Musings on the Role of Poverty in Vocabulary Development

There's undeniable, powerful connection between the socioeconomic status of students and the achievement they experience in school. This gap follows students into "real life."

At the heart of the achievement gap lies Literacy. It's a skill many of us take for granted: read a street sign, pick up a newspaper (those the numbers are dwindling), complete a job application and the list goes on. We rarely question how life would be different if we lacked what seems to be a relatively easy skill. Or let's scale it down a notch, think about how life would be if you were perpetually stuck on a 3rd grade Reading level?

Children living in low-income, high needs communities face this reality every day and it doesn't seem to be changing. Resources in the schools are lacking and there's often little support coming from home. Most material learned during an effective school year is lost over the summer. How does a child possibly learn and retain a functioning vocabulary?

Oh wait, this happens before a child is even enrolled into school. By the age of 3, children in low SES are already experiencing a 30 million word gap. 30 MILLION WORD GAP. Who realized that it was even possible for a 3 year to 30 million words? Children in an SES are exposed to less than half the amount of words that a children in an average professional family is. The problem starts before school even starts.

That's what's astounding. The next 18 years of a children's life can one long epic struggle.

How is this fixed? It's not early intervention programs. It's not prescriptive reading programs. Shoot, it's not even "great" teachers. It's not different parents. The solution lies in poverty and the solution that people claim isn't available. How do we fix poverty? I can save those musings for another day, but you can be guaranteed the fault isn't with the parents or schools.

Musings on Informational Texts

The research I read in Duke's article "3.6 minutes per day: The scarcity of informational texts in the first grade" didn't come as a shock to me. Having spent my entire career at the secondary level has made this fact apparent. Even in my teaching of eleventh and twelfth grades, I've had to "undo" what students have retained about narrative texts when attempting to teach informational texts. They regularly refer to all texts as "stories." Actual people are called characters. They ask about the plot. The headings and subtitles confuse them. It is clear though that they are well-versed in the world of narrative reading and navigation thereof.

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this excerpt from the article:

I assume that development of genre knowledge proceeds in a genre-specific matter. That is, I assume that one learns how to read or write a genre through experience with that genre, experience with other genres may be helpful but will not be sufficient. So, for example, all the experience in the world reading and writing comic books will not by itself render someone able to read or write a cookbook. Similarly, extensive experience with storybooks, while beneficial in many respects, will not alone result in children being able to read and write information books. Learns must have experience with the particular genres in question in order to fully develop the ability to read and write (in) those genres.

It's one of the most logical passages I've read in a long time. What I have trouble understanding is why teachers, curriculum supervisors and book publishers aren't taking this to heart. Why aren't we reevaluating what we provide students on a regular basis? Do we continue to rely on narrative texts because they are easy? Because students like them? Many adults I know do not pick up novels to read for pleasure. Those same adults, though, regularly read articles--informational texts--online. It's ironic that the one text we escape as young students creeps up regularly in our adult life. We must review our practice and our curricula. Are we preparing students for success or are we leaving them in the lurches?