Category Archives: At home

Be warned, this could be a depressing read as this new study suggests that children who attend school with many kids from violent neighborhoods can earn significantly lower test scores than peers with classmates from safer areas. You read it correctly, even if those kids themselves aren’t living in these violent neighborhoods. But do be warned, I can sum several possible explanations for this correlation. And no, giving up on children is not, I repeat, not an option.

From the press release:

Children who attend school with many kids from violent neighborhoods can earn significantly lower test scores than peers with classmates from safer areas, according to a new Johns Hopkins University study.

In schools where more kids have a high exposure to violence, the study found, their classmates score as much as 10 percent lower on annual standardized math and reading tests. The findings, which demonstrate how urban violence and school choice programs can work together to spread “collateral damage,” appear today in the journal Sociology of Education.

“Exposure to neighborhood violence has a much bigger impact that we think it does,” said the lead author, Johns Hopkins sociologist Julia Burdick-Will. “It seeps into places that you don’t expect. It can affect an entire school and how it’s able to function.”

Burdick-Will studied students who attended Chicago Public Schools from 2002 to 2010, analyzing administrative data from the school system, crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department and school surveys from the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research. She looked at five cohorts of students who were freshmen between the fall of 2002 and 2006, and followed each student for up to four years.

She found high school students in Chicago public schools experience, on average, about 70 violent crimes a year within a few blocks of their homes. Children with high levels of exposure to violence, however, often experienced double that.

The crimes included homicides, sexual assaults, aggregated and simple batteries, aggravated and simple assaults, and robberies.

About half of the students studied were African American and about a third were Hispanic. Schools with students who experienced high levels of neighborhood violence, however, were more than 94 percent African American.

Because Chicago offers students the option of attending school anywhere in the city, students often commute to schools across town. Students from nearly every neighborhood attend nearly every school. This means that the experience of violence that Chicago students face where they live does not necessarily remain in their neighborhood, but is taken with them all over the city where they attend school.

Previous research shows that children living in violent neighborhoods experience trauma that makes them more difficult to teach and is related to an increased likelihood of high school dropout and low test scores as well as depression, attention problems, and discipline issues, says Burdick-Will. What hasn’t been studied in the past is that students who are in the same classes as these children also don’t learn as well, scoring as much as 10 percent lower on annual tests, she found.

It’s possible these effects build over time, she says.

“This is just one year — we don’t know what the cumulative effects are,” Burdick-Will said. “If you score 10 percent lower in just one year, you’re that much less prepared for the next year. Ten percent less growth in a year is a pretty big deal.”

Chicago’s crime rates are comparable to those in Baltimore, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston and Miami, and it is possible that schools in those cities have similar issues, Burdick-Will says.

“Dealing with urban violence has ripple effects we’re only starting to understand,” she said. “We can’t think about violence as something happening to kids in an isolated part of the city where I don’t live. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. High crime rates may be concentrated in specific areas, but their effects can be felt in schools all over the city.”

Abstract of the study:

Research shows that exposure to local neighborhood violence is associated with students’ behavior and engagement in the classroom. Given the social nature of schooling, these symptoms not only affect individual students but have the potential to spill over and influence their classmates’ learning, as well. In this study, I use detailed administrative data from five complete cohorts of students in the Chicago Public Schools (2002 to 2010), crime data from the Chicago Police Department, and school-level surveys conducted by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research to assess the strength of this peer effect. The estimated negative relationship between peer exposure to neighborhood violent crime and individual achievement is substantial and remains after adjusting for other peer characteristics and student fixed effects. Surveys suggest these results are related to trust, discipline, and safety concerns in cohorts with larger proportions of students from violent neighborhoods.

We’ve known for some time now that we all sleep less than a decade ago and that our children often nowadays don’t sleep enough. This new study describes that there are maybedifferences related to gender. I wasn’t able to read the study because it’s something that was presented at a conference last week.

From the press release:

Preliminary results of a recent study show that teen girls reported a higher degree of interference of daytime sleepiness on multiple aspects of their school and personal activities than boys.

The study examined whether teen boys and girls report similar negative impact of sleep disturbances on their daytime functioning.

“What was most surprising is the fact that teenage girls reported a higher degree of interference of daytime sleepiness than teenage boys on multiple aspects of their school and personal activities,” said co-author Pascale Gaudreault, who is completing her doctoral degree in clinical neuropsychology under the supervision of principal investigator Dr. Geneviève Forest at the Université du Québec en Outaouais in Gatineau, Québec, Canada. “For example, teenage girls have reported missing school significantly more often than teenage boys due to tiredness, as well as reported having lower motivation in school due to a poor sleep quality.”

