Is Education A Secondary Language Spoken At Home?

Education is something that plays a huge role in the world we live in today. If you receive a good education, you can get very far in life. Most people have the dream of one day owning their own business and/or having their dream job, but some people don’t have the luxury of having this path laid out right in front of them. In some of the very poor countries, like Haiti, receiving a quality education is hard. Unlike in the United States, education in Haiti is an honor. Education is not a top priority in Haiti because they have so many economic issues. Most of the population of Haiti never had the chance to attend school, and then out of the ones that did most dropped out and never made it to primary school. The poor families in Haiti need their children to work instead of attending class. This is just the beginning on understanding how the economy in Haiti affects the amount of schooling children receive.

For my field experience, I had the opportunity to observe a four-year-old pre-kindergarten classroom on November 5th and 12th at Bushwick United Head Start program. The school is located at 136 Stanhope street, Brooklyn, N.Y. Majority of the families the school serve are Hispanics, and as a result, the student body entails mostly ELL students. There are approximately 130 students enrolled in the program, and out of that 130, about 10% speaks English. The school uses an additive model of English Language to support both the student’s home language and foster and support English language acquisition. The classrooms are staffed with teachers who speak the children’s home language, who can apply some use of the home-language within the classroom and providing hands-on experiences for students. Additionally, to support students with disability, the school also partnered with United Community Services (UCS), a program that offers speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy to students. The school uses the evidence-based Creative Curriculum. The Creative Curriculum is aligned with Head Start Performance Standards, NAEYC guidelines and the NY State Prekindergarten Common Core Standards.

Early childhood education is crucial for success in the formalized education system. Many children born into lower income communities do not obtain this advantage. According to Kozol, simply based off accident of birth a child will lead completely different educational lives (2005). For example, a white toddler in an upper middle class neighborhood might attend a prestigious educational preliminary kindergarten. These respected early education schools are often referred to as “baby ivies” (Kozol, 2005). The child participates in pre-numeracy skills along with pre-writing skills. Conversely, a child of minority descent living in an underprivileged neighborhood may not initiate school until they are five years old. In the three previous years a

Statement of Issue: Many minority children and children from low-income families enter kindergarten without the academic skills they need to succeed. Math and reading abilities at kindergarten entry are powerful predictors of later school success. Research shows kids who start school already behind are unlikely to ever get caught up to standards. Hispanic and African American children are anywhere from 7 to 12 months behind in reading and 9 to 10 months behind on math when they enter kindergarten. Access remains extremely low to high-quality early education do to a couple of problems. First, rates of access to early education vary widely as a function of children’s socioeconomic backgrounds. Secondly, the quality of most early education programs is not high enough to substantially improve academic readiness. Considering the tremendous potential for high-quality preschool to improve children’s outcomes, this policy brief will consider how a universal publicly funded pre-kindergarten program in the United States could decrease both disparities in access to early learning and achievement gaps at kindergarten entry.

In a child’s upbringing, the concept of social class and race plays a pivotal role in a child’s growth and development. In the ethnographic study, “ Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”, the author, Annette Lareau argue that the influences of children with distinct socioeconomic backgrounds can determine how a child will be raised. The author primarily focuses on two distinctive practices of child-rearing: concerted cultivation and the accomplishments of natural growth. Lareau explains that both of these distinctive patterns of childrearing have their own benefits and drawbacks, but emphasizes on how concerted cultivation and parent involvement allows children to gain a deeper understanding of the world and the ability to fluently interact with social institutions. Also, the practice of concerted cultivation allows children to develop skills that are shown to be beneficial for the future. In contrast, the practice of natural growth limits the child’s language and communication skills, in which they are not adequately prepared for the challenges of adulthood. In my opinion, I believe that the way a child is raised has a significant impact on a child’s future.

Children in families with lower incomes at or below the poverty line have been connected with poor cognitive and social development in early childhood. The studies that I chose to use evaluate the cognitive and social development during early childhood using various surveys, evaluations, and observations completed by or with the children, parents, and teachers. Development of any kind is dependent on the interplay of nature and nurture, or genetics and environment. These studies draw from a child’s environment during the earliest years of development, specifically birth, pre-school, and early elementary school. The studies propose living in an impoverished environment as opposed to an environment above the poverty line imposes certain

Unfortunately, there is a negative feedback loop in many of these disadvantaged communities. We view education as such an important aspect of a person’s formation. However, in many communities, there is a significant lack of adequate educational institutions. With this lack in many communities, especially in hispanic communities, as noted in the article, there is a much smaller chance that these community members

Children from immigrant families are less likely to attend Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programs than their native counterparts, based on language barriers, bureaucratic complexity, and distrust of government programs, especially among undocumented immigrants (Karoly & Gonzalez, 2011). This continued distrust of government programs, I believe, is the problem that impedes immigrant parents from enrolling their children into ECCE programs despite the possibilities of them being qualify for government subsidies.

