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Entering first-graders are
treated
as if they came from similar backgrounds.
Schools and politicians like to pretend that all children start out in
happy, nurturing
homes.
The
wealthier and more educated the family, the more likely they are to
interact with their children.
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Too bad that's not the way
it is.
13 million
children live in families with incomes below the poverty
line.
2 million children are homeless.
7 million have parents who have run afoul of
the criminal justice system.
2 million have parents who are in prison. |
Children
who are talked to and played with
come to school ready to learn to read.
Children who start school with language deficiencies never catch up.
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Study
after study
show that
children from low-income homes
come to
school with
half the vocabulary
of children whose families have incomes
above the poverty line.
Yet school authorities place all beginning
first-graders
in the same classrooms. |
NOTE TO TEACHERS: Figure
out a way to stream first and second graders. Instead of wasting
effort managing multiple reading levels in one classroom, create
first and second grade classrooms in which there is only one reading
level per class. Use the first two grades to build the missing
vocabulary.
That's the way to produce third grades in which all the children can
read.
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NOTE
TO PARENTS
Send your
children to school knowing the letters and their sounds, the colors,
words
like up, down, and under, and the names of everything
in their environment.
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