731 adolescents (311 boys; 420 girls; ages 13 to 17.5 years; grades 9-11) completed a questionnaire about sleep and daytime functioning. Questions were answered on a seven-point Likert scale (1=never; 7=often). Gender differences were assessed using t-tests.

Study results show that teenage girls reported more difficulties staying awake during class in the morning, during class in the afternoon, and during homework hours than boys. They also reported feeling too tired to do activities with their friends, missing school because of being too tired, feeling less motivated in school because of their poor sleep, and taking naps during weekends more often than boys. However, there was no gender difference when it came to using coffee or energy drinks to compensate for daytime sleepiness or for falling asleep in class.

“These results suggest that teenage girls may be more vulnerable than teenage boys when it comes to the negative impacts of adolescence’s sleep changes,” said Gaudreault.

The research abstract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal Sleep and will be presented Tuesday, June 5, in Baltimore at SLEEP 2018, the 32nd annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS), which is a joint venture of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

Yes, it’s a good idea to read bedtime stories to your children, but for the development of language and literacy, it’s not enough. The question for me remains: is it something you can help your children with as this longitudinal study is showing a correlation rather than showing a clear causal relation:

• Self-regulation development was associated with language and literacy skills.
• Earlier self-regulation was associated with higher skills and earlier development.

From the press release:

Research from Michigan State University found that a child’s ability to self-regulate is a critical element in childhood language and literacy development, and that the earlier they can hone these skills, the faster language and literacy skills develop leading to better skills in the long run.

“Self-regulation is an umbrella term to define children’s abilities to keep information in their working memories, pay attention to tasks and even to inhibit behaviors that might prevent them from accomplishing tasks,” said Lori Skibbe, associate professor in the human development and family studies department and lead author of the study.

Through her research, Skibbe found that children who could self-regulate earlier had higher language and learning skills through at least second grade.

“We’ve known that there is a relationship between self-regulation and language and literacy, but our work shows that there is a lasting impact. The early advantage of self-regulation means children are learning these critical language and literacy skills earlier and faster, which sets the stage for developing additional skills earlier as well,” Skibbe said.

Skibbe and her research team assessed 351 children twice a year from preschool to second grade, on both self-regulation and on language and literacy.

When assessing self-regulation, the children were asked to play a game that required them to follow prompts from the researchers.

“We asked them to touch their heads, shoulders, knees and toes, similar to the childhood ‘Simon Says’ game,” Skibbe said. “Then, we reversed or mixed the commands to see who could follow based on the instructions they retained.”

When assessing academic development, Skibbe looked at four language and literacy skills: comprehension; vocabulary; early decoding, or the ability to identify letters of the alphabet and read short words; and phonological awareness, or understanding the sound structure of language.

Some children are biologically predisposed to develop self-regulation skills earlier, Skibbe said, but there are things parents can do to help them in their development.

“By nature, humans are not effective multitaskers, and children need time where they focus on only one thing,” she said.

“Parents need to be aware of how their children can regulate their own behavior based on what’s going on around them. Parents can structure their home environment and routines in ways that support children,” Skibbe said. A full night of sleep, playing games with children and having time without distractions in the background are things you might not think help language and literacy development, but they do.”

Abstract of the study:

Previous research has established that higher levels of behavioral self-regulation are associated with higher levels of language and literacy. In this study, we take a more developmental perspective by considering how trajectories of self-regulation development (early, intermediate, late) predict the way literacy and language skills develop from preschool through second grade. Children (n = 351) were assessed twice per year for up to four years on indicators of decoding, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, and vocabulary. Using non-linear growth curve models, we found that children who demonstrated self-regulation earlier had higher language and literacy skills throughout preschool to second grade. More specifically, earlier self-regulation trajectories were associated with both higher levels and earlier development of both decoding and reading comprehension, but not faster development. Children with early self-regulation trajectories developed phonological awareness earlier than those with late self-regulation trajectories. Finally, children with early self-regulation trajectories had higher levels of vocabulary than children with intermediate trajectories, but did not differ on the rate or timing of vocabulary development. Findings point to the enduring and interconnected nature of self-regulation and children’s language and literacy development.

Lately there has been some discussion if the infamous word gap is as big as said in the original research. Still this new study shows the importance of language at an early age for other academic domains. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise, still it will may well be for some.

In short:

• Growth curve models revealed strong within-domain—but few cross-domain—predictions.
• Language skills predicted academic outcomes the most broadly across domains.
• In general, lower baseline skills at school entry predicted greater gains over time.
• Higher kindergarten language predicted larger gains in reading from grades 1 to 3 and 3 to 5.
• Examining multiple readiness domains together is critical for practical application.

The fourth element gives hope, at the same time it shouldn’t – again – be so surprising.

From the press release (with the awkward concept of “kindergarten readiness” included):

Research shows that the more skills children bring with them to kindergarten – in basic math, reading, even friendship and cooperation – the more likely they will succeed in those same areas in school. Hence, “kindergarten readiness” is the goal of many preschool programs, and a motivator for many parents.

Now it’s time to add language to that mix of skills, says a new University of Washington-led study. Not only does a child’s use of vocabulary and grammar predict future proficiency with the spoken and written word, but it also affects performance in other subject areas.

Language, in other words, supports academic and social success, says Amy Pace, an assistant professor in the UW Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences.

“A lot of other research focuses on math, science and literacy, and they don’t even consider that language could be playing a role,” she said. “But really, it emerges as a strong predictor across subject areas. Why do kids succeed in math, for example? Part of it could be having a strong math vocabulary.”

The study was the first to look at a comprehensive set of school readiness skills and to try to determine which, of all of them, is the most solid predictor of a child’s later success. Language — the ability to fluidly learn words and to string them together into sentences — was the hands-down winner, said co-author Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, director of the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University.

For this study, published online April 30 in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Pace and her colleagues from Temple University, the University of Delaware and the University of North Carolina examined longitudinal data from more than 1,200 children in the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development’s Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. That study used several measures of academic and social skills at specific ages and grade levels, including evaluations upon entry to kindergarten and in grades 1, 3 and 5.

While there is considerable research on how children develop specific skills over time, much of that research is focused on patterns of learning within a single subject area, like math or reading. Researchers in the UW study wanted to determine whether there are relationships between skills when considered in combination, and to think about how these combined abilities might predict gains, or growth, above what might be expected based on the skills the child demonstrates when they first enter a kindergarten classroom. The team analyzed academic and behavioral assessments, assigned standardized scores and looked at how scores correlated in grades 1, 3, and 5. Growth curve modeling allowed the team to look at children’s levels of performance across time and investigate rates of change at specific times in elementary school.

Researchers found that of the skills and milestones evaluated – social/emotional, attention, health, reading, math and language – only language skills, when a child entered school, predicted his or her performance both within that subject area and most others (math, reading and social skills) from first through fifth grade. Reading ability in kindergarten predicted reading, math and language skills later on; and math proficiency correlated with math and reading performance over time.

People often confuse language with literacy, Pace said. Reading skills include the ability to decode letter and sound combinations to pronounce words, and to comprehend word meanings and contexts. Language is the ability to deploy those words and use complex syntax and grammar to communicate in speech and writing. And that’s why it has such potential to affect other areas of development, Pace said. At a time when so much focus is on math and science education, it is language that deserves attention, too.

“It provides a foundation for social interaction. If you’re stronger in language, you will be able to communicate with peers and teachers,” she said. “Language also relates to executive functioning, the ability to understand and follow through on the four-step directions from the teacher. And it helps solve problems in math and science, because understanding terminology and abstract concepts relies on a knowledge of language.”

For example, language ability at school entry not only predicted language proficiency through fifth grade as expected, but it also predicted growth in literacy between grades 1 and 3, and a similar amount of growth between grades 3 and 5. In effect, language gave children a boost to help them learn more than researchers might have predicted based on the children’s performance at school entry.

Measuring the impact of one skill on another, in addition to measuring growth in the same skill, provides more of a “whole child” perspective, Pace said. A child who enters school with little exposure to number sense or spatial concepts but with strong social skills may benefit from that emotional buffer. “If we look at just a very narrow slice of a child’s ability, it may be predictive of ability in that area, but it’s not necessarily a good prognosticator of what’s to come overall for that child,” she said.

Researchers expected to find that the effects of kindergarten readiness would wear off by third grade, the time when elementary school curriculum transitions from introducing foundational skills to helping students apply those skills as they delve deeper into content areas. But according to the study, children’s performance in kindergarten continues to predict their performance in grades three through five. This was consistent for multiple skill areas, including language, math and reading, and suggests that bolstering children’s development in those first five years is essential for long-term academic success.

