Talking our way to higher test scores…

 

If we imagine that our children are like caterpillars, then do we allow the caterpillar to emerge from the chrysalis naturally, providing the right environment or do we spend our energies foolishly trying to staple wings on it? This question gets played out on the elementary educational playing field every day in many forms, especially in kindergarten. Much of the research and pedagogy designed for specific populations such as identified second language learners, special education and gifted and talented is just good teaching for all students and represents strategies that encourage the caterpillar to emerge with wings, naturally. Unfortunately, students that need the best teaching the most don’t always receive it, instead becoming the recipients of an artificial set of wings. According to Orfield, even though the “No Child Left Behind Act” has provided accountability, sought to put qualified teachers in all schools and has required the collection and publishing of information about racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups in a school, it has done more to further increase the educational disparity between races and economics by expecting “really disadvantaged, impoverished schools and cities on the verge of bankruptcy to make more progress than suburban schools or be sanctioned very heavily and threatened with dissolution.” (Orfield, 2009, p. 4) Furthermore, “a three-year study (published by the U.S. Department of Education) of 140 elementary classrooms with high concentrations of poor children found that students whose teachers emphasized “meaning and understanding” were far more successful than those who received basic-skills instruction.” (Kohn, 2011, p. 4) Even so, “In books like The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol, another frequent visitor to urban schools, describes a mechanical, precisely paced process for drilling black and Latino children in ‘obsessively enumerated particles of amputated skill associated with upcoming state exams.’ “(Kohn, 2011, p. 2) None of these examples demonstrate good pedagogy and are akin to stapling the wings on a caterpillar.

 

 This research has direct implications for me as a kindergarten teacher. I have participated in many kindergarten screenings for school readiness over the years. Students who come into kindergarten are assessed in reading and writing skills. If they do not meet pre-determined, standardized benchmarks, they are flagged for extra, skills-based interventions that sometimes seem more like stapling wings than support.

 

In response to this, many elementary educators already question the push to start writing in kindergarten to the level that it is now implemented (me included). However, with pressure from legislators, administrators and parents, kindergarten has become the old first grade in many ways. Though the question has been more about developmental appropriateness, this week’s readings indicate that this trend might have even more significant implications for equity across socioeconomic groups, especially since this push may be happening unequally.  As a kindergarten teacher, it has concerned me that there is a sense of urgency to put pencils in children’s hands and get them writing on the first day of school. I have always viewed it as developmentally inappropriate and much more appropriate to prioritize speaking and listening skills with a focus on meaning and understanding as critical precursors to successful writing. Now, after reading Tough (2006), I see even more reasons to rethink some practices that have become common place in kindergarten. With some simple changes in kindergarten, by rethinking the structures of our classrooms, by evaluating the approaches we take and the reasons, we can lay a foundation that might dramatically impact issues of equity.

From a developmental standpoint, there are many reasons to avoid putting a pencil in a kindergartner’s hand on the first day of school. They include fine motor skills and the need to first strengthen listening and speaking skills. However, according to Tough there might be other reasons as well.  Children don’t come to school with equal vocabularies. If you can’t talk about it, you can’t write about it. “By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children’s I.Q.’s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.” (Tough, 2006, p. 4)  When the causes for the differences were carefully evaluated, researchers determined that the single most contributing factor was the number of words that parents spoke to their children each day. “In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 “utterances” — anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy — to their children each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour.” (Tough, 2006, p. 4) The language inequities that begin long before school provide another reason to focus on speaking and listening more than writing.

 

Kindergarten can be the leveling field across economic lines; a spring board that fosters growth and gives every child a strong start.  First, we need to make sure that our classrooms are integrated. “Socioeconomic integration is a win-win situation: Low-income students' performance rises; all students receive the cognitive benefits of a diverse learning environment (Antonio et al., 2004; Phillips, Rodosky, Muñoz, & Larsen, 2009); and middle-class students' performance seems to be unaffected up to a certain level of integration. (Potter, 2013, p.2) Next, our early programs need to provide ample opportunities for talking and listening. It would be interesting to find out how many words children hear when they walk through my door.  How many words do they utter to each other and in response to questions requiring answers higher up on Blooms Taxonomy? What does their IQ look like after such exposure? What would happen if teachers were given more freedom to design programs that focus even more on speaking and listening instead of feeling pushed to reach pre-determined reading and writing benchmarks?

 

And furthermore, I wonder do certain words make more of a difference than others?  Martha Farah’s research in neuroscience seems to indicate that kind, supportive and nurturing language could have a significant impact upon academic performance in the long run.  She cites that “parental nurturance-that middle-class parents on average are more likely to provide- stimulates the brain’s medial temporal lobe, which in turn aids the development of memory skills.” (Tough, 2006, p. 5) When considering the impact of memory on academic performance, it seems valid to prioritize the social-emotional needs of the child when designing curriculum that prioritizes the spoken word.  Hart and Risley’s research further supports the impact of speaking and listening to a child’s development. Their research “showed that language exposure in early childhood correlated strongly with I.Q. and academic success later on in a child’s life. Hearing fewer words, and a lot of prohibitions and discouragements, had a negative effect on I.Q.; hearing lots of words, and more affirmations and complex sentences, had a positive effect on I.Q. The professional parents were giving their children an advantage with every word they spoke, and the advantage just kept building up. “(Tough, 2006, p. 4) It makes sense to ask children what they think, how they see the world and to give them time to formulate and articulate answers.  Clearly, the classroom needs to be a lively, talkative place where students are actively engaged in verbally sharing and listening to each other’s learning and strong passions, not a place where children are quietly filling out worksheets about the letter “a.”

 

I appreciate the image of every child coming out of the kindergarten chrysalis with strong, authentic wings, ready to fly.  Kinder is the first step on a long learning journey. Without the push to make kindergarten into first grade, caring and compassionate teachers can lay the foundation so that the journey can be a joyful, meaningful one for all students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. “We are children only once; and after those few years are gone, there is no second chance to make amends. In this respect, the consequences of unequal education have a terrible finality.” (Kozol, 1991, p.6)  It’s so encouraging to image that with every specific, supportive, kind word I utter, I am taking tangible steps towards equity for all students and to realize that choices I am already making in the classroom have a research base that can make a difference.

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Kohn, A. (2011). Poor teaching for poor children…in the name of reform. Education Week, April 27, 2011.

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perennial. (Excerpt).

Potter, H. (2013) Boosting achievement by pursuing diversity. Educational Leadership, 70, 8, May 2013, 38-43.

Orfield, G. (2009). The long road: (Re)segregation in America. UnBoxed, 3, Spring 2009.

 

Tough, P. (2006). “What it takes to make a student.” NY Times Magazine, November 26, 2006.