Before a Test, a Poverty of Words

[IanC]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/nyregion/for-poor-schoolchildren-a-poverty-of-words.html?hpw&_r=1&

....., it is difficult to overstate the advantages arrogated to a child whose parent proceeds in a near constant mode of annotation. Reflexively, the affluent, ambitious parent is always talking, pointing out, explaining: Mommy is looking for her laptop; let’s put on your rain boots; that’s a pigeon, a sand dune, skyscraper, a pomegranate. The child, in essence, exists in continuous receipt of dictation.

Things are very different elsewhere on the class spectrum. Earlier in the year when I met Steven F. Wilson, founder of a network of charter schools that serve poor and largely black communities in Brooklyn, I asked him what he considered the greatest challenge on the first day of kindergarten each year. He answered, without a second’s hesitation: “Word deficit.” As it happens, in the ’80s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley spent years cataloging the number of words spoken to young children in dozens of families from different socioeconomic groups, and what they found was not only a disparity in the complexity of words used, but also astonishing differences in sheer number. Children of professionals were, on average, exposed to approximately 1,500 more words hourly than children growing up in poverty. This resulted in a gap of more than 32 million words by the time the children reached the age of 4.

My kids were born in the early 90's, and i stumbled upon Risley's work in the late 90's. I remember loving the confirmation of what I was already doing, that I wasnt crazy for not only talking to my kids but explaining things they couldnt understand yet. I still talk, explain and question what they think about things. my youngest son gave me perhaps the greatest compliment ever when he came home one day from school in gr11, and said "we learned something in school today that you never talked to me about, that's the first time I can remember that happening".

My kids have done really well so far, but is it reasonable to expect that all parents act in this fashion? are kids who are treated this way actually smarter or just better prepared? my parents were taciturn and judgemental but I think that only made me oppositional to authority, not duller.

could we, or should we, try to do a better job of informing parents (and kids) on some of the types of parenting that often lead to successful children? the tricky part would be finding the right people to 'decide' which styles were good and which were bad.