A few findings merit further study, Pace added, especially as they relate to educational policy. For example, children who entered kindergarten with higher levels of skills appeared to make fewer developmental and academic gains than those children who started at lower levels. That is consistent with other research, but, Pace said, it’s worth examining how to better serve high-performing students.

The study also represents an opportunity to rethink what skills are considered measures of kindergarten-readiness, she said.

“Language ability at school entry consistently emerges as an important predictor of student outcomes. This may be why the first three to five years are so critical for future academic and social development,” Pace said. “It is the child’s earliest, high-quality interactions with parents, teachers and caregivers that promote a strong communication foundation – and this foundation goes on to serve as the bedrock for future language and learning.”

Abstract of the study:

Children’s skill levels in language, mathematics, literacy, self-regulation, and social–emotional adjustment at kindergarten entry are believed to play an important role in determining school success through their long-term association with academic and social skills in primary and secondary education. Hence, children’s school readiness is a national priority. To date, there is some evidence that specific individual school readiness skills relate to specific outcomes, but much of that research has not addressed concerns regarding generalization due to the high levels of correlations among the school readiness skills. The interrelationships among school readiness domains and patterns of skill acquisition – during the first three years of primary education in which basic skills are the focus and in the later years of primary or secondary education when higher-order skills are the focus – have not been explored adequately. Using the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development dataset (n = 1364), this research conducted growth curve analyses to examine a comprehensive set of readiness indicators in kindergarten and identify which domains were stronger predictors of academic and social trajectories through grade 3 and from grades 3 to 5. Results highlight the importance of examining multiple school readiness domains simultaneously rather than separately, and moving beyond outcomes (skill levels) at a particular grade to consider which kindergarten skills predict gains over time (skill acquisition) both within- and across-domains. Empirical and methodological implications are considered for educational research, policy, and practice.

There was earlier research on how (not) to help your children with their homework (check this meta-analysis), but this new study looks at another aspect of possible consequences of parental help with homework. And while all homework assistance presumably aims at helping the child, not all types of parental help lead to equally positive outcomes…

The results in short:

• Mother’s homework assistance was related to child’s task persistence.
• Autonomy granting was related to exhibiting higher levels of task persistence.
• Help was related to exhibiting less task-persistent behavior.
• Child’s task persistence contributed on mothers’ homework assistance.

From the press release:

Researchers in the longitudinal First Steps Study found that the more opportunities for autonomous work the mother offered the child, the more task-persistent the child’s behaviour. In other words, the child later worked persistently on his or her school assignments, which encouraged mothers to offer more and more opportunities for autonomous working.

However, when the mother provided assistance by concretely helping the child, the less task-persistent the child’s later behaviour. This, in turn, made mothers offer more and more help. These associations between different types of maternal homework assistance and the child’s task-persistent behaviour remained even after the child’s skill level was controlled for.

“One possible explanation is that when the mother gives her child an opportunity to do homework autonomously, the mother also sends out a message that she believes in the child’s skills and capabilities. This, in turn, makes the child believe in him- or herself, and in his or her skills and capabilities,” Associate Professor Jaana Viljaranta from the University of Eastern Finland explains.

Similarly, concrete homework assistance — especially if not requested by the child — may send out a message that the mother doesn’t believe in the child’s ability to do his or her homework.

Homework assistance should consider the child’s needs

The findings also indicate that task-persistence is a mediating factor between different types of maternal homework assistance and the child’s academic performance. This helps us to understand some earlier findings on how some types of maternal homework assistance predict better academic performance than others. When the mother offers the child an opportunity for autonomous working, the child will work persistently, which leads to better development of skills. If, however, the mother’s homework assistance involves plenty of concrete help, the child will work less persistently, leading to poorer development of skills.

“It is important for parents to take the child’s needs into consideration when offering homework assistance. Of course, parents should offer concrete help when their child clearly needs it. However, concrete help is not something that should be made automatically available in every situation — only when needed,” Viljaranta says.

The First Steps Study is an extensive longitudinal study carried out by the University of Jyväskylä, the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Turku. The study examines student learning and motivation among approximately 2,000 children from kindergarten onwards. Children currently participating in the study are in secondary education.

Reading is key – even in these digital times – and a new study shows again that providing free children’s books in low-income neighborhoods, combined with supportive adults who encourage reading, can boost children’s literacy and learning opportunities. For the project free book vending machines were used. I found this video about it:

From the press release (bold by me):

 An innovative book distribution program that provides free children’s books in low-income neighborhoods, combined with supportive adults who encourage reading, can boost children’s literacy and learning opportunities, finds a new study by NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

“Both physical and psychological proximity to books matter when it comes to children’s early literacy skills,” said Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood and literacy education at NYU Steinhardt and the study’s lead author. “Children need access to books in their neighborhoods, as well as adults who create an environment that inspires reading.”

