Love to read

By Barbara T. Bowman

Subjects: African American children, Literacy, Education (Early childhood)

Description: Statistics tell us that children who are not well advanced in the road to literacy by fourth grade are at greatly increased risk of school failure. A growing, robust knowledge base has indentified the typical learning trajectory for reading and educational strategies that make learning to read easier and more certain. Dissenmination of this information is particularly important for African Americans because a high proportion of our children do not become able readers and suffer appalling, economic and social consequences.This was the impetus for the National Blaxck Child Development Institute to convene a working group of outstanding researchers to discuss why African American children are at greater risk for poor reading and what needs to be done to improve their chances.