[Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children¹s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health

Richard Hudson r.hudson at ucl.ac.uk
Sun Sep 20 20:57:47 UTC 2015 

Fair point Francis, and I can't pretend to understand the dynamics of 
the USA situation. But I know a bit about the UK, and I know that 
research-based policy is hard to sell to politicians. But it can be done 
- Debbie Myhill's recent work on grammar for writing is having a major 
impact. But I think that's only because it chimes with what the 
government wants to achieve anyway. I'm sure your campaign would be more 
successful if you could find some way to present yourselves as helpful 
(but critical) friends of the policy-makers rather than as profoundly 
out of sympathy with them.

Sorry if I'm misreading the situation, as I may well be.

With best wishes, Dick



On 19/09/2015 22:43, Francis Hult wrote:
>
> Whether or not the existence of a so-called vocabulary gap is 
> empirically justified (and you're probably right that Wells makes a 
> stronger case than do Hart & Risley; Krashen also cites some work on 
> literacy worth considering:
>
> http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/protecting_students.pdf), I 
> find it problematic that one orientation dominates public and 
> political discussion about educational development and that decades of 
> empirical evidence from ethnographic research about literacy practices 
> in education remains beyond so many politicians' and educational 
> leaders' horizons of awareness. I would certainly not argue for less 
> funding for educational projects, but rather the funding of projects 
> based on research that addresses a full spectrum of students' needs.
> Are Hart & Risley (among others in this tradition) dominating now 
> simply because they have better PR?
> Francis
>
> --
> Francis M. Hult, PhD
> Associate Professor
> Centre for Languages and Literature
> Lund University
> Web: http://www.sol.lu.se/en/sol/staff/FrancisHult/ 
> <http://www.sol.lu.se/en/sol/staff/FrancisHult/>
> Editor, Educational Linguistics book series
> http://www.springer.com/series/5894
> Co-editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language book series
> http://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644
> *New Book:* /Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A 
> Practical Guide/
> http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118308395.html
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se 
> [edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se] on behalf of Richard Hudson 
> [r.hudson at ucl.ac.uk]
> *Sent:* Friday, September 18, 2015 16:09
> *To:* The Educational Linguistics List
> *Subject:* Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children¹s Vocabulary Is 
> Important for Public Health
>
> The argument would be a great deal easier if you had evidence that 
> there's no vocabulary gap. And do you really want politicians to stop 
> voting funds for educational projects? Here in the UK we'd welcome 
> some of that cash.
>
> Dick
>
> On 18/09/2015 14:29, Francis Hult wrote:
>>
>> These are great pieces that summarize a substantial body of work.  
>> Yet, the public discourse continues to be dominated by one 
>> perspective.  Are we missing something about making findings like the 
>> ones discussed in these forum pieces part of public and political 
>> consciousness?  Is it because we're talking to each other in journals 
>> instead of to citizens and politicians in accessible books and 
>> magazine articles?  Is it because Hart & Risley suggest an easy 
>> answer while we focus on nuances and complexity?  Is it because we 
>> haven't succeeded in making findings  easy for citizens, politicians, 
>> and educational leaders to latch onto and translate into programs?
>>
>> This just seems like one of those issues on which we have a very 
>> strong foundation, but people are still choosing to build somewhere 
>> swampier.  Shouldn't we be able to attract more attention?
>>
>> Francis
>>
>> --
>> Francis M. Hult, PhD
>> Associate Professor
>> Centre for Languages and Literature
>> Lund University
>> Web: http://www.sol.lu.se/en/sol/staff/FrancisHult/
>> Editor, Educational Linguistics book series
>> http://www.springer.com/series/5894
>> Co-editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language book series
>> http://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644
>> *New Book:* /Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A 
>> Practical Guide/
>> http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118308395.html
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se 
>> [edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se] on behalf of Peter Sayer 
>> [peter.sayer at utsa.edu]
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 17, 2015 20:37
>> *To:* The Educational Linguistics List
>> *Subject:* Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children¹s Vocabulary Is 
>> Important for Public Health
>>
>> Yeah I saw that forum piece when it came out – very cool!
>>
>> - peter.-
>>
>> From: <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se> on behalf of Eric Johnson 
>> <ejj at tricity.wsu.edu <mailto:ejj at tricity.wsu.edu>>
>> Reply-To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>> Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 2:05 PM
>> To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
>> Subject: Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is 
>> Important for Public Health
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> *---------------------------------------------
>> **Eric J. Johnson, Ph.D.*
>> Associate Professor of Bilingual/ESL Education
>> Director of Outreach
>> Washington State University Tri-Cities
>> College of Education
>> 2710 Crimson Way
>> Office 207W
>> Richland, WA 99354
>> (509) 372-7304
>> ejj at tricity.wsu.edu <mailto:ejj at tricity.wsu.edu>
>> https://education.wsu.edu/ejj/
>>
>> Se habla español.
>>
>> */¡Vamos Cougs!/*
>>
>> *From:*edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se 
>> <mailto: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
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 4:22 AM, Richard Hudson <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
>>
>>     On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 7:27 AM, Francis Hult
>>     <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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>
> -- 
> Richard Hudson (dickhudson.com)
>
>
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-- 
Richard Hudson (dickhudson.com)

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