Reading Practice

Early Childhood Education

New Zealand's National Party spokesman on education, Dr Lockwood Smith,
recently visited the US and Britain. Here he reports on the findings of his trip and
what they could mean for New Zealand's education policy

‘Education To Be More' was published last August. It was the report of the New Zealand
Government's Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. The report argued for
enhanced equity of access and better funding for childcare and early childhood education
institutions. Unquestionably, that's a real need; but since parents don't normally send
children to pre-schools until the age of three, are we missing out on the most important
years of all?

A 13 year study of early childhood development at Harvard University has shown that, by
the age of three, most children have the potential to understand about 1000 words - most
of the language they will use in ordinary conversation for the rest of their lives.

Furthermore, research has shown that while every child is born with a natural curiosity, if
can be suppressed dramatically during the second and third years of life. Researchers
claim that the human personality is formed during the first two years of life, and during the
first three years children learn the basic skills they will use in all their later learning both at
home and at school. Once over the age of three, children continue to expand on existing
knowledge of the world.

It is generally acknowledged that young people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds

fend to do less well in our education system. That's observed not just in New Zealand, but
also in Australia, Britain and America. In an attempt to overcome that educational under-
achievement, a nationwide programme called 'Headstart' was launched in the United
Slates in 1965. A lot of money was poured into it. It took children into pre-school institutions
at the age of three and was supposed to help the children of poorer families succeed in
school.

Despite substantial funding, results have been disappointing. It is thought that there are two
explanations for this. First, the programme began too late. Many children who entered it at
the age of three were already behind their peers in language and measurable intelligence.
Second, the parents were not involved. At the end of each day, 'Headstart' children
returned to the same disadvantaged home environment.

As a result of the growing research evidence of the importance of the first three years of a
child's life and the disappointing results from 'Headstart', a pilot programme was launched
in Missouri in the US that focused on parents as the child's first teachers. The 'Missouri'
programme was predicated on research showing that working with the family, rather than
bypassing the parents, is the most effective way of helping children get off to the best

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possible start in life. The four-year pilot study included 380 families who were about to have
their first child and who represented a cross-section of socio-economic status, age and
family configurations. They included single-parent and two-parent families, families in which
both parents worked, and families with either the mother or father at home.

The programme involved trained parent- educators visiting the parents' home and working
with tire parent, or parents, and the child. Information on child development, and guidance
on things to look for and expect as the child grows were provided, plus guidance in
fostering the child's intellectual, language, social and motor-skill development. Periodic
check-ups of the child's educational and sensory development (hearing and vision) were
made to detect possible handicaps that interfere with growth and development. Medical
problems were referred to professionals.

Parent-educators made personal visits to homes and monthly group meetings were held
with other new parents to share experience and discuss topics of interest. Parent resource
centres, located in school buildings, offered learning materials for families and facilitators
for child core.

At the age of three, the children who had been involved in the 'Missouri' programme were
evaluated alongside a cross-section of children selected from the same range of socio-
economic backgrounds and family situations, and also a random sample of children that
age. The results were phenomenal. By the age of three, the children in the programme
were significantly more advanced in language development than their peers, had made
greater strides in problem solving and other intellectual skills, and were further along in
social development, tn fact, the average child on the programme was performing at the
level of the top 15 to 20 per cent of their peers in such things as auditory comprehension,
verbal ability and language ability.

Most important of all, the traditional measures of 'risk', such as parents' age and education,
or whether they were a single parent, bore little or no relationship to the measures of
achievement and language development. Children in the programme performed equally
well regardless of socio-economic disadvantages. Child abuse was virtually eliminated. The
one factor that was found to affect the child's development was family stress leading to a
poor quality of parent-child interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorer
families.

These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in New Zealand that
children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are arriving at school less well
developed and that our school system tends to perpetuate that disadvantage. The initiative
outlined above could break that cycle of disadvantage. The concept of working with parents
in their homes, or at their place of work, contrasts quite markedly with the report of the
Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. Their focus is on getting children and
mothers access to childcare and institutionalised early childhood education. Education from
the age of three to five is undoubtedly vital, but without a similar focus on parent education
and on the vital importance of the first three years, some evidence indicates that it will not
be enough to overcome educational inequity.

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Questions 1-4
Reading Passage has six sections, A-F.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1..................... details of the range of family types involved in an education programme

2..................... reasons why a child’s early years are so important

3..................... reasons why an education programme failed

4..................... a description of the positive outcomes of an education programme

Questions 5-10
Classify the following features as characterising

A the ' Headstart' programme

B the 'Missouri' programme

C both the 'Headstart' and the 'Missouri' programmes

D neither the 'Headstart' nor the 'Missouri’programme

Write the correct letter A. B, C or D in boxes 5-10 on your answer sheet.

5..................... was administered to a variety of poor and wealthy families

6..................... continued with follow-up assistance in elementary schools

7..................... did not succeed in its aim

8..................... supplied many forms of support and training to parents

9..................... received insufficient funding

10..................... was designed to improve pre-schoolers’ educational development

Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?

In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

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 NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

11..................... Most ‘Missouri’ programme three-year-olds scored highly in areas such as

listening, speaking, reasoning and interacting with others.

12..................... ‘Missouri’ programme children of young, uneducated, single parents

scored less highly on the tests.

13..................... The richer families in the ‘Missouri’ programme had higher stress levels.

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Solution:
1. D 8. B
2. B 9. D
3. C 10. C
4. E 11. TRUE
5. B 12. FALSE
6. D 13. NOT GIVEN
7. A

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