CHARLESTON, WV (Oct. 30, 2019) — We are distressed, but sadly not surprised to learn that West Virginia’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are so low.
Educators tells us they are seeing children enter school with language delays at rates they have never seen before, and that is happening at all income levels.
Why is West Virginia going backwards? We believe three factors have influenced the language delays incoming students are experiencing:
- Screen time competes with the attention of children and their parents, distracting them from habits that raise good readers to habits that short-circuit the necessary pre-literacy skills that would develop in the years before school.
- High concentrations of opioid addiction has killed parents, destroyed homes and stressed children, interfering with their learning.
- Economic distress continues to be an obstacle for West Virginia children and their families.
In some schools, reading scores on state assessments have dropped by half during the last two years as these factors have grown more severe.
Yet, it is no secret how to prevent these language delays.
Current brain research is very clear. Children begin developing the skills needed to read soon after birth, if families, talk, sing and read to them.
In families where children are prevented from using phones and other devices until at least age 2, in homes where children are safe, nourished and read to daily, there are no preventable reading delays.
The problem is even deeper than poor reading scores, which are predictors of low educational achievement, low employment prospects, poverty and poor health.
Teachers are increasingly asked to take on the additional responsibilities of social work and surrogate parenting as the students they are trying to teach are traumatized and neglected because of the opioid crisis. Feeling unprepared and overwhelmed, teachers burn out and leave the profession. Schools tell us that they are unable to fill classroom positions.
It is imperative that a state which is seeking to diversify its economy focus on improving literacy as the essential first step in developing a healthy and educated workforce.
Literacy is a three-legged stool. West Virginia’s literacy problems cannot be solved by teachers alone. Reading instruction in the classroom is just one leg of the stool. Families get children first during a critical period of brain and language development, and they serve as a critical leg of the stool. The third leg is the community that supports libraries and literacy initiatives, and most importantly, shows children it values reading skills as much as it values athletic skills. Children work to develop those skills that are valued by the people around them.
Some steps to focus on literacy include:
- New parents should be taught that reading to children from birth is not just a nice thing. It is as important as putting a child in a car seat or making them wear bicycle helmets. It is a necessary part of rearing healthy children capable of learning and succeeding.
- Fund and develop school and public libraries.
- Fund literacy programs such as our own that put books in children’s hands. We welcome other programs such as Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and Reach Out and Read in doctors’ offices.
Read Aloud West Virginia has long advocated the importance of health care providers in influencing children’s early literacy. Read Aloud remains eager to work with health care providers who see young families before children enter school.
It is important to remember this is an aggregate score for the whole state. Not every school is losing ground. We work with schools that, by practicing what the research shows in teaching reading, and creating text-rich, reader friendly environments, have actually seen their scores increase, significantly, in recent years.
But Read Aloud is not in every school. Reach Out and Read is not in every doctor’s office. Imagination Library is not in every county. A daily reading habit is not in every home.
“These reading scores are tremendously frustrating and disheartening. I anticipated them, and they break my heart,” said Read Aloud West Virginia Executive Director Mary Kay Bond.
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Read Aloud West Virginia is a homegrown West Virginia 501-c-3 organization that motivates children to read for fun, because research (including previous NAEP surveys) shows that children who read for pleasure read more often and have better reading skills.
