School Attendance Has to be Compulsory

The Case for Regular School Attendance

By Deborah Williams

It is universally understood that children can’t learn if they are not at school. Regular school attendance is required for all students, but a study of the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress reinforces this idea.  Sarah Sparks, writer for Education Week’s Inside School Research blog, reports, “Missing even a few days of school seems to make a difference in whether eighth graders perform at the top of their game.”
The findings of the study are compelling.  Because more time is being spent on instruction in reading, math, music, and the visual arts, missing time from school has a greater impact than ever before.  The data showed the following:

• 58% of 8^th graders who performed at the advanced level in NAEP reading in 2011 had perfect attendance in the month before the test, compared with only 39% of students who performed below the basic level.
• Nearly 20% of 8^th graders at the basic level and more than 25% in reading had missed three or more days in the past month.

Alan L. Ginsburg, a research consultant for the NAEP governing board and co-author of the report explains that if a student misses an average of three days each month, he or she is missing five weeks of school for the year.   “You’ve got more than a quarter of the below-basic kids who are going to miss five weeks of school a year or more,” he said, noting that only 8 percent of students at the advanced level had missed that much school. “That, to me, would be something that if you are a chief state school officer or a superintendent, you might worry about.”
This study supports the idea that chronic absenteeism “puts those students at greater risk for poor academic achievement and eventually dropping out of high school.”
Poor school attendance is a concern in other countries as well:  Every Day Counts from Mark Waddington on Vimeo.

Reading with Your Child is very Important

Reading With Your Young Child

By Deborah Williams
Most parents realize the importance of reading to their young children regularly.  Bradford Wiles, early childhood development professor at Kansas State University, has led research focused on emergent literacy, part of the developmental process that begins at birth and continues until preschool and kindergarten.  An article on the Science Daily website reports that Wiles found that parents should read with their young children and not just to them.
Children aged 3 to 5 years old were the focus for this study.  Even before they can say words or form sentences, this is a prime time to help them become better readers later and increase reading comprehension.  The parents of children in this age group should do the following for their young children:

• Read with them as a family at anytime during the day, not just before going to bed.
• Read the same book over and over again because the child can learn new things every time.
• Pay attention to their reading style by using engaging voice, tone, and the way they read to their children.
• Engage their children—figure out what the child is thinking and get them to think beyond the words on the page.
  • Ask open-ended questions.
  • Offer instructions.
  • Give examples.
  • Give feedback about what the children are thinking.

Reading with young children helps to increase their vocabularies substantially—one of the keys to future success in school.
Listen to Dr. Wiles discuss emergent literacy: