At the same time that thousands
of school districts nationwide are
beginning to implement the Common Core State Standards in English / language arts, many also face new state
reading policies for the
early grades that call for the identification
of struggling readers, require interventions to help them, and, in some instances, mandate the retention
of 3rd graders who lack adequate
reading skills.
The first 5 years
of life are critical for the development
of language and cognitive
skills.1 By kindergarten entry, steep social gradients in
reading and math ability, with successively poorer outcomes for children in families
of lower social class, are already apparent.2 — 4
Early cognitive ability is, in turn, predictive of later school performance, educational attainment, and health in adulthood5 — 7 and may serve as a marker for the quality of early brain development and a mechanism for the transmission of future health inequalities.8 Early life represents a time period of most equality and yet, beginning with in utero conditions and extending through early childhood, a wide range of socially stratified risk and protective factors may begin to place children on different trajectories of cognitive development.
Early cognitive ability is, in turn, predictive
of later school performance, educational attainment, and health in adulthood5 — 7 and may serve as a marker for the quality
of early brain development and a mechanism for the transmission of future health inequalities.8 Early life represents a time period of most equality and yet, beginning with in utero conditions and extending through early childhood, a wide range of socially stratified risk and protective factors may begin to place children on different trajectories of cognitive development.
early brain development and a mechanism for the transmission
of future health inequalities.8
Early life represents a time period of most equality and yet, beginning with in utero conditions and extending through early childhood, a wide range of socially stratified risk and protective factors may begin to place children on different trajectories of cognitive development.
Early life represents a time period
of most equality and yet,
beginning with in utero conditions and extending through
early childhood, a wide range of socially stratified risk and protective factors may begin to place children on different trajectories of cognitive development.
early childhood, a wide range
of socially stratified risk and protective factors may
begin to place children on different trajectories
of cognitive development.9, 10