Childhood Literacy – Early Efforts Yield Lifelong Results

Educators and social services professionals have long understood the connection between children's early childhood experiences and later success in school. Ongoing research has plumbed the depths of this relationship and now helps to shape public policy, social service initiatives and educational goals. Recent research has further defined the relationship between early childhood education – early childhood literacy in particular – and a child's opportunity to enjoy success in school. Research points to striking differences between children who from infancy have been nurtured in a socially engaging language and literacy-rich environment and those who don't get as many opportunities to gain knowledge and skills before going to school. What can today's parents and educators do to promote literacy before children walk through the schoolhouse doors? A lot, according to a panel we consulted for this Seeds of Promise report. We asked several experts about the current landscape in child literacy, what is being done and what to expect next.

Our panel included:

• Catherine Snow, Ph.D., Harvard University;

• Ellen Shelton, M.A., family research coordinator for the Minnesota Coalition for Family Policy;

• Scott McConnell, Ph.D., professor of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota and interim director of the Center for Early Education and Development;

• Maria Sera, Ph.D., professor at the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development and

• Barbara Taylor, Ph.D., professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Minnesota and a principal researcher for the Center for Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA).

Below are the panelists' answers to key questions.

Q: What is the single best indicator for a child's potential success entering elementary school?

Barbara Taylor: While it is difficult to isolate a single factor in such a multi-layered environment, school readiness is often best gauged by a student's language abilities. For example, children who come to kindergarten with oral expression skills will do better.

Q: How can parents help their children be ready for school?

Scott McConnell: They can give their children basic knowledge and good language skills by providing lots of communication, starting from the moment a child is born. While there are many different ways to capture children's attention and give them a chance to learn language and acquire knowledge, there are some specific tips that might be helpful, especially for first-time moms and dads:

1. Talk to your baby, and truly converse with your toddlers

2. Read to your child often, starting at birth

3. Play games together, even very simple ones – especially games that play with words and sounds (like singing songs or telling funny rhymes); and

4. Ask questions that require more than a "yes" or "no" response.

Q: Why is this so important for first-time parents?

Scott McConnell: Everything is so new for first-time moms and dads that sometimes they forget the basics – especially the importance of reading and talking to newborns. Some rookie parents miss everyday opportunities to talk with their baby. Use activities, such as feedings or diaper changings, to talk with your child and have fun. You can't wait for the child to learn how to talk first – you're the teacher!

Q: What is a common misconception parents have about preparing pre-schoolers for literacy?

Barbara Taylor: Some parents think, "if I just read to them, I've fulfilled my obligation." Research shows that it isn't just the reading, but the time spent talking with the child that is also important. Oral expression development is critical, but too often parents read the bedtime story as quickly as possible so they can get back to whatever they were doing. Instead, if parents take the time to talk about the pictures, ask questions about the story and let the child answer them, the child's comprehension and interaction skills are developed. In addition, that give-and-take more closely simulates the discussions that will happen in the classroom when they go to school

Q: Why is this level of communication so essential?

Maria Sera: Children learn language through exposure, observation, interaction and experimentation. Reading, writing and speaking develop concurrently and are interdependent. Reading and writing do not develop through observation alone. Such a passive approach will only give the child a rudimentary understanding and limited tools to effectively communicate when she gets to school.

Q: What about children from homes where English is the second language, or not spoken at all?

Maria Sera: These students will benefit greatly from the techniques described above, regardless of the language spoken at home. Reading to a child in any language should help her understand basic concepts, such as how written letters represent sounds, and that sounds form words, and that words have distinct meanings. Even children from language groups without a written component are better prepared if they have a rich storytelling tradition. They experience the critical element of hearing spoken words that carry tremendous value and meaning. For these families, research shows that the students benefit from family-focused programs that include home visits and English-as-a-Second-Language courses for the adults.

Q: What are the building blocks for early childhood literacy?

Scott McConnell: There are three primary factors in developing language skills: vocabulary, store of knowledge and phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness occurs when children first start to recognize that certain sounds go together to form meaning and is extended when they realize that certain letters or letter combinations form these phonemes. Children get to use these skills reciting nursery rhymes or repeating words and phrases that start with similar sounds Vocabulary is developed through active participation in a wide range of everyday activities, especially reading and creative play that teaches names and descriptions of items. The more words a child hears, the stronger his vocabulary will be. One recent study showed that by age 3, a preschooler's vocabulary consists of approximately 2,000-4,000 words. By age 5, that typically increases to 5,000-8,000 words. Store of knowledge refers to the information the child has gathered and assimilated. For young children, this means knowing things like colors, shapes, animals and their sounds, and information about the world around them. This store of knowledge helps kids order new information, and when they begin to read, it enables them to predict a range of possible meanings when they encounter new words.

