Since I saw a discussion about public schools here earlier, I thought this story was noteworthy when I read it today.
The title is a little misleading but read on.
If you assume that kids start kindergarten at age 5 ( discounting pre-school also ), parents have a heavy responsibility to make sure their kids hit the ground running once they enter primary school because if the findings are true, if you aren't keeping pace by age 7, it has life long implications. The first 5 years are critical and that is on parents solely.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-math-skills-at-age-7-predict-how-much-money-youll-make/275690/
Here are the highlights:
METHODOLOGY: This study defines success in terms of socioeconomic status. Stuart Ritchie and Timothy Bates, of the University of Edinburgh, used data from a cohort of over 17,000 residents of England, Scotland, and Wales who were followed from when they were born to the present day, over 50 years later. They looked at how different measures of success, at various points in the participants' lives, informed one another. Those measures were:
Socioeconomic class at birth: whether their parents owned or rented a home, how many rooms said home had, and their father's occupation (more telling, perhaps, in 1958 than it would be now).
Reading and math skills at age seven: how they performed on tests and how their teachers rated their interest and ability in the subjects.
Intelligence at age 11: their IQ score.
Academic motivation at age 16: how strongly they agreed with statements such as, "School is a waste of time."
Socioeconomic status at age 42: what kind of job they held, their income, and their homeowner status.
RESULTS: How much money the people made at midlife was predicted by math ability at age seven, and, for girls only, by early reading ability. The other factors may have helped them on the path to success, but even when those were controlled for, the association between basic math and reading skills and future socioeconomic status remained, and remained significant: one jump in reading level, for example, was associated with an increased midlife salary of about $7,750.
--
Then for some reason this song came to mind.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find tenseven years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
The title is a little misleading but read on.
If you assume that kids start kindergarten at age 5 ( discounting pre-school also ), parents have a heavy responsibility to make sure their kids hit the ground running once they enter primary school because if the findings are true, if you aren't keeping pace by age 7, it has life long implications. The first 5 years are critical and that is on parents solely.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-math-skills-at-age-7-predict-how-much-money-youll-make/275690/
Here are the highlights:
METHODOLOGY: This study defines success in terms of socioeconomic status. Stuart Ritchie and Timothy Bates, of the University of Edinburgh, used data from a cohort of over 17,000 residents of England, Scotland, and Wales who were followed from when they were born to the present day, over 50 years later. They looked at how different measures of success, at various points in the participants' lives, informed one another. Those measures were:
Socioeconomic class at birth: whether their parents owned or rented a home, how many rooms said home had, and their father's occupation (more telling, perhaps, in 1958 than it would be now).
Reading and math skills at age seven: how they performed on tests and how their teachers rated their interest and ability in the subjects.
Intelligence at age 11: their IQ score.
Academic motivation at age 16: how strongly they agreed with statements such as, "School is a waste of time."
Socioeconomic status at age 42: what kind of job they held, their income, and their homeowner status.
RESULTS: How much money the people made at midlife was predicted by math ability at age seven, and, for girls only, by early reading ability. The other factors may have helped them on the path to success, but even when those were controlled for, the association between basic math and reading skills and future socioeconomic status remained, and remained significant: one jump in reading level, for example, was associated with an increased midlife salary of about $7,750.
--
Then for some reason this song came to mind.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find tenseven years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines