Spring 2003
The
Early Catastrophe
The 30 Million Word Gap
By Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley
By age
three, children from privileged families have heard 30 million more words
than children from poor families. By kindergarten the gap is even greater.
The consequences are catastrophic.
Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge--of Words and the World
(pdf file, 395k)
Scientific Insights into the Fourth-Grade Slump and Stagnant Reading
Comprehension
By E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
With
a scientific consensus established on how best to teach decoding, we've
reached the next reading frontier: increasing reading comprehension. Among
poor children, low comprehension is ruining their chances for academic
success. Among all children, comprehension scores are stagnant. Convincing
research tells us that key to both problems is to systematically build
children's vocabulary, fluency, and domain knowledge.
Research Round-Up
Poor Children's Fourth-Grade Slump
By Jeanne S. Chall and Vicki A. Jacobs
Words Are Learned Incrementally Over Multiple Exposures
By Steven A. Stahl
Oral
Comprehension Sets the Ceiling on Reading Comprehension
By Andrew Biemiller
Lost Opportunity
(pdf, 1
mb)
By Kate Walsh
Basal readers squander the chance to provide what teachers need: a
systematic program that builds the knowledge that propels comprehension.
Filling the Nonfiction Void
By Nell K. Duke, V. Susan Bennett-Armistead, and Ebony M. Roberts
Listening to and reading nonfiction develops vocabulary, builds domain
knowledge, and for many kids, motivates more reading. So why is it largely
absent from the early grades?
Taking Delight in Words
Using Oral Language To Build Young Children's Vocabularies
By Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan
We
can't wait until third and fourth grade to start building vocabulary.
Before children can read complicated words and texts themselves, teacher
read-alouds and playful discussions are the key to developing "jocose
linguaphiles."
A
Lost Eloquence
By Carol Muske-Dukes
Derided as part of a drill and kill pedagogy, the practice of memorizing
poetry is almost extinct. Along with it, we're losing a vital source of
eloquence--the ability to quote and an inner ear for cadence.
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