Last week’s column talked about the problems created by high school dropouts both to themselves and to society at large. Such negative consequences as crime, low income, dependence on public programs, and even health problems were mentioned. No one disagrees that we need to reduce dropouts. The question is what can we do about it?
You might be surprised at one of the most important interventions we can generate. It is perhaps one of the most powerful because it is done early in life before negative attitudes and discouragement can take over. This remedy is to help level the playing field between children of poverty with children from middle class backgrounds. It is done through providing free quality preschool experiences for all children whose families cannot afford such programs.
Why is that so important to dropout prevention? Some facts help clarify the reasons. Paul Tough writing in the New York Times shares information on a study that was conducted in 1995 by Betty Hart and Todd Risley. They found that 3-year-old children coming from families where the parents were professionals had, on average, a 1,100 word vocabulary. By contrast children from poverty families had an average vocabulary of 525 words. The I.Q. differences between these groups matched the vocabulary differences with professional family children I.Q.’s averaging 117 compared to 79 for children from poverty homes.
They dug a little deeper and found the cause of this difference can be traced to the number and quality of “utterances” that were directed by the parents to the children. In professional homes, parents addressed their children an average of 487 times per hour. In poverty homes, the average was 178. Perhaps equally important were the types of communication between parents and children. In professional homes, children heard 500,000 encouraging statements and 80,000 discouraging statements by age 3. In poverty homes, the opposite was true. A 3-year old from those homes on average had experienced an average of 75,000 encouragements and 200,000 discouragements.
Hart and Risley showed that hearing fewer words and more negative comments had a dramatic impact on the I.Q.’s, and eventual school readiness, of children.
Quality preschool programs can help make up some of the difference in this early language training. It can also provide students from experience-deprived families the backgrounds and vocabulary they need to become readers. It is hard to read a story as a young child if you cannot relate what you read to any prior experiences.
A good preschool also gives non-English speaking children the opportunity to learn English. Coming to kindergarten without competence in the classroom language is a huge disadvantage and impediment to learning.
Another strategy to reduce dropouts is to have more training for parents from poverty families. Helping them understand the importance of talking to their children, encouraging them and reading to them would also help avoid some of the harm that can be done by ineffective parenting.
Currently, about one fourth to one third of our kindergarten students enter kindergarten without any preschool experience. These students often are from families that are not poor enough to qualify for Head Start and not wealthy enough to afford private preschool. Such families often also have a problem providing transportation for their young children to get to and from preschool.
This is the group that would greatly benefit from free preschool for their children.
While preschool education and early childhood parenting training are not the only solutions to dropout prevention, they are good starting points. Next week, this column will focus on strategies that can be employed in later school grades to improve school completion. It will also talk about what a community can do to help.
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