The L.A. Times – Editorial
“On the day they start kindergarten, Latino children are often already at a disadvantage. Their social skills and readiness to listen and learn are top-notch, but their cognitive and verbal skills, abilities that strongly predict future academic success, tend to be significantly less developed than those of their white peers. If they have attended preschool, that may have helped, but a new study from UC Berkeley confirms what other research has found: The discrepancy starts much earlier, and even high-quality preschool makes up only about a third of the deficit. Why the big difference? According to child-development experts, the parents of white children are talking to their children more, telling stories, reading books and inviting them to suggest their own ideas — even when they’re too young to speak. In other words, preschool alone will not prepare toddlers for success in school. That’s a problem. But solutions are clear, inexpensive and relatively easy to achieve. At the age of 9 months, Latino infants and their white peers possess the same cognitive skills, according to the Berkeley study, released last week. But by 20 months, the Latinos have fallen behind, and by 30 months the differences are marked. By the time they reach preschool age, the vocabularies of the Latino children are far smaller. A rich early vocabulary — no matter the language — is the single most promising predictor of good reading skills.”(more)