Literacy is one of the biggest topics in early education partly because efforts to improve reading among elementary school students stalled in recent years, a new American Prospect series points out.

The in-depth series looks at why too many kids do not read at grade level and why it matters. It also offers a depressing view of the current state of reading.

• Fully one-third of fourth-graders tested lacked even the most basic literacy skills.
• …American fourth-graders performed no better in reading in 2009 than they did two years previously. – “Reading for Life” The American Prospect. 7/19/10.

These findings indicate a huge lost opportunity because reading at grade level helps to address a long list of educational issues that occur later in school, such as behavioral problems and dropping out of high school, New America Foundation’s early learning scholar Sara Mead points out in her story “Reading for Life.”

In fact, policymakers’ renewed focus on addressing the nation’s high school dropout rate and other secondary school problems misses the key role early education can play in their effort, Mead writes.

…If we want children to succeed in high school, college, and careers, our best and most cost-effective bet is to invest early in supporting their sound development in early childhood and acquisition of reading skills in elementary school. – “Reading for Life.”

Unfortunately, early literacy efforts lost federal support over the last few years as lawmakers focused on students in upper grades.

Since 2007, federal funding for early literacy has declined from more than $1 billion to $250 million, even as the overall federal education budget has grown.

The story makes plenty of other good points. One of the best is that literacy begins in the womb, with quality prenatal care and nurse home visits.

Of course, literacy efforts won’t get too far if kids don’t have books they want to read, a point made clear in another story that appeared today: “How to get boys to read? Try a book on farts: Parents hope gross-out humor can close gender gap in reading achievement.”

Boys have lagged behind girls in reading achievement for more than 20 years, but the gender gap now exists in nearly every state and has widened to mammoth proportions — as much as 10 percentage points in some, according to the Center on Education Policy.

Parents of reluctant readers complain that boys are forced to stick to stuffy required school lists that exclude nonfiction or silly subjects, or have teachers who cater to higher achievers and girls. They're hoping books that exploit boys' love of bodily functions and gross-out humor can close the gap. “How to get Boys to Read? Try a Book on Farts.” – Associated Press via MSNBC.com.

Parents and teachers know sleep matters and now research suggests preschoolers who have regular and early bedtimes score better on math, literacy and language tests.

The study found regular bedtime “was the most consis­tent predictor of positive developmental outcomes at age four.”

Scores for receptive and expressive language, phonological awareness, literacy and early math abilities were higher in children whose parents reported having rules about what time their child goes to bed. – “Study Links Regular Bedtimes to Better Language, Reading and Math Skills in Preschool Children,” 6/7/10.

The problem is researchers also found many kids do not get enough sleep, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which released a summary of the study this week. Preschoolers should sleep at least 11 hours a night, the group recommends.

“Getting parents to set bedtime routines can be an important way to make a significant impact on children's emergent literacy and language skills,” Erika Gaylor, PhD, lead author of the study and an early childhood policy researcher at the non-profit SRI International, said in a statement. “Pediatricians can easily promote regular bedtimes with parents and children, behaviors which in turn lead to healthy sleep.”

The group also recommends telling and reading bedtime stories as part of a routine that will help kids fall asleep. Yesterday, The Juggle reported a different study found links between poor sleep and bad behavior among grade schoolers.

(Thanks to Bloomberg BusinessWeek for highlighting this research.)

Are the Kids All Right? Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd kicks off a series of hearings  today on the “State of the American Child.”

Hearings will examine all aspects of children’s lives: their health from birth to adulthood, their educational experience in and out of the classroom, and their life at home with their families and in their communities; with the focus of the hearings being on the inter-connectedness of all these aspects and how they shape and define the lives of our children. – “Dodd Launches Landmark Series of Hearings: The State of the American Child.”

We will try to check back and see if senators find answers to the hearings’ questions, which include:

• What do our children need to succeed?
• How are we doing in providing those resources?

Teachers know quality matters, and now research shows quality teachers may matter more than previously thought in helping children reach their reading potential.

A new study by Florida State University researchers found that first grade and second grade students who received excellent instruction “tend to” reach their potential in reading, ScienceDaily reports.

Scholars know that genetics play the biggest role in a child's reading achievement, while the environment – including the classroom experience – plays a smaller role. This study is significant because it shows for the first time that teachers have a direct influence on the genetic variability among children. – ScienceDaily, 4/26/10. "When children receive more effective instruction, they will tend to develop at their optimal trajectory,"( the study’s lead author Jeanette) Taylor said. "When instruction is less effective, then children's learning potential is not optimized and genetic differences are left unrealized."

While the study focused on early elementary grades, it is not a huge jump to suggest a similar dynamic occurs in preschool and pre-kindergarten classrooms, where kids develop the foundations that will help or hinder their later reading. Yet, the quality of early learning teachers often is less consistent than among teachers in elementary schools, where credentials are more uniformly regulated.

What would happen if child care quality rating systems led to a more consistent level of quality among preschool and pre-kindergarten teachers? While higher quality teaching would not eliminate gaps in academic success, it should help in both early learning and elementary school classrooms.

