Curriculum should be language-rich across subject areas
It is estimated that school-age children spend 15,000 hours of their lives in classrooms; those enrolled in an early education and care setting can log as many as 20,000 hours. As a result, these settings shape the architecture of our children's brains—the strength of the connections among neurons—and influence their thinking skills and academic outcomes. Therefore, at each setting's core, there should be rigorous and interactive opportunities to build academic language and knowledge, to foster curiosity and jumpstart critical thinking, and through such opportunities, to support reading comprehension.

Across the state, those thousands of hours in structured settings are not paying off the way we would hope and expect. Many of the reading difficulties that create widespread academic problems in ensuing years could be prevented if, from early childhood through the primary grades, we prioritized and systematized more intensive language-rich learning environments. Yet, according to early literacy research, only about 10% of those hours are spent engaging children in genuine learning activities focused on accumulating vocabulary and knowledge. By and large, the literacy learning in our early education and primary grade classrooms focuses predominantly on foundational reading skills (letter knowledge, letter sounds, and word reading) at the expense of similarly explicit, systematic, and planned instruction focused on building meaning-based skills (comprehension, conceptual knowledge and vocabulary).

ACTION STEPS

• The state should provide ongoing guidance on curricula selection and use in early education and care settings, as well as pre-k through third-grade classrooms.
• Quality of implementation should be measured and monitored at the setting level.
• Students who are not demonstrating sufficient progress must receive supplemental instruction that matches the curriculum.

SNAPSHOT
Digging Deeper: Linking Language and Learning to Big Ideas
In Chelsea’s John Silber Early Learning Center, Miss Leslie’s class is studying a unit about things that grow. It’s part of the Opening the World of Learning (OWL) curriculum, also in use and being evaluated in the Boston Public Schools. She and the children are just wrapping up a discussion about the similarities between sprouting plants on the nearby shelf and those in the book, “The Ugly Vegetable.” Using content-rich language, she then reminds her 4-year-olds about center time.

“If you choose to go to the science table to make compost for our worm habitat, don’t forget to add the leftover carrot sticks from the soup we cooked yesterday.” Joseph waves his raised hand, indicating his choice. The science table is Joseph’s favorite, and Miss Leslie finds it is where he does some of his best learning. While Joseph makes his way toward the worm habitat and the other students walk to their chosen centers, Miss Leslie sits down in the writing area. Meeting with the students there, she uses questioning strategies she and her colleagues have been focused on as part of their ongoing professional development. Miss Leslie then joins Joseph and his peers who are mashing carrots, leaves, and soil together. She grabs the book on the table, “Wiggling Worms at Work,” and engages the students: “Hmmm. What information do we still need about worms? What other questions do we have?...”