Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds that, in order for a comprehensive, effective literacy program to address the needs of readers and writers, it is critical to address the following: Literacy development is an ongoing process that requires a sustained investment beginning in early childhood and continuing through elementary school and secondary school. Developing literacy skills begins at birth as infants and toddlers associate sounds, gestures, and marks on paper with consequences and meaning.
Many low-income children from birth through kindergarten entry lack oral and print language-rich environments in their homes and early childhood education programs and teachers and staff in early childhood education programs are often not provided with high-quality professional development on how to support children’s language and literacy development. Early childhood educators whose professional preparation and ongoing development includes study of language learning and early childhood development promote early language and literacy as part of the overall curriculum for children’s readiness for school, particularly for young English language learners and children with disabilities or developmental delays.
Research shows that writing leads to improved reading achievement, reading leads to better writing performance, and combined instruction leads to improvements in both areas. Children in kindergarten through grade 12 need to be engaged in combined reading and writing experiences that lead to a higher level of thinking than when either process is taught alone. Environments rich in language and literacy experiences, books, resources, and models facilitate reading and writing development.
Schools, principals, librarians, and teachers must have the knowledge, skills, and tools to create environments appropriate to meet the diverse literacy needs of children from birth through grade 12, especially for children whose home environments lack support for literacy development. Middle school and secondary school teachers need professional development to improve the reading and writing abilities of students who are reading and writing several years below grade level. Middle school and secondary school teachers in core academic subjects must have the tools and skills to teach reading and writing for subject area understanding and to differentiate and provide instruction for students with varying literacy skills.
The intellectual and linguistic skills necessary for writing and reading must be developed through explicit, intentional, and systematic language activities, to which many low-income and minority students do not currently have access. Between 1971 and 2004, the reading levels of America's 17-year-olds showed little to no improvement at all. The ability of secondary school students to read complex texts is strongly predictive of their performance in college mathematics and science courses.
Fewer than 2 in 10 eighth graders who were in the secondary school graduating classes for 2005 and 2006 met all 4 EXPLORE College Readiness Benchmarks (English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science), the minimum level of achievement that ACT has shown is necessary if students are to be college and career ready upon their secondary school graduation. Seventy percent of eighth graders read below the proficient level on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, indicating that students in middle schools and secondary schools struggle to graduate because the students' literacy achievement is alarmingly low.
Only one-third of secondary school students who enter grade 9 each year can expect to graduate in 4 years with the skills the student needs to succeed in college and the workplace. Secondary school graduation rates for low-income students and students of color hover around 50 percent, as do graduation rates for students in urban school districts and students with disabilities. Graduation rates for English language learners are particularly low. Only 71 percent of secondary school students graduate on time with a diploma, meaning that every year 1,230,000 students fail to graduate from secondary school.
These 1,230,000 nongraduates cost the United States more than $319,000,000,000 in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over the lifetimes of the nongraduates. About 40 percent of secondary school graduates lack the literacy skills employers seek. The 25 fastest growing professions have far greater than average literacy demands, while the fastest declining professions have lower than average literacy demands. Research shows that low expectations for the reading and writing achievement of students in schools results in curricula that do not challenge or adequately support the student’s literacy learning and in subsequent low achievement, while high academic expectations can help boost student learning and achievement.
Children learn best in settings where teachers understand the developmental continuum of language, reading, and writing and are skilled in a variety of strategies that help the children achieve. Meaningful engagement of families in their children’s early learning supports school readiness and later academic success. Parental literacy habits are positively associated with parental reading beliefs, parent-child literacy and language activities in the home, children’s print knowledge, and parents' and children's interest in reading and writing.