"Putting high quality teachers in the classroom will not eliminate variability among students nor guarantee equally high achievement from all children, but ignoring teachers as a salient contributor to the classroom environment represents a missed opportunity to promote children's potential in school and their success in life," the researchers concluded.

Students are failing to reach key reading benchmarks by fourth grade, setting them up for failure later in high school and life, according to a new report that suggested one of the solutions is integrating early learning and the first grades of elementary school.

An incredible 83 percent of students from poor families, and 67 percent of all students, failed to reach proficiency in reading by fourth grade, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation report.  This failure is about more than low scores on fourth-grade tests.

“Failure to read proficiently is linked to higher rates of school dropout, which suppresses individual earning potential as well as the nation’s competitiveness and general productivity.” – Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters, 5/18/10.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation lays out a plan to address the problem, and early learning plays a key role.

“They need to be present at school because they can’t learn if they aren’t there. And they need to have high quality learning opportunities, beginning at birth and continuing in school and during out-of-school time, including summers, in order to sustain learning gains and not lose ground. For millions of American kids, these conditions are not met.” Early Warning. “The system we envision would promote a widely shared focus on the target results of: children born healthy; children healthy, thriving, and developing on track (no untreated health conditions or avoidable developmental delays), from birth through third grade and beyond; children developmentally ready (cognitively, socially, physically, and emotionally) to succeed in school at the time of school entry…”

The good news is Thrive by Five Washington is already working on solutions highlighted in the report. For example, Thrive by Five’s Culture of Literacy initiative is based on the idea that literacy begins in infancy. Plus, Thrive regularly supports the role of parents as their children’s first teachers.

But, the report makes it clear there is a lot of work left. So, the Annie E. Casey Foundation is launching a ten-year campaign to boost reading proficiency.

“…Our 10-year goals are to (1) “close the gap” between the children of low-income rural and urban families and their higher-income counterparts; (2) increase by 50% the number and proportion of students who are grade-level proficient readers by the end of third grade; and (3) “raise the bar” so that these readers truly are proficient by the rigorous standards that will put them on track to graduate from high school and to compete with the rest of the world.”

Check out the plan and entire report here.

Reading to kids is a critical part of development in the first years of life, but there is a wide gap between how often kids in low-income families hear stories and how often those in other families get story time, according to a new literacy campaign.

A new National “Read to Kids” campaign wants to close that divide, and it needs your help. 

Everybody Wins USA, a national literacy and mentoring nonprofit, has proposed a national effort to encourage parents, teachers and community volunteers to read to kids 20 minutes a day from birth through high school in change.org’s Ideas for Change in America contest. Change.org will present the top 10 ideas to the Obama administration.

The reading campaign is at once simple and powerful. Supporters compare it to the national fitness campaign, which supports kids getting 60 minutes of exercise a day. In this case, if kids listen to 20 minutes of stories, magazine articles or other writing every day they are better off, they suggest.

According to the National Commission on Reading report, Becoming a Nation of Readers, “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” However, The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study found that only 36% of kindergarten students of a low socioeconomic status were being read to every day by their parents. In total, low-income children hear only half to one-third as many spoken words as children in more affluent households. – National Read to Kids Campaign contest description at change.org.

This morning, the campaign had a real shot of making the cut, ranking 15th among all of the proposed ideas. It needed 478 votes to crack the top 10. Cast your vote now in support of literacy!

Final round voting closes Friday.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!    

– “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss

Since today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday it is a good time to report that Thrive by Five Washington will encourage more kids to travel off to great places by investing $350,000 on programs that help them learn to read.

The $350,000 investment will launch Thrive’s Culture of Literacy initiative, which will spend the public and private dollars largely in rural communities around Washington State.  It will spend a lot of the money on the Reach Out and Read Washington program, which encourages doctors and nurses to give new books to kids, and their parents, during checkups.

 The Culture of Literacy initiative has broader goals than spending this $350,000, and one is to create an early literacy system in Washington.

Thrive will step in with funds at a time when Reach Out and Read Washington could use some help.  For the last two years, the federal Reach Out and Read program has not been able to give its Washington affiliate new books. Now, the Washington program will be able to get new books to families in underserved and sometimes un-served rural and tribal communities.

Early literacy is key, setting the stage not only for later literacy, but development and school readiness. The one thing parents hear over and over again is ‘Read to your child.”

Thrive by Five’s early literacy efforts extend beyond this investment. For example, Thrive partnered with the Department of Early Learning to spend $1.5 million in Reading Readiness grants during 2007-08, funds that helped 12 groups around Washington encourage early literacy. But, the partnership was not able to invest in 2008-09 because of budget cuts.

While Thrive’s literacy campaign will take a big step forward with this new investment, imagine the places it might go with more state and federal funding.

In the spirit of the holiday and last-minute shopping season, I created a list of my family’s favorite children’s books, which are stories that both my kids and I enjoy reading.

The list is hardly scientific and anything but set because it changes nearly every month. While I can’t say these books will raise fourth grade math test scores or college graduation rates, these stories should help with one of the key aspects of early learning: Parents reading to their children.

