By Kathryn Lilley
When my daughter was in the first grade, her teacher pulled me aside one day.
“I’m learning so much by listening to the way you speak to your daughter,” she said. “It’s amazing. You talk to her like she’s an adult.”
At the time, I recall being surprised by that comment. (And to be honest, I didn’t know there was another way to talk to children.) Then I started paying attention to the way some of the other parents in the school communicated with their kids. I was struck by the simplified language they used. They used fewer, simpler words than I did. (I remember wondering briefly if I was doing something wrong in the way I communicated as a parent. If so, it was too late to switch gears, I decided. By the time my daughter was six, she already had an adult-level vocabulary).
I felt reassured by a study that came out the next year, which indicated that children with big vocabularies tend to do better in school than children with small vocabularies. (That there was a correlation between vocabulary size and academic performance seemed intuitively obvious to me at the time. But still, it was a relief to have my personal communication style officially sanctioned by a study.)
After that study came out in the mid-nineties, early education experts and advocates jumped on board the notion of a “word gap”. They stressed the need to close that gap as a major strategy for improving the education system. But some critics are now pushing back on some of the notions fueling the word gap campaign. According to some scholars cited in a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly, merely using more words is not enough to prepare a child for school. Some linguists dismissed the campaign to close the word gap as simplistic, inadequately researched, and ineffective.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/beyond-the-word-gap/479448/
Personally, I would like to see some research done on the opposite side of the word gap equation: I wonder whether there is a potential downside in having a big vocabulary in early childhood. Judging from my own highly unscientific, peer group study sample, younger children who have big vocabularies tend to sail through their grammar school years. The early years are so effortless for these children, they often fail to develop the study habits they’ll need to carry them successfully through high school and college.
But he’s so bright! Another friend complains to me over the phone about her eighth grade son, who is suddenly struggling in school. Why won’t he just do his friggin’ homework?
Because he never had to work before now, I reply. Her son-of-a-professional’s precocious vocabulary let him coast along in school while some of the less “bright” kids were developing a few basic study habits.
So here’s my take on the word gap movement: it’s a little off base as an education strategy. Yes, having a decent vocabulary helps you shine in the first grade. But eventually, you’re going to have to sit down and do your friggin’ homework.
Here at TKZ, we’re all writers and avid readers, so this is an interesting group to ask: are you familiar with the “word gap” campaign? What do you think about it as an early childhood education strategy?
What goes around, comes around. When I was getting my psych degree twenty years ago, it was already documented that first children in families outperformed later children. First kids interacted with parents and picked up larger vocabularies and more advanced thinking skills. Later kids spent less time with parents and more time with siblings, so didn’t have the same exposure.
As for bright kids failing when the going gets rough, I don’t think vocabulary is to blame. These days, school curriculums are focused on the average student, with all the emphasis on the failing student. In addition, schools are all about rewarding participation instead of results. Kids, especially the bright ones who are breezing through with little effort, never learn how to fail and recover. It’s a vital skill for success in the real world, as anyone who’s tried to build a career as a writer well knows.
Kathy
As a former child who managed to get through Ivy League schools without ever developing a work ethic, I believe you’re right, Kathy. But real life eventually catches up with everyone, especially lazybones like me!
I am not an educator nor do I have children. I haven’t heard of the word gap campaign. I can however, see how a child might struggle later on even if they sailed through grade school.
But I don’t tend to see doing homework any differently than putting effort into anything else. It’s not an educational program or a policy. It’s just what you do (or don’t) as a person.
But there are many oddities about education. When I was in middle school I was placed in what was called a “Gifted and Talented” Program. I was then forced to read a bunch of boring “classic” literature instead of giving me choices. If their intent was to cause a lifelong dislike and distrust of “classic” literature (which I have learned is generally code for “boring” literature) then their plan was well placed. If not, it was a misfire.
But I’m a bit jaded in my opinion of the educational system. One, because all anyone in my state ever talks about is throwing more money at education and I don’t think that’s the cure all and two, I’ve experienced common core philosophy in the college classroom and I am completely underwhelmed by it–it is both a massive time and money waster.
Education requires structure, but we haven’t nailed it yet.
I’ve come to regard the “Gifted” label as a bit of a curse. It seems to instill the wrong type of expectations in both the child and parent. The children start thinking they’re special snowflakes, and the parents start shopping for colleges when the child is six years old. I was never burdened with being called Gifted, to be sure. As the only Math phobic in a family of physicists, I suspect I was frequently considered the Slightly Slow One at the dinner table.
