Early Ed and Teenage Literacy

In one of those moments of shear, but strange, coincidence, I stumbled upon the following article today, shortly after my kindergarten-teaching mother-in-law asked me if I had found anything interesting in the realm of early ed lately.

Britain has a national curriculum with specific goals, and schools there are rigorously inspected and evaluated. Most kids enter school at 4, instead of 5 as is the case here, and pre-kindergarten programs tend to be more academic than in the United States. American programs are often more play-based than academically structured, and standards vary widely from state-to-state and between public and private settings.

It's not an open-and-shut case as to whether one country's approach is better than another. On a recent international reading test, U.S. fourth-graders and their peers from England had the same results. They weren't all that impressive. Students from the two countries posted lower average scores than students in Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Hungary, Italy and Sweden, along with several Canadian provinces.

In math, kids in the United Kingdom, which includes Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, outperformed their American peers on an international test given to 15-year-olds. - Nancy Zuckerbrod, AP, "Mom finds U.S. lagging in early education" August 25, 2008. CNN.com

The math is especially telling. By requiring 6 year olds to know fractions (well before the Oregon State Standards - 3rd grade (Oregon Math Standards available here)), they get an incredible jump on all future math learning. And it isn't beyond the reach of a Kinder, I've watched my younger cousins determine that their half of the cookie isn't actually half. The games we play with young students to demonstrate halves, thirds and quarters can be comprehended by a 6 year old if done correctly. Why isn't it pushed more, why not include it in the games we play with our preschoolers and kinders? I don't spend all day with kids this age - is there any one out there who disagrees?

The reading is interesting. Britons are pushed to read far and above Americans by the age of 6 - but 4th graders test the same. If they're pushing so hard at the beginning, and developing those skills early, why aren't they continuing to build on them? The following is a quote from a Canadan news network, Globe and Mail but sounds very similar to the things written about American students.

And yet everything conspires against children learning to love books. Ubiquitous electronic devices, whether desk-bound or small enough to fit in their pockets, occupy an alarming proportion of children's days, and seem to shorten attention spans. Organized sports and music take up much of the remaining time. Homework - often mindless rote activities done by one tiny segment of a brain otherwise occupied by television - uses up time better used for reading. School literature courses often seem designed to expunge any traces of love for books. Parents may hector their children to read but tend not to read much in front of their children; children are quick to ignore such lip service. - Editorial, Globe and Mail Staff, "The Reading Habit Forms in Childhood", September 2, 2008.

What can we do, after they have the basic grounding in reading, to continue developing the skills and interest? Or, is the emphasis on reading out-dated? Does it really fit with our culture and world as it once did?

In an article in the New York Times addresses the issue:

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

Even accomplished book readers like Zachary Sims, 18, of Old Greenwich, Conn., crave the ability to quickly find different points of view on a subject and converse with others online. Some children with dyslexia or other learning difficulties, like Hunter Gaudet, 16, of Somers, Conn., have found it far more comfortable to search and read online. - Motoko Rich, "Literacy Debate - Online R U Really Reading?" New York Times, July 27, 2008

The debate will rage on, I'm sure. But what will be our driving force? What's best for our kids and our world, or what gives us the better test scores compared to other countries?

References:

Globe and Mail Staff, "The Reading Habit Forms in Childhood", The Globe and Mail September 2, 2008. CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080902.wereading02/BNStory/specialComment/home

Rich, Mokoto, "Literacy Debate - Online R U Really Reading?" New York Times July 27, 2008. The New York Times Company. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Zuckerbrod, Nancy. "Mom finds U.S. lagging in early education" August 25, 2008. Associated Press. http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/25/early.education.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText