Family Language

Family Readiness - Family Language

The Influence of Family Learning Environments on the Reading Readiness Trajectories of Children:

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For most children. the relative ease or difficulty they experience in learning to read in school is based on their 'reading readiness trajectory' which has been developing since birth.  There are three major contributors to a child's reading readiness trajectory*:

1) LANGUAGE: children who don't have sufficient verbal abilities or have small vocabularies are at great risk of reading difficulty because their brains aren't ready for the challenge - reading sits atop language.

2) EMOTION (self esteem): Learning to read is confusing and frustrating and requires 'emotional strength and resilience' to avoid dropping into self-consciousness and/or shame which interferes with learning to read.

3) PRINT EXPOSURE & ALPHABETIC INSIGHT Understanding that words can be written and that writing is made of the letters of the alphabet, and the knowledge of the alphabet's letters and their sounds are prerequisites to reading. 

The stronger the family learning environment with respect to these contributors, particularly the first two, the less likely the child will suffer inordinate difficulty learning to read. Conversely, the weaker the family learning environment the greater the risk that the child will suffer difficulty.

By 9 months of age children's brains are already beginning to take on language learning trajectories that will be more or less advantageous to their later language and literacy learning depending on the quality of the language they are experiencing.(1,2,)  Their vocabulary growth begins to explode by age 3 (3,4) and the degree of family talk they engage in by age 4 is highly predictive of their IQs and reading scores in the 3rd grade (5). 

It is very difficult to make up for a weak family learning environment (6). It costs more in terms of brain strain for the child (7) and in terms of dollars for the system (8,9). While preschools can change the readiness trajectories of children (10) it is impractical for them to intervene early enough in a child's trajectory to be as optimal a location for intervention, in terms of neurological efficiency, as the family learning environment.  

All of the above is corroborated by, consistent with, and explains much of what economists and sociologists call "family effects" (11). The cost-efficiency of the nation's 500+ billion dollar a year K12 expenditures (12), reflects how effective we are in teaching reading. (13)  Our effectiveness in teaching reading, indeed the quality of NCLB's Reading 1st program most responsible for the recent upturn in reading scores, is how well we assess and accommodate for children's readiness for reading (14) - accommodate for the trajectories they acquired in their family learning environments. 

* For most children - a small percentage of children have innate neurobiological learning disabilities or dyslexia that severely affect the trajectory of the learning to read. (15)

Related Videos:

Readiness: Early Life-Learning Trajectories
Readiness (all)

 
 

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Dr. Grover (Russ) Whitehurst  Director, Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education
 Dr. Jack Shonkoff Chair, The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child; Co-Editor: From Neurons to Neighborhoods
Dr. Edward Kame'enui Commissioner for Special Education Research, U.S. Department of Education; Director, IDEA, University  of Oregon
 Dr. G. Reid Lyon  Past Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Dr. Keith Stanovich  Canadian Chair of Cognitive Science, University of Toronto
Dr. Mel Levine Co-Chair and Co-Founder, All Kinds of Minds; Author: A Mind at a Time, The Myth of Laziness & Ready or Not Here Life Comes
Dr. Alex Granzin  School District Psychologist, Past President, Oregon School Psychologists Association 
Dr. James J. Heckman Nobel Laureate, Economic Sciences 2000; Lead Author: The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
Dr. Timothy Shanahan President (2006) International Reading Association, Chair National Early Literacy Panel, Member National Reading Panel
 Nancy Hennessy  President, 2003-2005, International Dyslexia Association
 Dr. Marilyn Jager Adams Senior Scientist, Soliloquy Learning, Author: Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print
 Dr. Michael Merzenich Chair of Otolaryngology, Integrative Neurosciences, UCSF;  Member National Academy of Sciences
 Dr. Maryanne Wolf Director, Center for Reading & Language Research; Professor of Child Development, Tufts University
Dr. Todd Risley  Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Alaska, Co-author: Meaningful Differences
 Dr. Sally Shaywitz  Neuroscientist, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University, Author: Overcoming Dyslexia
Dr. Louisa Moats  Director, Professional Development and Research Initiatives, Sopris West Educational Services
 Dr. Zvia Breznitz Professor, Neuropsychology of Reading & Dyslexia, University of Haifa, Israel 
 Rick Lavoie Learning Disabilities Specialist, Creator: How Difficult Can This Be?: The F.A.T. City Workshop & Last One Picked, First One Picked On
 Dr.Charles Perfetti Professor, Psychology & Linguistics; Senior Scientist and Associate Director, Learning R&D Center, U. of Pittsburgh, PA
Arthur J. Rolnick Senior V.P. & Dir. of Research,  Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis;  Co- Author: The Economics of Early Childhood Development  
Dr. Richard Venezky  Professor, Educational Studies, Computer and  Information Sciences, and Linguistics, University of Delaware
Dr. Keith Rayner  Distinguished  Professor, University of Massachusetts, Author: Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing
Dr. Paula Tallal  Professor of Neuroscience, Co-Director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University
 Dr.John Searle  Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language, University of California-Berkeley, Author: Mind, A Brief Introduction
Dr.Mark T. Greenberg Director, Prevention Research Center, Penn State Dept. of Human Development & Family Studies; CASEL Leadership Team
Dr. Terrence Deacon  Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics at University of California- Berkeley
Chris Doherty  Ex-Program Director, National Reading First Program, U.S. Department of Education
 Dr. Erik Hanushek Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Dr. Marketa Caravolas Director, Bangor Dyslexia Unit, Bangor University, Author: International Report on Literacy Research
 Dr. Christof Koch Professor of Computation and Neural Systems,  Caltech - Author: The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach
 Dr. Guy Deutscher Professor of Languages and Cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia, Holland; Author: Unfolding Language
 Robert Wedgeworth  President, ProLiteracy, World's Largest Literacy Organization
Dr. Peter Leone  Director, National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice
 Dr. Thomas Cable  Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin, Co-author: A History of the English Language
Dr. David Abram Cultural Ecologist and Philosopher; Author: The Spell of the Sensuous
Pat Lindamood and Nanci Bell  Principal Scientists, Founders, Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes
 Dr. Anne Cunningham  Director, Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education, Graduate School of Education at University of California-Berkeley
 Dr. Donald L. Nathanson  Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College, Director of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute 
Dr.Johanna Drucker  Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia, Author: The Alphabetic Labyrinth
John H. Fisher  Medievalist, Leading authority on the development of the written English language, Author: The Emergence of Standard English
 Dr. Malcolm Richardson   Chair, Dept. of English, Louisiana State University; Research: The Textual Awakening of the English Middle Classes  
James Wendorf  Executive Director, National Center for Learning Disabilities
Leonard Shlain Physician; Best-Selling Author: The Alphabet vs. The Goddess
Robert Sweet  Co-Founder, National Right to Read Foundation

FULL LIST OF OVER 100 COMPLETED INTERVIEWS

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The Children of the Code is a Social Education Project and a Public Television Series intended to catalyze and resource a social-educational transformation in how we think about and, ultimately, teach reading. The Children of the Code is an entertaining educational journey into the challenges our children's brains face when learning to read. The series weaves together archeology, history, linguistics, developmental neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, information theory, reading theory, learning theory, and the personal and social dimensions of illiteracy. 


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