Literacy Crisis in America Today

There is a serious early child literacy crisis in America today: 50% of children who enter kindergarten are at-risk to fail. The percentage creeps upward every year, with some studies showing 56% in 2007. Southern Early Childhood Association estimates there are over 3 million kindergartners in 14 SE States, 12 million nationally, at-risk to fail in terms of literacy readiness.

The one thing these children are found to have in common is they have no books in their homes suitable for children. Oftentimes their parents also do not read books, though they often are capable of doing so. As you might guess, these children have not been read to. The idea of sitting with an adult and reading a picture book together is foreign to them.

These findings are tragic, especially when coupled with research as to why high school dropouts are increasing each year (now conservatively estimated as greater than 30% dropout before graduating.) What researchers have uncovered is that it all starts before kindergarten, with a lack exposure to books in the home. Such at-risk kindergartners are 3-4 times more likely to dropout according to educators’ research.

We can guess at reasons these young parents are so disinterested in reading: from difficulty with literacy themselves, greater interest on basic needs, to possibly absorbed with many personal interests. Also many parents assume that since they themselves are not trained educational experts, they will wait for the school teachers to educate their children.73% of adults polled in USA thought a child with no literacy skills who enters kindergarten is behind, but would “just catch up” in the next few years of school. However, studies show they stay 2 years behind their agemates throughout school.

The truth is researchers have found that our grandmothers' way of holding a young child on her lap and sharing the fun of a picture book with them is the very best method that synchronizes nicely with the way children really learn. Also an important point made in early child research is that they learn best from a trusted adult (parent, grandma, or regular care provider).

Neural systems development, sequences of grasping layers of significance of life around them, and emotional nurturing combine in an infant through three year old to create lifelong learning skills in the best possible way. The typical stages of active infant, toddlers (even up to early 4-yr-old) are optimal for early literacy exposure.

Another factor is to help the child learn sound/ object/ picture correlation, that pictures in books represent real objects, and the skill of pointing at the picture of the object named, and color names,before he or she is placed in a kindergarten classroom setting, where they are expected to know these things. Otherwise the at-risk children quickly realize that they do not know what the other children know, and assume school is not a place they belong.

Literacy for Tykes in-home reading program, with the help of our educational and human service partner organizations, can be the intervention needed to take the “at-risk" out of early childhood, while building family skills.

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