Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Cant Read, Part 2: Income Inequity

Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Cant Read, Part 2: Income Inequity

Why Johnny Cant Read, Part 2: Income Inequity

In an earlier post, here, I laid out what I believe to be the multiple reasons for reading failure in this country: income inequity, racism and segregation, brain-based reading disorders, environmental factors, and quality of instruction. Without addressing all of these issues, some societal, some child-based, and some school-based, we will never adequately address some children's failure to thrive as readers. In this post I will take on one of those issues: income inequity.

That poverty plays some role in creating vulnerable readers is incontrovertible. Four factors are consistently pointed to in the literature.

1. Poverty impacts the health and well-being of children. Poor nutrition, inadequate medical care, sub-standard housing, pre-mature births, low birth weights are all products of poverty that impact on a child's physical and mental development.
2. Children of poverty are exposed to far fewer words, far fewer complex sentences, and are engaged in far fewer conversation eliciting CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Cant Read, Part 2: Income Inequity