• “The Story of Holly & Ivy” by Rumer Godden and Barbara Cooney.
• “Snowmen at Christmas” by Caralyn BuehnerandMark Buehner.
• “The Penderwick’s: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy” by Jeanne Birdsall. Author website.
• “The Barefoot Book of Fairy Tales” retold by Malachy Doyle. Illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli.
•  “Lost and Found” by Oliver Jeffers.

The Classics:

• “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. The Lorax website.
• “Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months” by Maurice Sendak.
• “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck” and “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher” by Beatrix Potter. The World of Beatrix Potter
• “The Magician’s Nephew” by C.S. Lewis. (The first in “The Chronicles of Narnia” series.
• “The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh” by A. A. Milne, decorations by Ernest H. Shepard.

A couple of other lists:

• “Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009” by The New York Times.
• “Early literacy starts with wonderful books.” EarlyStories offers a list of good children’s books lists, plus a link to Pre-K Now’s books for adults who care about early learning.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Washington State News

• Gregoire disowns budget plan; favors raising taxes – 12/10/09, The Seattle Times
• Ready by Five puts building plan on hold – 12/8/09, Yakima Herald Republic

National News

• Unproved Early-Reading Program Likely to Prevail – 12/9/09, Education Week
• Literacy is key to a prepared workforce – 12/6/09, Star Tribune (MN)
• 11 local early childhood education programs participate in state quality rankings  – 12/8/09, The News Leader (VA)
• Baldacci lauds Educare center – 12/9/09, Kennebec Journal (ME)  
• Pre-K program teaches kids how to learn – 12/7/09, Mountain View Voice (CA)
• A healthier Head Start focuses more on preventing obesity – 12/7/09, USA TODAY
• Editorial – Our View: Pre-K is a practical, preventive investment – 12/6/09, The Idaho Statesman (ID)

Research/Policy

•  In New Jersey, Education Reform Starts Early – 12/11/09, New America Foundation: Early Ed Watch Blog
• Head Start or healthy start? Veggies, workouts for toddlers – 12/8/09, Hechinger Institute: Early Stories on Journalism, Children and Learning
• Trying to Break Down the Walls Between HHS and the Dept of Ed – 12/8/09, New America Foundation: Early Ed Watch Blog
• Helicopter parents: A luxury in recession U.S.? – 12/4/09, Hechinger Institute: Early Stories on Journalism, Children and Learning
• Did Michigan Create an Incentive to Sacrifice Pre-K? – 11/30/09, National Institute for Early Education Research

Washington State News

• Bill would boost money for literacy programs – 11/17/09, The Bellingham Herald

National News

• Early childhood learning starts with parents, not products – 11/16/09, Shreveport Times (LA)
• Society must band together to help children achieve – 11/16/09, The Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
• Obama’s new push for preschool for at-risk children – 11/15/09, The Christian Science Monitor
• Early Childhood Education is Economic Issue – 11/14/09, The Standard Times (MA)
• Embrace New Conceptual Age – 11/14/09, The Advocate

Research/Public Policy

• Teacher, can we please have some more homework? – 11/13/09, Hechinger Institute: Early Stories on Journalism, Children and Learning

Play is an increasingly popular tool in early education, but we may need to dramatically redefine how we view it and use it in classrooms to help children succeed in school and life, a New York Times Magazine article suggests.

This Sunday, the magazine explored the Tools of the Mind teaching method that relies on structured and directed play to help students learn cognitive control - a big part of how to think - which holds the promise of better math and literacy scores that are in demand today. Without getting too simplistic, with Tools of the Mind kids can learn self regulation through long periods of complex scenario-based play, according to the in-depth story. Essentially, play is hard work.

Especially these days, they contend, when children spend more time in front of screens and less time in unsupervised play, kids need careful adult guidance and instruction before they are able to play in a productive way.

…

For (Lev) Vygotsky (whose work Tools of the Mind is based on), the real purpose of early-childhood education was not to learn content, like the letters of the alphabet or the names of shapes and colors and animals. The point was to learn how to think. – “Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?,” New York Times Magazine, 9/27/09.

The story raises fundamental questions about education, early, elementary and even secondary. Is education supposed to emphasize development of skills, whether it’s reading or writing software code, or how to think? Of course, education develops both, but it’s a question of emphasis.

While The New York Times story reports it’s too early to determine how effective Tools of the Mind is there are encouraging signs.

After a year in the program, students did significantly better than a similar group on basic measures of literacy ability. And more recent studies, including one overseen by Adele Diamond, a professor at the University of British Columbia who is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of cognitive self-control, have shown that Tools students consistently score higher on tests requiring executive function. – New York Times Magazine.

It is unlikely that Tools is a magic key, or at least the only magic key, that unlocks the power of play. But, the story left me thinking it could be a dramatic and important step in that direction.

Still, helping early learners boost their executive function – basically the ability to think clearly and in a directed way - isn’t easy, says University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, according to the story.

“It’s not impossible,” she concludes, “but it’s damn hard.”