Our Views: Narrowing reading gap
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One of Malcolm Gladwell’s strengths as a writer is his ability to explore, with subtlety and insight, questions so seemingly simple that few of us ever give them much thought.
In his book, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” Gladwell attempts to understand why some people succeed and others don’t. Luck, opportunity and hard work figure in the mix, of course, but Gladwell considers in more precise ways how these factors play out.
A case in point is Gladwell’s gleaning of research into why children from poor families traditionally lag behind in academics. His conclusion: “Virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in ways privileged kids learn while they are not in school.”
Gladwell reports on one study that linked the achievement gap between wealthy and poor students to what happened over the summer months. While reading skills for affluent students generally rise during the summer break, they drop for low-income children.
“We in the youth development field have long known that summer learning loss is a real problem for low-income children,” Pat Van Burkleo of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Baton Rouge notes in a recent electronic newsletter from the organization. “The Boys & Girls’ Clubs’ Summer Enrichment Program is a solution to this problem.”
The local group, which works heavily with at-risk youngsters, uses its six-week summer enrichment session to bridge the gap between school years and keep children from regressing in academic skills. An outside evaluation of the program showed that reading skills rose for youngsters involved in the summer session.
In Baton Rouge, where high rates of illiteracy lend special urgency to the cause of improving reading skills, initiatives such as the Boys & Girls’ Clubs’ Summer Enrichment Program deserve support.
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