari]

35. I think I fooled them by looking like a white kid.

:)

It was all good. In those days, we still had access to school psychologists that could test us. There weren't too many non-English speaking Latinos in that subdivision. The other thee, iirc, were obviously Latino and I bet they did get tested much earlier. I still give that school an A+ for the education it delivered. By the time my brother got there eight years later, it was under siege. By the time my own kids got there in the later Reagan years, the school I went through was unrecognizable.

[jennygirl]

31. Not Only Educators Have Known This For Years!

We psychologists have also known and seen this. Stupid redundant research and a waste of whatever granting agency's money for funding it. More studies need to be done on how much too much ridiculous standardized testing and not enough creativity undermines an individual's learning. This is where the money should go.

[AlphaCentauri]

34. I'm surprise that everybody knows about it

and the money used for education is directed to make the teachers experience more comfortable but results don't matter.

[Odin2005]

7. They needed a study for that?

Oh, and Charles "Bell Curve" Murray at the AEI can go f*ck himself.

[Confusious]

16. We were lower-middle in Alaska

Parents really didn't say much to me, I just read alot. 2 books every week. (My daughter does the same. Genetic I think) I had a 12th grade reading level in the 6th grade.

[YvonneCa]

18. It's good that you had books available...

...and that they were written in your first language. That's an opportunity that many kids who live in poverty...not lower-middle...do not have.

[Confusious]

23. uh, library?

Article says nothing about first, second languages. There are alot of our own, not illegal immigrants, who live in poverty. I would say the majority of the poor live in the country of their first language, 'cause they can't go anywhere. And if a kid can't get to a library, its probably because of the crappy car society we have, and the lack of good public transportation (one of my pet peeves).

But, NNOOOOO, I want my car, I need my car, I LOVE MY CAR. One day we're going to have to pick between feeding the car, or ourselves. It'll be interesting.

[pattmarty]

19. So, uh, duh, this is fucking news???? This has been pretty self evident..............

............since uh, maybe the middle ages.

[YvonneCa]

20. ...

...:7 I like your sig line, BTW. :)

[pattmarty]

21. Thank you. Have a happy Memorial day!!!!

[YvonneCa]

25. Thanks! You, too. :) n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

26. just wondering how much longer it will take to fix this problem

since we know it exist in the first place

[pattmarty]

28. Well, maybe, just maybe, we can start now with this President. Maybe.

[boomerbust]

24. Really?

I didn't know being hungry could disrupt a childs thinking.

[donco6]

29. Everyone thinks this is obvious, but conservatives don't.

When you try to argue with them that schools with low-income students need more money than other, wealthier schools, they won't believe you.

[earthside]

30. Money for Schools ISN'T the answer

What is obvious is that families under social and economic pressure because of lack of income cannot support their children in their educational pursuits. That is what the study is talking about, and it is true.

That is different from the notion that more tax money given to schools will help low-income students do better.

More money for more corporate standardized testing and more computers and more consultants and better televisions etc. etc. etc ... is not going to change schools. The problem is that schools 'school' kids -- they are not EDUCATING them.

Indeed, it is my belief that 'schools' are way over-funded under the system we are now perpetuating.

We need a massive and revolutionary change in the way schools are operated and in curriculum. We should fire most of the administrators, bring parents back into the schools to be making most decisions, throw-out all the standardized testing and -- let teachers spend 90 percent of the day teaching kids and imparting knowledge -- get that: teaching ... not doing social work; not doing administrative paperwork; not following the 'standardized' schedule; so on and so forth.

We need to break-up the education-industrial-complex that is really now just a funnel for tax dollars to "education" corporations and other special interests.

[Igel]

38. Of course.

But people don't like the implications.

Kids don't learn vocabulary because their parents' parenting style doesn't teach them. Even when home, they don't interact with their kids in the same way as parents who are well off. Usually they're repeating the styles they were exposed to as kids. We don't like saying that the home culture predisposes, sets the kids up, for failure, esp. when there's an ethnic or racial trend in the data. It doesn't stop us from trying to design programs that implicitly assume what we don't like saying.

The relation works the same regardless of ethnicity. Parents aren't educated and have sucky jobs, don't value education (in practice), and interact with their kids in a way that doesn't provide them with large vocabularies and curiosity; the kids grow up not educated and have sucky jobs, don't value education (in practice), and interaact with their kids in a way that ... I'm white, my neighborhood where I grew up was almost all white and yet the kids mostly aimed at mediocrity, because that's all their parents wanted for them and provided for. The home culture is resistant to change.

HeadStart tried to stop this cycle, but usually fails. Intervention programs help kids, but by the 4th grade the effects of early intervention have largely faded and the kids are patterning mostly the same as the control group; effects of early intervention can be found in a cohort even when they're in their early 20s, but for most of the cohort the difference is vanishingly small. Why? Because there's no support from home--the parents still aren't educated, still don't value education in the same way as better-educated parents, and still don't support vocabulary and reading development. Poor kids *lose* a portion of their grade level over the summer while middle-class kids *gain* grade level--if poor and middle-class kids both end 3rd grade at 3rd grade level, by the time school starts in the fall the poor kids are at 2.7 or thereabouts, while the middle class kids will be at 3.2 or 3.3 come fall.

The intervention has to be constant and continue for years after the poor kids start school, and even then there's a fairly high recidivism rate once the kids are teenagers and are trying to "find their identity".