2008 April 03 Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Literacy coaches have begun fanning out among housing developments in Boston, urging parents of infants and toddlers to talk to their children. And talk. And talk some more. They’re encouraging parents to keep up a running play-by-play of their actions, “while bathing and dressing their little ones, riding the bus with them, preparing meals, and running errands,” the Boston Globe reports, “even if the babies respond with nothing more than a blink, smile, or coo.”

Talk now, higher reading scores later. The logic will be clear to early childhood and literacy specialists, steeped in the the research of Hart and Risley, whose famous 1995 study demonstrated that children of poor families heard 30 million fewer words in their first three years than well-off children. “Middle-class parents speak, on average, 300 more words per hour to their children, according to the study,” the Globe notes. “The vocabulary gap at age 3 correlated with language scores in the third grade.” In Boston, only one in four low SES third-graders were proficient in reading on Massachusetts 2007 MCAS.

Officials in Australia have an answer for truancy: throw the parents in jail. New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma’s proposal has been pilloried by education and welfare experts who say the plan is over the top, and “will only hurt the most disadvantaged students.”

The plan announced earlier this week gives courts the power to impose “special orders on parents of children who don’t attend school, including the ability to force them into rehabilitation, mediation or counselling. If they fail to comply, they could face jail,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

“It’s not about punishing parents that are doing the right thing, or because of circumstances beyond their control - either the kids are disobedient, or there is a problem with drugs or alcohol - it’s about those parents who are physically, mentally, or financially able to do the right thing but point-blank refuse to accept their responsibility,” says Iemma. The new legislation was aimed at a “very small minority of parents who simply won’t do the right thing.”