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Correct. A lack of basic literacy by third grade is an indicator something else is wrong. Children will typically just learn to read with enough exposure to lan

Correct. A lack of basic literacy by third grade is an indicator something else is wrong. Children will typically just learn to read with enough exposure to language by this age. Often this either indicates that a child has a learning disability or basic needs at home are not being met. You can pour all the money you want into literacy, and that is fine and a good thing, but it does not address the needs of a child who is not progressing because no one talks to them at home or there are other basic needs not being met.

bsder 5y ago
> Children will typically just learn to read with enough exposure to language by this age. Is this universally true? Or is it only true for certain socioeconomic classes? One of the biggest problems in education is the fact that during the summer vacation some students improve while others degrade. The differential is almost completely predictable by socioeconomic class.
- bawolff 5y ago
  I would assume that sufficient exposure is what varries with class. The way you're phrasing that seems to imply that some classes are just instrinsicly not as smart, which i don't think is true.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    I didn't get that implication from bsder at all. Seems to me their post implies all students learn during term time, showing there's nothing wrong with any of them. And anything outside of term time is extracurricular; everyone knows more extracurricular activities need more parental time and money.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I took the exact opposite reading: that socioeconomic conditions (rather than inherent abilities) were the first-order difference.
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    How could this not be true? The only way for the poor to not be intrinsically less smart than the non-poor would be for there to be little-to-no impact of IQ on job choice. But of course IQ affects job choice, which affects income, which determines class. Consider the most common jobs in the upper income decile--physicians, managers, executives, and lawyers. Generally speaking, these jobs are inaccessible to people with average IQs, let alone low IQs. So of course these high-paying jobs are far more likely to be filled by folks with high IQs. Now, consider the most common jobs in the lowest decile--nursing aides, cashiers, cooks, housekeepers. Jobs like this would be, generally speaking, boring for people with average IQs and absolute torture for folks with high IQs (who as a rule crave novelty and complexity to a greater degree than most). So of course these low-paying jobs are more likely to be filled by folks with low IQs. This doesn't even get into the fact that ~15% of the population have IQs below 85. These folks will struggle to hold down any job, and are far more likely to sort into the ranks of the poor than into the middle or upper classes. Ignoring objective truths is always dangerous, even if they are uncomfortable.
    - krastanov 5y ago
      You are talking about something very different from OP. OP is consistent with "class is a predictor of availability of oportunities to increase the 'IQ' of a child, as 'IQ' can be more nurture than nature". You are focusing on the effects of low IQ without considering interventions to increase IQ. And our two posts completely disregard how bad of a measure IQ generally is in practice.
      - thrower123 5y ago
        There are essentially no interventions that can improve IQ, only interventions that reduce it.
        krastanov 5y ago
        This seems like an incredibly strong claim presented without evidence (unless you believe in fairly debunked "skills are fixed at birth" nature-vs-nurture ideas). The vast majority of pedagogical literature and science from the last couple of decades is talking about the importance of instilling a "growth mindset", depicting a whole zoo of interventions shown to improve cognitive skills in students, including as measured by SAT scores and IQ tests (even if they are imperfect measurement tools). There is a relatively easy way to disprove your claim if you believe in IQ tests (an assumption I am making). You can improve your test score by practicing on similar tests (or even unrelated things like crosswords). Trivial exercises can improve your IQ test score or any other cognitive measure.
  - bsder 5y ago
    The data implies exactly the opposite. A lot of "underperforming" students actually close some of the gap during the school year. The problem is that during the summer break, the gap reopens even wider for those from lower socioeconomic classes. This is one of the primary arguments for "year round" school.
mjevans 5y ago
It could also be a disability that is not yet diagnosed or is otherwise untreatable by our current level of medical technology.
retrac 5y ago
As a child who self-taught himself to read for the most part, I doubt this. I had to sit through many "see spot run" style lessons in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade, while being perplexed with how many of my classmates struggled. And even my "self-taught" reading involved a fair bit of coaching from my parents. I remember alphabet, sound combination and grammar exercises around 4 years old before it clicked. Plenty of kids don't even know the alphabet when they start school. It is interesting to compare those parents with my parents who felt that kids who couldn't full-on read and write by about 5 were being failed. Whether a kid will be a competent reader is probably determined by the home environment before school even starts.

