Thanks so much, Cyndy, for leading the interesting discussion this week. Listservers' insights and ideas have been thought provoking and helpful.

Thanks also, Cyndy and Laurie, for bringing up the matter of vocabulary. I have read Hart and Risley and the "30 Million Word Gap" and strongly agree that vocabulary development is very important.

But I have also had this question:  Is it totally about the # of DIFFERENT words?  Or is it just as much about the amount of TIME the child spends talking with adults and the CONTENT of the conversations?  

When Hart & Risley talk about the 30 million word gap--as I recall, their study shows that children from higher socioeconomic status families tend to hear 30 million more words than the children in lower SES families--I know they are not talking about 30 million different words. (I guess no one knows how many words there are in English... maybe a million.  You could multiply that by adding in the scientific name of, say, every last species of insect, but these would not be words the average general scholar would know.)  

The large number of words heard by the higher SES kids reflects MORE TIME SPENT TALKING with adults... and more time talking about abstract, non-concrete ideas, non-immediate ideas. An example of concrete would be telling a child to put his shoes on or asking the child what he wants for dinner. An example of non-concrete would be talking with the child about things that are not immediately there in the environment--eg. asking the child to tell about the movie he saw yesterday ... or trying to answer a child's question, such as "Where does corn come from?"

So it seems to me, if the parent has, say, a 4th-grade vocabulary BUT she uses it to talk with her child frequently about all sorts of things concrete and abstract, if she encourages the child's curiosity, if she responds to his questions or tries to help him find answers, if she shares books with him frequently, and if true dialoguing is going on between parent and child, then that child will still have a good foundation to build on when he starts kindergarten. The child will start school with a good understanding of concepts.

So I do agree that we should find ways to promote vocabulary development for adults and children, but it is also important to promote frequent, interactive conversations between parent and child. PACT activities can certainly help with that!

Betsy Rubin
Literacy Works
Chicago IL
www.litworks.org

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Colletti, Cyndy 
  To: The Family Literacy Discussion List 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 9:13 AM
  Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 387] Re: Implementing Parent Child Activities



  We haven't discussed much about the impact that research has on what we do during PACT.  Let's bring some of that into this discussion.

  Betty Hart and Todd Risley, in "Meaningful Experiences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children," conclude that the more time parents spend talking with their children, the more rapidly the children's vocabulary is going to grow.  While Larry Mikulecky (Family Literacy: Parent and Child Interactions) states that "the way in which a parent speaks to a child may have as much or more to do with later reading achievement of the child than actual time spent reading with the child."  Certainly, both of those conclusions directly impact what we do in PACT. 

  My colleague Laura Bercovitz passed along this message discussing the issue of vocabulary development for me to post:

  We need to remember that the research from adult learning has shown that adults with limited literacy usually don't have a vocabulary beyond the 5th grade.  For the most part, they possess knowledge of the more basic/concrete words, not the more abstract words found in academic text and the subject-based words found the science, social studies, math, etc. textbooks.  Also there is the Todd Risley research about how far behind the children from the families we're working with are in vocabulary when they enter kindergarten.  And the huge need that English language learner families have (as all ELL learners) in vocabulary.  There is also the research that indicates the value of sharing more sophisticated words with young children.  All this research adds up to the value of working with the more abstract words when working with books and families.  These words abstract words don't need to appear in the text, only the word concept needs to apply.  So its valuable to use the word "
   enormous" when describing something in the story that is very big and then build on that abstract concept by forming a comprehension question around that word.  Through direct instruction parents can be taught these more complex words so that they understand the word's meaning and can use that word in the context of the story.  There may or may not be reading involved -- this can all be done through discussion between staff and parents and then ultimately through parents to child.  This provides a way to build both the parents' and children's vocabulary.
   
  All children's books can have 1-3 abstract words attached to them.  Isabel Bect's Text Talk has done that and at the back of her book "Bringing Vocabulary to Life" she has children's books listed and more complex word concepts that go with that book.

  Anyway, working with vocabulary, is this wonderful universal need of both parents and children.  Remember that this is vocabulary, word concepts, NOT word recognition in print -- which would be phonics.

  Laura Bercovitz
   
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