Concepts of Language in Children from Differing Socio-Economic Backgrounds

Abstract

AbstractAn investigation of concepts of language in children from differing socio-economic backgrounds was conducted. The hypotheses were: I) that kindergarten children from schools in higher socio-economic neighborhoods would have significantly more advanced concepts of language than children in lower socio-economic areas, and 2) that this conceptual development would be correlated with more conventional measures of reading readiness. A total of 787 kindergarten children divided approximately equally into high, middle, and low socioeconomic groups were tested twice, in the second and ninth months after beginning kindergarten. Three tests were of concepts of language. Three others were conventional measures of perceptual ability in reading readiness. The data generally supported the hypotheses.