Hart & Risley Turned Inside Out

In Clayton Christensen's book, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive
Innovation Will Transform Education," I have finally come to the
dreaded chapter on early childhood. In chapter six, Christensen says
flat out that America shouldn't invest in voluntary preschool because
it won't work. He then uses one of the most important studies of early
language learning, Hart and Risley's "Meaningful Differences in the
Everyday Experiences of Young American Children," to argue that pre-k
is too little too late to help kids' language development. The only
supportive evidence he sites is this study. I doubt Hart and Risley
would agree that preschool should not be funded because kids make the
most gains in language development from 0-3 years old.Christensen states:
"Rather than funding programs that hire people to
substitute for parents who aren't succeeding at preschool talk, quite
possibly we might have a greater impact if we taught children how to be
parents before they become parents."
I actually agree with the above statement that some prevention,
especially parenting courses at the middle school level in health
classes, would help prevent some language delays in all children. But,
the reality is that Hart and Risley's study, published in 1995, did not
account for the current economic environment. It was also completed
before welfare reforms, which required poor parents to work. At the
time, teaching poor parents how to talk to their children may have been
the only intervention needed, but now, that would not be enough. What
Hart and Risley do not say, and what Chirstensen takes for granted, is
that it is too late for a child who is 3 or 4 years old to gain
language at a rapid pace.
This is why Head Start has, for approximately 40 years,
included parent involvement and parent literacy training in its
comprehensive services offered and required of parents. In fact, our
program recently received an Early Reading First grant through VCU to
implement, as part of a holistic literacy program, family literacy
strategies based on Hart and Risley's work. To say that children learn
most from 0-3 is not the same as saying kids don't learn from 3-5.
Shouldn't poor kids have the chance to catch-up even if they do start
out behind?