Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the Core Advocates convening in Denver, Colorado. The experience, facilitated by Student Achievement Partners, offered participants not only a forum to share and collaborate with educators from across the nation, but also an opportunity to learn from lead writers and contributors of the Common Core State Standards. The sessions throughout the conference afforded an in-depth look at the Standards, the Shifts, and how America’s schools can best serve, challenge, and prepare her students.
As I reflect on my experience and the incredibly informative sessions I attended, I continue to be profoundly struck by the notion of the Matthew Effect and what I believe is America’s missed opportunity to close the achievement gap. Though I had investigated the Matthew Effect in the past, listening to the data presented by David Liben and Silas Kulkarni was so staggering it reignited my passion to help solve this crisis for kids.
So what is the Matthew Effect and what does the research say? The term Matthew Effect refers to the notion that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Essentially, research has identified (and any teacher can attest to it) that some children enter school “wealthier” than their classmates when it comes to literacy foundational skills. As students move forward, those children who start out with advantages, in terms of early reading skills and vocabulary, tend to thrive and grow academically, while those “less wealthy” students tend to languish.
With alarming studies like the 30 Million Word Gap reiterating the catastrophic long term effects on students that do not possess these foundational skills, it is incumbent on our country to stem the tide. Consider this graphic below that illustrates this point:
And that data just represents the first three years of a child’s life. Now compound this divide over the next three, six, nine, or twelve years (when the children would be sophomores in high school). Research is clear: knowledge of words is knowledge of the world. So how can we, as a collective, curve some of the Matthew Effect and level the playing field. Below are a few ideas with which to start the conversation:
1) Early intervention is crucial. High quality preschool is absolutely essential. All children deserve the opportunity to start their school career on grade level - or at least relatively close - instead of several years behind as they take their first steps into kindergarten.
Additionally, we must advocate and instill programs that intervene in the primary grades to bridge gaps and support student development. All too often I see intervention programs attempting to mend disconnects children face in grades 3, 4, and 5. It’s disingenuous. Generally speaking, intervention in grades 4 and 5 is about targeted skill instruction to help pass a test. But if we don’t begin intervention programs until students hit the intermediate grades in elementary school - we’ve missed our opportunity. Our programs should focus on students in K-3. Identify gaps and provide remediation early! Without this intervention, the gap widens over time until by 4th grade it is almost insurmountable. Research dictates that in 5th grade and above, literacy intervention programs are only successful with about 13% of struggling readers.
And it makes sense because there’s a dynamic shift that occurs in 4th grade. From birth until grade 3, children learn to read. Oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, etc… But from 4th grade on, we read to learn. And when students are disfluent and lack depth when it comes to vocabulary, it sets them on a path to underachievement for the rest of their school careers. Negative sense of school and self are amplified, dropout rates increase, and therefore graduation rates decrease. It’s an absolute stark issue that we must stop ignoring.
2) The research is clear: students must be exposed to words early and often, as this is proven to increase vocabulary. So whether that’s via conversation or song or a read aloud, kids need to hear words all the time. How can we, as educators, support this? Here are a few ideas (not the end all be all, but a start):
- Have opportunities for students to come early or stay late and let them listen to and be immersed in music. Let children hear the poetry in lyrics as a means of modeling fluency and increasing vocabulary. Music is multidimensional and magical. It connects to us auditorily and emotionally. Use music to expose children to language (and reap additional benefits of exposure to rhythm, tone, mood, and timing).
- Create buddy situations with upper elementary students or even middle/high school students. The Matthew Effect is not simply an elementary school problem. It’s a system issue. Our children need a concerted effort from all levels and stakeholders. Buddy younger children up with older children and allow them time to talk; to ask questions; to engage in a conversation. With the advent of technology, this idea isn’t simply limited to face-to-face sessions. Give kids an opportunity to engage in a Google Hangout or Skype chat. Regardless of the medium, just give kids an opportunity to talk to develop oral language.
- Host information day/evening sessions for parents and other stakeholders. Live stream them via Google Hangouts on Air - enable folks to attend virtually! The research I presented above is sobering. The more we can spread the word of the challenges students face, the stronger our potential to remedy it. Share strategies that parents and stakeholders can employ at home, in the car, or even at the park to help kids develop language.
- Read aloud to children everyday. Experts recommend 15 minutes per day of a sustained read aloud. Reading aloud to children (of all ages) is vital to developing vocabulary and comprehension while modeling fluency.
- Create initiatives in school around words that are meaningful. Reading a word, definition, and sentence over the PA during morning announcements doesn’t add value for children. Rather,
- Put the word of the day on the bathroom or hall pass. And as children head to their destination, engage kids in a dialogue around the word.
- Use Remind to send an alert to students and parents that contains the word of the day and then have the students use the chat feature to share an example of how they used the word in context outside of school! Further, to amplify this opportunity, don’t take weekends off! Send alerts on Saturdays and Sundays to keep the conversations going.
- This idea may be a little unorthodox, but get your students and parents on Voxer! Allow them to engage in conversations around the word of the day through their device. This would provide students and parents not only an opportunity to connect to classmates beyond the school day, but yields valuable formative assessment data for teachers.
- Finally, we need to rethink vocabulary instruction. Research suggests that “most words are learned by reading or being read to.” NOT by completing workbook pages. Vocabulary books that present 20 words per week are not simply devoid of context, they’re devoid of meaning for kids. By utilizing a Google extension like Read & Write For Google and providing some autonomy, students can create personalized vocabulary lists based on the texts that they are reading. This, of course, isn’t standardized...which is why it creates a more meaningful experience for students.
The ideas above were meant to simply start a dialogue. The Matthew Effect is detrimental to our students’ future. And if one thing became abundantly clear to me this weekend, we cannot simply sit idly as the issue continues to manifest. We must all work together to help bridge this gap - not only for the sake of these children, but for the sake of our nation.