It is widely known that poverty has many negative effects on the development of children who grow up in impoverished homes. One of the most influential outcomes of a person’s life is their intellectual development, which takes place primarily within the first years of life. Not only can childhood poverty result in less enjoyable childhoods, but adversely affects the cognitive and behavioral development; yet more specifically, children’s intellectual development (Duncan 406). In fact, the economic conditions that a child is subjected to during early and middle childhood is very crucial for forming ability, achievement, and intellectual development (Duncan 408). Poverty has

Maya Angelou once said, “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” When diversity is valued people from all nationalities can work together, effectively using their expertise and abilities for the benefit of everyone. The Head Start program, a nationally funded early childhood education program, embraces this idea. Head Start was initiated in the late 1960’s as a way to give children in poverty an educational boost. As the program matured services for families became available. The program is receptive to the children’s ethnical background, culture, and linguistic heritage. The Head Start program, in the United States, provides services to “over 300,000 dual language learners”

Poverty is the condition of being without the provisions for living day-to-day, and it is frequently related with necessity, adversity and privation of funds through a widespread array of situations (Poverty. n.d.). Ideally, young kids should be able to collect memories of their childhood of when they played free in a safety environment that provides nurture, learning, and happiness in order to achieve their greatest potential. On the contrary, young ones live a life far from that. Poverty has extensive shattering effects and they distress children directly. One of the biggest impact of Childhood poverty is related to Learning. Youngsters living in poverty face learning difficulties due to factors

Borjas, George J. “Poverty and Program Participation among Immigrant Children.” The Future of Children, vol. 21, no. 1, 2011, pp. 247–266. JSTOR. Web. May 3. 2017.

The Occidental Child Development Center shares the concern with other preschools in the United States to successfully socialize children to prepare them for further schooling, however this center is unique with a liberal curriculum. I point this out to clarify to the reader that the program and structure of this institution is extraordinary and is not common of all preschools. The center is concerned with providing a good stable foundation for the children to build from with a family oriented environment, committed to serving on a non-discriminatory basis, providing equal treatment and access to their services without regard to race, color, religious affiliation, or physically challenged status. This curriculum was validated by my interview with the center director. In the interview she explained how she formulated the curriculum to incorporate games and activities to academics that she believes gives children the foundation they need to continue successfully in life. She continued to say that the curriculum is built from the

Through this week learning resources, I have learned that there are evidences that demonstrate that when a child has limited experiences he or she is more likely to have difficult comprehending what is read. It is why early childhood professionals affirm that oral language is the foundation for literacy development. Everything that children learn about speaking and listening they use for writing and reading and what they learn from writing and reading they use in listening and speaking. In other words, oral language and literacy develop simultaneously. When parents provide rich language and literacy reinforcement at home, children do better in school than those who do not. It is also known for early childhood professionals that for a child with limited experiences is more difficult comprehending what is read. For example, a child who has being exposed to many environments like a farm or like a museum will have more mentally engagement in classrooms activities about things he or she already know that children who have not had experience in those environments. Many researches showed that children that have not have a literacy development or an oral language development years before formal schooling, are less likely to be successful beginning readers, opening an achievement lag that might last through the primary grades. Some of the reasons why parents are not actively involved into their children’s educations are their socioeconomic or legal status. For example, in an immigrant family sometimes both parents have to work and sometimes they have to work two shifts. I have known families where children are the whole day in school and with nannies. Those children do not develop any skills that help them to succeed at the time of attending forming school.

Imagine you are a nineteen-year-old living in the USA. You are homecoming queen, smart, and rather popular. You have a perfect boyfriend and perfect friends. You have an amazing little brother and parents who strive for your success. Monetarily wise, you have an abundance of wealth: a large house, plenty of food, and a nice car. You are living the American dream. Now imagine that you are again nineteen years old, but living in Uganda. You have little money, few belongings, no peers or mentors, and no education past high school. Instead, you are a single, homeschooling mother to eight girls, all under twelve years old, and all of which still struggle to even speak your language.