He keeps his columns very non-technical for the general reader. As his detailed books on Late Talking Children would stress, he very well understands all the detailed distinctions, he just did not want to “go into the weeds” while making his broader point in straight forward prose.
Yes, I understand. I just wanted to add the information, because I think it’s important. We hear so much about the difficulty in educating many children, and how we need to throw much more money into schooling, when it would be simple and inexpensive to make drastic improvements for many.
First, have adults talk to them. Second, teach them to read, using phonics. Third, have them spend their school time either reading or doing math. If I ever run an education program for anyone other than my own family, I’ll use nothing but math instruction, the Bible, and the complete works of Thomas Sowell ;-).
He keeps his columns very non-technical for the general reader. As his detailed books on Late Talking Children would stress, he very well understands all the detailed distinctions, he just did not want to “go into the weeds” while making his broader point in straight forward prose.Studies show that children whose parents have professional careers speak nearly twice as many words per hour to them as children with working class parents — and several times as many words per hour as children in families on welfare. There is no way that children from these different backgrounds are going to have equal chances of economic or other success in adulthood.He left out the connection between the facts and the conclusion, here. "Studies show" (wizard words ;-) that a child's school success can be predicted based on the number of words the child understands when he starts school. Verbal comprehension is both in itself a key academic ability, and a marker for a whole array of factors that contributed to academic success.
14 posted on January 5, 2015 at 12:55:02 PM EST by Tax-chick
I have a bookmark of a Sowell piece which, if I am still alive and FReeping on the dolorous day when Thomas Sowell assumes room temperature, I will repost as his obit:”Studies Prove”: Part II (Thomas Sowell)