Low-income Latino students' reading scores report

 Some districts with substantial numbers of low-income Latino students vastly outperform others when it comes to reading and writing. The results appear to have more to do with how schools are teaching students to read and less about their family’s income or their English proficiency. That’s according to a new report from a literacy advocacy group made up of organizations of educators, advocates and researchers. The pandemic negatively impacted students. However, 

"The clear message is that it is not the students themselves, or the level of resources, that drive student reading achievement - the primary drivers are district focus on reading, management practices, and curriculum and instruction choices.  The top performing districts come in all types: urban, rural, and suburban, across 9 different counties, with high-need students levels ranging from 39% to 94%.  Any district can succeed at teaching reading."

California Reading Report Card 2022. (2023). California Reading Coalition.

https://www.careads.org/2022-reportcard

Connection Between Socioeconomic Status and School Performance

Schools with higher populations of students from low-income families may have lower achievement, but they also may have high rates of achievement growth, according to a study by the nonprofit NWEA. Study author Andy Hegedus, a NWEA research consulting director, says Every Student Succeeds Act assessments may be focusing too much on achievement and not enough on student growth. While it’s clear there is a strong connection between high poverty and low student achievement, a new analysis of growth data on MAP reading and math assessments shows a much weaker relationship between high poverty and low rates of growth, according to NWEA, the nonprofit organization that developed the assessments. The findings, have implications for how states measure school improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Hegedus, A. (2018). Evaluating the relationships between poverty and school performance. Portland, OR: NWEA. https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2018/10/Evaluating-the-Relationships-Between-Poverty-and-School-Performance.pdf

Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Vocabulary

In a study that provided a first-generation standardization of automated language environment estimates, validated these estimates against standard language assessments, it was found that the "word gap" between high-income and low-income groups was about 4 million by the time the children turned 4, not 30 million by age 3. Child vocalization frequency and turn-taking increased with age, whereas adult word counts were age independent after early infancy.

Lower socioeconomic status (SES) children produced fewer vocalizations, engaged in fewer adult–child interactions, and were exposed to fewer daily adult words compared with their higher socioeconomic status peers, but within-group variability was high. The results offer new insight into the landscape of the early language environment, with clinical implications for identification of children at-risk for impoverished language environments.

Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Warren, S. F., Montgomery, J. K., Greenwood, C. R., Oller, D. K., Hansen, J. H. L., & Paul, T. D. (2017). Mapping the early language environment using all-day recordings and automated analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26, 248-265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2016_AJSLP-15-0169

Benefits of Home-Based Learning on Academic Outcomes

According to a study conducted by researchers at New York University regarding families in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, it was found that home-based learning for young students from low-income, ethnically diverse families can help predict students' future success. Data shows improved outcomes for children who have access at home to meaningful conversations and learning-centered books and toys. Early learning environments predicted children’s 5th grade academic skills, and children’s pre-kindergarten skills and 5th grade learning environment mediated longitudinal associations. The early learning environment supports the emergence of pre-academic skills that are stable into early adolescence, and pathways generalize across ethnic/racial groups.

Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Luo, R., McFadden, K. E., Bandel, E. T., & Vallotton, C. (2017). Early home learning environment predicts children’s 5th grade academic skills. Applied Developmental Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1345634