This implicit statistical knowledge is continually updated and elaborated across the lifespan through language use (MacDonald, 2013). Children acquire knowledge of these regularities via exposure to large samples of utterances, beginning in utero (see Romberg and Saffran, 2010, for review). Languages exhibit statistical regularities involving the frequencies and co-occurrences of sounds, words, and phrases. However, a large body of research shows that characteristics of the language to which children are exposed have enormous impact on what they learn (Hoff, 2013).Īlthough all humans acquire spoken language in the absence of pathology, the characteristics of people's language vary widely. school), but does not allow examination of the impact of linguistic differences within a language. Thus, the ECLS provides important data related to differences between languages (e.g., spoken at home vs. Surveys such as the ECLS contain little information about children's linguistic background other than which languages are spoken in the home. These types of studies also do not address the mechanisms by which such factors affect learning to read in particular.ĭifferences in language background may be an important contributing factor to reading acquisition and school achievement. Although differences in socioeconomic status (SES) can account for much of the gap that exists in kindergarten, it does not explain the increase in the gap over the first several years of schooling (Fryer and Levitt, 2004, 2006). Econometric analyses of large surveys such as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS Najarian et al., 2010) suggest that multiple factors contribute to the gap, including characteristics of the child, parents, home environment, schools, and culture (Yeung and Pfeiffer, 2009). Although the achievement gap in reading for African American children in particular has been the focus of attention from politicians, educators, and economists for many years (Jencks and Phillips, 1998 Equity and Excellence Commission, 2013), it has been a persistent, seemingly intractable problem with important consequences for individuals and society (Vanneman et al., 2009). later generation children of immigrants). The term is mainly used with reference to racial and ethnic minority groups-African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans-compared to whites, but there are many other “gaps” (e.g., gender, income, first vs. In the United States, the term “achievement gap” refers to disparities in academic performance between groups of individuals.
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