Q: What can parents do to help their child learn to read better?

Barbara Taylor: At the kindergarten level, it means going beyond simple phonemic awareness through isolation of sounds and drill, and instead more closely tying it to meaning. For example, stopping in the middle of a story to examine a sound, like the letter "S", and what different words and meanings are associated with that sound in the story. For early elementary students, especially those who are struggling with learning to read, research has shown that it is more beneficial to take a "coaching" approach. This means helping kids learn strategies for word recognition and encouraging them to figure it out for themselves, rather than just telling them the word.

Q: Why are there such gaps in elementary reading and test scores from communities of color and those who live in poverty?

Ellen Shelton: In 1998, almost four in 10 fourth-graders nationwide failed to achieve even partial mastery of the reading skills needed for school success, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. In our highest-poverty schools, nearly seven in 10 fourth-graders fail to read at this basic level. It is difficult to identify a reason for this when there are so many variables at work. However, low-income households often have parents who have fewer literacy skills and less education. This can create an environment in the home where reading is not a regular activity and parents aren't confident of how to help their children learn.

Scott McConnell: In the book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (Hart and Risley, 1995), the authors found that low-income parents were less likely to talk to their infants and toddlers than middle-and upper-income parents; children whose parents talk to them more tend to have larger vocabularies by age 3. Due to differences in the frequency of child/parent interaction among the various income groups, by age 3 children from professional families have up to six times the number of words in their vocabulary as children in welfare households.

Q: How do we identify children who are most likely to need early assistance?

Catherine Snow: The risk factors that increase the likelihood of a child lagging behind include:

1. Coming from homes where parents don't speak English or use a nonstandard dialect

2. Coming from homes where parents have a history of reading difficulties

3. Living in a low-income neighborhood and attending schools where achievement is chronically low; and

4. Lacking age-appropriate skills.

Q: What strategies can be applied to address these situations?

Catherine Snow: Effective strategies and tactics include:

1. Developing enthusiasm for reading and writing at the preschool level

2. Helping preschoolers under-stand what language and writing are for

3. Helping them develop language and cognitive skills; and

4. Identifying problems and addressing them immediately at the preschool level.

Q: What role does television play?

Scott McConnell: While some educational programs, such as "Sesame Street," can be helpful for preschoolers, in many cases TV plays the role of the villain. By passively watching (and not talking with parents or others about what they are watching) television, young children are not able to develop any depth of understanding or acquire critical language skills. To the extent that parents allow TV to be a one-way transaction and remove the child from fruitful interaction, TV serves as an equivalent to empty calories in their diet.

Q: How can parents use television better?

Scott McConnell: Two ways – Limit the time children can watch each day and use the "found" time to talk and play together, and use what television is watched as a springboard for interaction, either by watching and asking questions along the way, or having little discussions with them afterwards. Depending on the age of the child, these questions should go beyond simple "Did you like it?" and extend into "how" and "why" questions.

Q: With a goal of reading readiness by elementary school, what can communities do?

Ellen Shelton: Communities should strive to make sure that there are sufficient resources to support local need. This is of particular importance when it comes to supporting children faced with additional challenges when it comes to language and literacy skills acquisition. This includes children from homes where the parents are not literate or do not place a premium on providing a learning environment for the family. Non-English speaking households also have distinct needs, and many successful programs incorporate early childhood learning and adult ESL courses.

Q: What are the barriers to success? ALL: The barriers include, but are not limited to:

1. Motivating families to develop their children's early literacy skills, and to get help from programs and other resources if they aren't able to do this themselves

2. Developing enough early literacy programs and the necessary funding and other resources to support parents who need help to help their children; and

3. Creating understanding that early literacy is the first part of a life-long developmetal process.

Q: What public policy initiatives would best address the current needs? ALL: The most critical initiatives include:

1. Targeting early language learning in communities in which English is not spoken

2. Educating all parents on the importance of early language development and how to help their children develop language skills

3. Targeting education and support programs to under-served communities

4. Training preschool and early elementary teachers and child-care workers to work both with parents and with children on early literacy; and

5. Creating a higher profile at the state and federal levels to promote early literacy and provide program funding.

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