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Overcoming a poor start:
Researcher's work links child poverty
to lower literacy – and helps kids catch up
Six years ago, while asking schoolchildren to share their
thoughts on friendship, Prof. Lily Dyson saw something that
changed the course of her research career – something
that could enrich life for thousands of Canadian children.
"We started at the more privileged schools," says
the Professor of Special Education and Educational Psychology
at the Education Faculty of the University of Victoria. "Children
in these schools, they all had their hands raised every time
we asked a question. Almost every child wanted to have a turn.
When they spoke up, the sentences were long and articulate."
But when Prof. Dyson took her federally funded project –
designed to promote friendship and acceptance of children
with disabilities – to inner city schools, she saw a
marked difference.
"In these schools that were less socially and economically
privileged, we had trouble getting kids to participate in
class discussion. They did not raise their hands. Those who
did respond spoke in short sentences. Most of the time, they
gave one-word or one-phrase answers. The vocabulary was not
rich."
Prof. Dyson, who teaches courses in child development, says
that seeing the drop-off in literacy levels at under-privileged
schools "happening right in front of me" prompted
her "to examine literacy development in poor kids to
see if there was a need for remediation." After completing
the friendship project, she went back into the schools to
measure the impact of lower socio-economic status on literacy
levels. With the help of her research assistants, graduate
and undergraduate students, she set up tutoring sessions in
Victoria's less-affluent elementary schools to gauge
the impact of "literacy intervention" on children
from less-well-off homes.
With subsequent funding, she has expanded her study and provided
intervention to an increasing number of children in low-income
homes. Based on a cross-sectional examination of 360 children,
she observed the increasing gap in literacy skills from Kindergarten
to Grade 4 between those from low-income homes and those who
are more privileged.
While some research has been done in the United States linking
socio-economic conditions to literacy levels, Canadian research
data is limited. "We have used more refined measurement,"
says Prof. Dyson, whose ongoing work is funded by the
Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet)
with seed money provided by the British Columbia's Human
Early Learning Partnership (HELP). "Most other studies
only look at children's vocabulary using a brief, simple
test – the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. We look
at different major aspects of literacy such as reading recognition,
reading comprehension, spelling, and the ability to recode
and comprehend a passage of reading material. It's a
more extensive assessment of literacy skills."
Maryanne Trofimuk, a Grade 4-5 teacher at Victoria West Elementary
School, sees the value of Prof. Dyson's project all
around her. She can see the improvement in literacy skills
of those children who take part in the reading project at
her inner city school in the British Columbia capital.
"I had one pupil last year, a Grade 4 student, who was
well below his grade level in reading," says Ms. Trofimuk,
who is also Vice-Principal at the school. "He was a very
apathetic student and had a lot of issues from home –
a student who rarely met expectations. He would go three times
a week with the tutor who was assigned to him. Sometimes he
would go apprehensively and reluctantly, but he did go. And
over the course of the year, his reading level went up two
grade levels. I'm not saying that was completely because
of the tutoring, but I know it had a huge impact."
For Prof. Dyson, the next step is to make an impact on provincial
governments' policy in dealing with the challenge of
lower literacy levels in poorer economic areas. Through the
HELP program, her work is already linked with British Columbia's
Ministry of Children and Families. And she has had requests
from Ontario's Ministry of Education for more information
about her published work.
"The next step is to share the results with government
agencies to show that more resources and extra time spent
tutoring or teaching poor children is going to make a difference,"
says Prof. Dyson. "It has the potential to affect
policy."
| A good beginning helps
a child have a better life
A poor start in literacy can affect a
person's entire life. The inability to fully
understand text or to express oneself clearly
can limit enjoyment of life, reduce chances of
professional success and lead to social problems.
Poverty can then perpetuate and form the so-called
"vicious circle" – perpetuating
limited language development in children for generations
of the same family.
Prof. Lily Dyson's work has shown that
low-income environments have a negative correlation
to children's literacy levels, with poorer
children falling behind in Kindergarten and losing
ground with each passing year.
What affects a child's ability
to read?
"Whether the parents read and the
parents' education levels are related to
literacy," says Prof. Dyson. "For
example, what my student assistants and I found
was that parents in low-income homes were not
necessarily not interested in literacy. They are
enthusiastic about it and they attend our parent
workshop for home reading, but their education
limits play a factor to some degree."
While reading at home plays a big role, teachers
also have a strong impact on literacy levels,
especially for low-income children, says Prof. Dyson.
"Higher teacher expectations can translate
into higher literacy levels, which can make up
for what human capital and learning resources
are lacking at home for low-income children"
she says. "Children respond to the challenge."
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www.cllrnet.ca
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