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Word gap
Abductive: Taking some of this from Achievement gap in the United States
The term '''30 million word gap''' (often shortened to just the '''word gap''') was coined in a 2003 article by [[Betty Hart]] and [[Todd R. Risley]] titled "The Early Catastrophe" and subtitled "The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3".<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref> Hart and Risley placed microphones in homes to record samples of the utterances of entire families over 2.5 years, and counted the number of words used by each family member. Families were classified by [[socioeconomic status]] (SES) into "high" (professional), "middle" (working class), and low (welfare) SES. They found that the average child in a professional family hears 2,153 words per waking hour, the average child in a working class family hears 1,251 words per hour, and an average child in a welfare family only 616 words per hour. Extrapolating, they stated that "In four years, an average child in a professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family 26 million words, and an average child in a welfare family 13 million words."
The authors found a correlation between word exposure and the rate of [[vocabulary acquisition]] in the subject children. High SES toddlers gained approximately 2 new words a day between their second and third birthdays, middle SES children 1 word per day, and low SES children 0.5 words per day. The authors and subsequent researchers have posited that the word gap partially explains the [[achievement gap in the United States]], the persistent disparity in educational performance among subgroups of U.S. students, especially subgroups defined by socioeconomic status and race.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>
==References==
[[Category:Education issues]]
[[Category:Language acquisition]]
[[Category:Social class in the United States]]
[[Category:Inequality]]
March 29, 2018 at 11:17AM
