the Latino daily – Your Tuesday morning brief

TUESDAY, April 26, 2016

Good morning Taquistas!

There’s lots to talk about this morning, so let’s go straight to the news.

►Tuesday’s numbers

90 – The percentage of Latino parents of children not yet in kindergarten who reported reading to their child.

78 – The percentage of Latino parents of children not yet in kindergarten who reported telling their child stories.

97 – The percentage of Latino parents of children not yet in kindergarten who reported teaching words, letters and numbers to their child.

80 – The percentage of Latino parents of children not yet in kindergarten who reported working on arts and crafts with their child.

15 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who recognize all letters of the alphabet.

42 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who can count to 20 or higher.

50 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who can write their name.

84 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who can hold a pencil with their fingers.

87 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who’s speech is understandable to strangers.

3 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who can read written words in a book.

52 – The percentage of Latino children not yet in kindergarten who attend an early childhood care and education program.

Source: Child Trends

►The word deficit

Today’s numbers brought to mind a conversation I had with my wife, an administrator at the San Antonio Independent School District. She was telling me about the importance of pre-k education and the “word deficit” that hampers Latino kids. I remembered this article in the New York Times and especially this:

“. . .  in the ’80s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley spent years cataloging the number of words spoken to young children in dozens of families from different socioeconomic groups, and what they found was not only a disparity in the complexity of words used, but also astonishing differences in sheer number. Children of professionals were, on average, exposed to approximately 1,500 more words hourly than children growing up in poverty. This resulted in a gap of more than 32 million words by the time the children reached . . . READ MORE