bsder 5y ago

> Children will typically just learn to read with enough exposure to language by this age. Is this universally true? Or is it only true for certain socioeconomic classes? One of the biggest problems in education is the fact that during the summer vacation some students improve while others degrade. The differential is almost completely predictable by socioeconomic class.

bawolff 5y ago
I would assume that sufficient exposure is what varries with class. The way you're phrasing that seems to imply that some classes are just instrinsicly not as smart, which i don't think is true.
- michaelt 5y ago
  I didn't get that implication from bsder at all. Seems to me their post implies all students learn during term time, showing there's nothing wrong with any of them. And anything outside of term time is extracurricular; everyone knows more extracurricular activities need more parental time and money.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I took the exact opposite reading: that socioeconomic conditions (rather than inherent abilities) were the first-order difference.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  How could this not be true? The only way for the poor to not be intrinsically less smart than the non-poor would be for there to be little-to-no impact of IQ on job choice. But of course IQ affects job choice, which affects income, which determines class. Consider the most common jobs in the upper income decile--physicians, managers, executives, and lawyers. Generally speaking, these jobs are inaccessible to people with average IQs, let alone low IQs. So of course these high-paying jobs are far more likely to be filled by folks with high IQs. Now, consider the most common jobs in the lowest decile--nursing aides, cashiers, cooks, housekeepers. Jobs like this would be, generally speaking, boring for people with average IQs and absolute torture for folks with high IQs (who as a rule crave novelty and complexity to a greater degree than most). So of course these low-paying jobs are more likely to be filled by folks with low IQs. This doesn't even get into the fact that ~15% of the population have IQs below 85. These folks will struggle to hold down any job, and are far more likely to sort into the ranks of the poor than into the middle or upper classes. Ignoring objective truths is always dangerous, even if they are uncomfortable.
  - krastanov 5y ago
    You are talking about something very different from OP. OP is consistent with "class is a predictor of availability of oportunities to increase the 'IQ' of a child, as 'IQ' can be more nurture than nature". You are focusing on the effects of low IQ without considering interventions to increase IQ. And our two posts completely disregard how bad of a measure IQ generally is in practice.
    - thrower123 5y ago
      There are essentially no interventions that can improve IQ, only interventions that reduce it.
      - krastanov 5y ago
        This seems like an incredibly strong claim presented without evidence (unless you believe in fairly debunked "skills are fixed at birth" nature-vs-nurture ideas). The vast majority of pedagogical literature and science from the last couple of decades is talking about the importance of instilling a "growth mindset", depicting a whole zoo of interventions shown to improve cognitive skills in students, including as measured by SAT scores and IQ tests (even if they are imperfect measurement tools). There is a relatively easy way to disprove your claim if you believe in IQ tests (an assumption I am making). You can improve your test score by practicing on similar tests (or even unrelated things like crosswords). Trivial exercises can improve your IQ test score or any other cognitive measure.
- bsder 5y ago
  The data implies exactly the opposite. A lot of "underperforming" students actually close some of the gap during the school year. The problem is that during the summer break, the gap reopens even wider for those from lower socioeconomic classes. This is one of the primary arguments for "year round" school.

mjevans 5y ago

It could also be a disability that is not yet diagnosed or is otherwise untreatable by our current level of medical technology.

retrac 5y ago

As a child who self-taught himself to read for the most part, I doubt this. I had to sit through many "see spot run" style lessons in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade, while being perplexed with how many of my classmates struggled. And even my "self-taught" reading involved a fair bit of coaching from my parents. I remember alphabet, sound combination and grammar exercises around 4 years old before it clicked. Plenty of kids don't even know the alphabet when they start school. It is interesting to compare those parents with my parents who felt that kids who couldn't full-on read and write by about 5 were being failed. Whether a kid will be a competent reader is probably determined by the home environment before school even starts.