Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million gap by age 3. American Educator, 27, pp. 3-9.
The article was written by two authors who have collected research material for over thirty years. Betty Hart is in Human Development at the University of Kansas, Todd Risley is involved in the development of an early autism treatment program. This article focuses on the sociological relationship between quality of life and access to education. Research spans the 30-year period since the 1960s when the states of the Midwest were in troubled economic conditions. The work is exceptional in terms of its temporal scope, but more recent, practical research to improve the literacy of working-class pupils should be mentioned (Neuman & Dwyer, 2011). Concentrating on the position of children in society from most demographic approaches, the result shows a gap in vocabulary, the spread of which seemed truly alarming. Observing and recording the vocabulary of children of different classes and from the same city, the study set the task to outline the connection between the vocabulary of the child and his social conditions.
The result of the study showed that despite the same age, children from different social circles receive completely different upbringing and the level of attention of their parents. The social status of families can, as a result, determine the level of parental involvement in the upbringing of the child. The authors of the study claim that depending on the class level, the basic vocabulary and intellectual stock of the child is determined. The article is aimed at teachers and educational specialists and is written in an accessible scientific language with elements of journalism, using statistics to prove its conclusions. The work calls for large-scale pedagogical intervention in order to equalize the ability of each child to acquire the necessary vocabulary. The article is innovative for its findings and scope of research and for this reason requires the attention of teachers and educators.
Neuman, S. B., & Dwyer, J. (2011). Developing vocabulary and conceptual knowledge for low-income preschoolers. Journal of Literacy Research, 43(2), pp. 103-129.
Susan B. Neuman is a University of Michigan Professor of Educational Stadiums who is a researcher and practitioner in the field of early childhood literacy. Julie Dwyer is now working as an Assistant Teaching Professor of Education in Quinnipiac University. This article contains the results of a pilot study on vocabulary expansion among children from low-income families. For four months, educational work was carried out with the children using new original approaches based on previous developments. In particular, the researchers mention the work of Hart and Risley, who argued that the gap in vocabulary between children of different social groups can lead to national intellectual damage (Hart & Risley, 2003). The authors of the study used the innovative training program World for Words, specifically aimed at the implementation of interactive tactics in teaching children. Educational tactics have focused on mnemonic mechanisms such as mental visual representation.
The results of this intensive learning program have shown highly positive results, in particular increasing the level of knowledge of the more difficult words in children. According to the authors, it is possible to overcome the common problem of lack of vocabulary in children from difficult social environments by using engaging tactics and thoughtful methodology. The study is aimed at literacy educators who may require original methodology to improve their students’ vocabulary. The work proposes experimentally proven strategies for involving students from low-income families in the educational process and demonstrates the effectiveness in the application of these programs. The article provides a coherent discussion of strategies to improve language proficiency in children and is valuable for language teaching methodologists.
References
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million gap by age 3. American Educator, 27, pp. 3-9.
Neuman, S. B., & Dwyer, J. (2011). Developing vocabulary and conceptual knowledge for low-income preschoolers. Journal of Literacy Research, 43(2), pp. 103-129.