Reading aloud to children has been touted by experts as a key to developing skills early in life that translate to later academic success. In fact, a 2014 position statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics called for parents to read aloud to their infants starting from birth.

At the heart of these recommendations is the assumption that all children have the opportunity to learn from a selection of high quality, age-appropriate books. However, a recent NYU Steinhardt study of three major cities shows that access to books remains a significant barrier to reading with children; many poor neighborhoods were found to be “book deserts,” or communities with limited to no access to children’s books.

Other prior research shows that creating both physical and psychological proximity to books helps get them into the hands of children. For example, creating reading corners in classrooms that are accessible and attractive encourages children to engage with books. From a psychological perspective, people help shape the setting for a child’s literacy development through, for instance, reading to children or engaging them in rich dialogue around books.

The current study, funded by JetBlue and published in the journal Urban Education, examines a community-wide effort to promote greater access to books through a book distribution program in neighborhoods identified as “book deserts.” Four low-income neighborhoods – three in Detroit and one in Washington, D.C. – received with vending machines that dispensed free children’s books over the summer months, a time when children traditionally have less access to books.

The vending machines held children’s books, provided by Random House Children’s Books, in slots arranged by age ranges. Similar to a snack machine, an individual could review the selections, press a button, and a book would be dispensed free of charge. Book titles were selected to reflect a variety of genres, including fiction and nonfiction, as well as multicultural themes and authors. Selections changed every two weeks to encourage people to return to the machine.

The study was designed to capture how, why, and in what ways these machines were used. Neuman and her coauthor, Jillian Knapczyk, used several measures to examine how greater access to books and adult support for book reading functioned within these communities.

The researchers studied the vending machine sites, the traffic patterns around them, and conducted brief interviews with individuals using the machines. They also assessed children’s school readiness skills before the vending machines were installed and again at the end of the summer, and had parents complete questionnaires. They sought to determine the influence of adult support on children – for instance, children who visited the vending machines with a teacher and independently visited with their parents or grandparents were identified as receiving high adult support.

The researchers found that providing greater access through close physical proximity to books and greater adult support for book reading enhanced children’s opportunities to learn.

Throughout the summer, the vending machines were heavily used, distributing more than 64,000 books over the eight-week period – 26,200 to unique, one-time users and 38,235 to return users. Often two or three books were selected in a single visit.

“Our study provides a vivid counterpoint to the view that low-income parents are less inclined and less interested in their children’s early education. This study challenges that view and provides an alternative scenario, recognizing that providing access to resources — reaching families where they are — and encouraging adult support may be a key enabler toward enhancing parent engagement and children’s early literacy development,” Neuman said.

Children who had the highest adult support – visiting a machine with both a parent and with a teacher from the childcare center – seemed to thrive and slightly gain throughout the summer. They saw a boost in their school readiness skills, and were able to recognize more book titles (suggesting greater exposure to books) than other children with less adult support.

In analyzing traffic patterns, the researchers found that an average of 180 people passed by a vending machine over a two-hour period, suggesting that the machines were highly visible. Despite the sizable traffic flow, not all passersby took advantage of the machines: 60 percent used them, while 40 percent did not.

Interviews revealed that those who used the machines enjoyed reading, and appreciated the opportunity to have books more accessible in the community. Parents and grandparents were highly influential in encouraging children to select books. Those who didn’t select a book most often cited a lack of interest in reading. In other words, the physical proximity of books did not convert non-readers into readers, and changes in the environment alone may not be enough to motivate those who do not enjoy reading.

“Our findings suggest that only having one side of the equation – access to books or adult support – is insufficient. Rather, both are necessary. Without access to books, one cannot read to children; without adult supports, children cannot be read to,” said Neuman.

JetBlue’s Soar with Reading program has donated nearly $3 million worth of books to children in need, including in the communities where this study was conducted.

Abstract of the study:

This study examines a community-wide effort to promote greater access to books through the mechanisms of physical and psychological proximity. It addresses the seasonal summer slide through an innovative book distribution program in neighborhoods identified as book deserts. Four low-income neighborhoods were provided with vending machines used to dispense free children’s books over the summer months. Within a design research framework, the study was designed to capture how, why, and in what ways these machines were used in communities. Results indicated that providing greater access through close physical proximity to books and greater adult support enhanced children’s opportunities to learn.