[Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health

Wed Sep 16 19:05:50 UTC 2015

You might also like this piece (attached) that was recently published in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.  Here’s the cite in case the attachment doesn’t go through:

Avineri, N., et al. (2015). Invited forum: Bridging the "language gap." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25(1), 66-86.

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From: edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se [mailto:edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se] On Behalf Of Daniel Ginsberg
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 7:42 AM
To: The Educational Linguistics List
Subject: Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health

I think they'd question the empirical basis for that claim. It's usually cited to Hart & Risley 1995, which as I mentioned is a highly flawed piece of work. Here's a thorough critical response to it: http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/med/LangPoor.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/med/LangPoor.pdf&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=60b6bd5fe85fbe058acfd3586d018d3b7a9f36a2f2da17a7fdd6266510df592b> There's a lot there in a relatively short article, but here's a key quote for this discussion:

Many educational researchers and policy makers have generalized the findings about the language and culture of the 6 welfare families in Hart and Risley’s study to all poor families. Yet, Hart and Risley offer no compelling reason to believe that the poor families they studied have much in common with poor families in other communities, or even in Kansas City for that matter. The primary selection criterion for participation in this study was socioeconomic status; therefore, all the 6 welfare families had in common was income, a willingness to participate in the study, race (all the welfare families were Black), and geography (all lived in the Kansas City area). Families living in poverty are, however, an ethnically, linguistically, and racially diverse group (US Census Bureau, 2003). Strong claims about the language and culture of families living in poverty based on a sample of 6 Black welfare families living in Kansas City are unwarranted. (p. 364)

--
Daniel Ginsberg
Doctoral candidate, Linguistics
Georgetown University
http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=1ff97f56be6bf9247eda6836b39dc9b3c30af044993fa63deb374c3c376879f5>

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 4:22 AM, Richard Hudson <r.hudson at ucl.ac.uk<mailto:r.hudson at ucl.ac.uk>> wrote:
Hello again Daniel. Thanks for the interesting link. Would you agree that even these researchers accept that poor children reach school with fewer words than rich children?

Dick Hudson

On 15/09/2015 21:51, Daniel Ginsberg wrote:
There was an invited forum in Jnl Ling Anth earlier this year that debunked a lot of this "word gap" discourse. I would love to see more public awareness of this, and less uncritical citation of the highly flawed Hart & Risley study.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12071/full<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12071/full&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=f08703c53fd54481f4b0a4375d0eba099baa74cc70b93b2f22ef28242547dff7>

--
Daniel Ginsberg
Doctoral candidate, Linguistics
Georgetown University
http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=1ff97f56be6bf9247eda6836b39dc9b3c30af044993fa63deb374c3c376879f5>

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 7:27 AM, Francis Hult <francis.hult at englund.lu.se<mailto:francis.hult at englund.lu.se>> wrote:

[Moderator's note: I post this story because it relates to a discourse that is gaining public traction.  I am reminded of an article that was recently posted to Edling:

Johnson, E.J. (2015) Debunking the “language gap”. Journal for Multicultural Education, 9(1), 42-50.

I wonder what perspectives list members working in different research traditions have on this topic.  What additional research findings and ideas should we be getting out to the public and how?  FMH]

The Atlantic

Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health

Research suggests that poor children hear about 600 words per hour, while affluent children hear 2,000. By age 4, a poor child has a listening vocabulary of about 3,000 words, while a wealthier child wields a 20,000-word listening vocabulary. So it’s no surprise that poor children tend to enter kindergarten already behind their wealthier peers.

But it’s not just the poverty that holds them back—it’s the lack of words. In fact, the single-best predictor of a child’s academic success is not parental education or socioeconomic status, but rather the quality and quantity of the words that a baby hears during his or her first three years.

Full story:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/georgias-plan-to-close-the-30-million-word-gap-for-kids/403903/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/georgias-plan-to-close-the-30-million-word-gap-for-kids/403903/&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=0153ee7d02cb6a4baaba3d07c409f88e8045c29d9599d31e8d9eac8296f92518>

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Richard Hudson (dickhudson.com<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://dickhudson.com&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=ae4cf348db31864aa08ba4fa2a19e43ec0770d70497adce6b32f63976874fbf5>)

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