Preschool Programs and Language Development

Paper Summary:

The paper reveals that high quality preschool programs for poor children can reduce the delay in the development of their communication skills. The paper reviews the article "Language and Literacy Environments in Preschools" by Snow, Burns and Griffin that explores how best to help preschool children develop communication skills so that they will be ready to learn how to read when they go to school. The writer discusses how he/she applies these principles in his/her preschool program.

From the Paper:

"The article (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1999) states, "it is precisely on measures of the language environment that many preschool programs serving poor children have scored in the inadequate range" (p. 1). The article doesn't say how many programs are inadequate or what the percentage overall might be of programs which do not help children develop their communication skills. The author goes on to say, or at least to imply, that Headstart programs are no better than any other programs for preschool children coming from impoverished homes: "A study of 32 headstart classrooms similarly found the lowest scores for language and reasoning on the same test" (p. 2)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Snow, C., Burns, S. and Griffin, P. (1999). Language and literacy environments in preschools. ERIC Digest, 1-3. Retrieved 1 May 2007 from ERIC database.

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