Fascinating topic for discussion. Don’t mind me I’ll sit in the background and listen in.
Delighted that you’ve joined us, Phil! I was fully intending to write an earnest post about the value of vocabulary words today. Then as usual, I ran off the road.
Talent and laziness go hand in hand. (I should know!) Excellence comes easier to you, so you don’t have to work as hard to hit that bar. That’s why hard working people often surpass talented people in income, success, etc.
I used to teach a kids art class. The hardest kids to teach were the talented ones, because they thought they knew it all.
I don’t claim to be especially talented, but the Lazy label DEFINITELY fits. Thanks for stopping in today, Kessie!
I had a huge vocabulary in grade school. I was the best reader in all of my classes.
But I didn’t do well when it came to home work. Nowadays, I recognize I likely would have been labelled an attention deficient disorder kid: drugged up sent to a special education class.
I don’t think educational theory would have explained why I was so smart and never turned in my arithmetic home work.
I got by in school because I successfully avoided taking any math past the tenth grade. That deficit has limited me mainly to counting things with my fingers ever since. Thanks for dropping in, Jim!
Ah, and math is the subject of an entirely different discourse on the state of education. I had some absolutely HIDEOUS math teachers in grade school. If I knew their names as an adult I would write them a nasty letter and let them have it. Those 2 teachers scarred me for life in the area of math.
While math may not be as strong for me as English, I don’t view myself as incapable of learning it. And people can pish-posh all they want about its effects, but emotional scarring from bad teachers is a very real thing.
Fortunately, I’ve had nearly all better teachers at the college level than those freaks of nature I had in elementary school.
Not that I feel strongly about this or anything. 😎
Oh, get me started on that one, BK! I once had a language teacher who had abusive nicknames for each of his least favorite students. Mine was “Gorda”: “Fat”!
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I developed a large vocabulary in grade school, but not because I was gifted or anything. I was a stutterer and needed the words to substitute the ones I had trouble saying. Later, in college speech therapy, I learned that I was using a technique called “circumlocution”, the act of speaking around a subject without actually saying it. I was saying it, just using different words. It became fun watching the faces of people who couldn’t resist finishing a word for me when something totally different popped out.
Those types of workarounds you mention can lead to great new ways of engaging with others, Dave. I actually have a visual memory Impairment–not quite to the point of face blindness, but it takes several significant interactions before I’ll reliably recall a person’s face. Over the years I gradually compensated by greeting almost anyone who crosses my path with a cheery smile and wave–just in case that person is someone I should recognize, but fail to. It makes me seem like an unusually friendly personality, especially considering that I started out in life as somewhat shy and reserved. Thanks for jumping in to share your experience, Dave!
That sounds just like our son. He was bright but got less than good grades in high school. He told me later, “Mom I just never did my homework.” After a gap year between high school and college, he got all “A’s” in college. 🙂 — Suzanne J.
Yes! So many parents recognize that story, including me!
Kathryn,
You must be my long-lost sister. My 10th grade geometry teacher made me promise that, if I’d never take another math class, he’d allow me to pass. I gladly kept that promise. I considered colleges based on their math requirements–if they required math, I looked elsewhere. To this day, I can’t figure how much to tip w/o using a calculator.
However, I dispute your claim to laziness, based on your hard work for TKZ.
Big vocabulary is an asset. Poor discipline is not. As Kathy said, they’re two different skills that both need to be developed to succeed in adult life.
Bright kids with good vocabularies are often bored stiff with regular classes. I used to work with a gifted & talented coordinator who’d call me to mentor students who liked to write. She came up with terrific individualized enrichment programs that engaged kids far beyond “reading boring classics” (yep, BK, I got stuck in that same program). Unfortunately, in the ’90s, her budget was diverted to “special needs” and gifted kids fell by the wayside. She retired in frustration.
Bright kids are harder work for educators b/c they’re often smarter than their teachers. How do you challenge them, keep them interested, AND develop good work ethic?
I’m of the opinion that may best happen outside the classroom with mentors, apprenticeships, internships where kids observe strong positive adult examples in real life. I just participated in a “shadow career day” where high school kids followed people in various jobs/professions to see if they really wanted to pursue that field. Real world beats classroom most of the time.
I welcome your return visit, long lost Sister Debbie! My family likes to tell the story of one of my clan: he was extremely bright, but started goofing around and bringing home poor grades at age 13. They packed him off to a military school, where he (I believe) was held back one academic grade, whilst being immersed in military school culture and related discipline. This former “problem student” completely turned around academically, and is now a retired astrophysicist.