Learning from Mom Boosts Low-Income Kids' School Readiness

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2011) — Previous research says on average, children living in poverty are less well prepared to start school than children from middle-income homes. Now, new research says home learning experiences may help low-income children's school readiness.

Our findings indicate that enriched learning experiences as early as the first year of life are important to children's vocabulary growth, which in turn provides a foundation for children's later school success," said Eileen T. Rodriguez, survey researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

"This research provides an important glimpse into how children learn and develop in naturalistic settings across time," said Amber Story, a social psychologist and deputy director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, which funded the study.

"Such data is difficult to gather but it adds a necessary dimension to our understanding of learning and all the factors that impact it before the child even reaches the classroom."

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110620112108.htm

[mia]

1. The kids entering Pre-K can have extremes of readiness skills.

At the beginning of the school year I've seen 4 years olds who hold books upside-down and don't know the difference between letters and a numbers and others who come to school reading.

Early strengths and weaknesses often follow the students throughout their elementary years, also effecting their test scores.

[femmocrat]

2. Even in kindergarten.... at the beginning of the year----

I have seen students who cannot say, let alone print, their first names. Many do not understand the concept of their "last name". Some only answer to a nickname and do not know their given name. They don't know colors or shapes. They cannot cut with safety scissors. Many are still scribbling instead of making simple shapes. (I am the art teacher.)

Those students who attended pre-school are "generally" far more advanced than those who did not. (Not always, though.)

How the kindergarten teachers cover all of this in the short time they have with the children is amazing. By the second semester there is tremendous improvement, even in half-day kindergarten. We have joked that some of these children must have been kept in a closet for the first five years of their lives. Makes one wonder!

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. We have several every year who don't KNOW their name

The family calls him Buddy and never told him his name is actually Robert.

Happens every year.