"WORD-POVERTY" IN TORONTO SCHOOLS

Toronto school survey…

“Race and poverty matter as early as Grade 3” – Sunday Star, Mar.1^st/09.

It is beyond doubt that financially disadvantaged children are also likely to be short changed in educational achievements and thus more likely to perpetuate the vicious circle of poverty –financially, emotionally and intellectually. The Toronto School Survey is only confirming what has been known for a long time: In homes where no books are read, and children not read to; where lack of education and ambition by their parents and their peer group is the norm; the poor children do not have a chance.

The Canadian psychologist Andrew Biemiller has studied vocabulary levels in young children, and found that those who come to kindergarten in the bottom twenty-fifth percentile of vocabulary generally remain behind other children in both vocabulary and reading comprehension, and thus puts them at a huge disadvantage in all areas of learning development right from the beginning.

Maryanne Wolf in her book Proust and the Squid gives an excellent account of this dilemma facing educators everywhere. One Californian study she cites is by Todd Risley and Betty Hart which showed that by “five years of age, some children from impoverished-language environments hear 32 million fewer words spoken to them than the average middle-class child; what she calls “word-poverty”(p.102). It’s a sobering finding. A substantial portion of our citizens are starting out in life with a huge disadvantage – near, or functional illiteracy. This is a problem that transcends money or income: it’s an intellectual and social problem rooted in the family –generally, but not always – financially disadvantaged or “poor”. There were people in the depressed thirties, poor farmers and workers, who barely had enough to feed and clothe themselves, but still found the money to buy books and the time to read to their children. I can personally vouch for the value of being read to: I grew up under rather limited circumstances in Europe, during and after the war, but every night after a Spartan meal, before bed-time, my mother read to us children. That “word-richness” followed me when I learned a new language in a new land –Canada.