How librarians can help close the vocabulary gap

We’ve never forgotten a story that Micki Freeny, coordinator of youth services at the District of Columbia Public Library, told us about her daughter. Kyle was four years old when she asked a cashier if the mints on the restaurant counter were “complimentary.” “No dear,” replied the woman, “they’re free.” Kyle is now a Harvard-educated attorney who still enjoys meals out with her mom, and Micki continues to tell the story, often using it in her early literacy advocacy work.

In January, we wrote about the “vocabulary gap” and how it can lead to an “achievement gap.” The biggest difference between the vocabulary haves and have-nots is family income. Betty Hart and Todd Risley of the University of Kansas found that at age six, children from professional families have a 20,000-word vocabulary, while their peers from families on welfare know only about 3,000 words. This spring, we watched a PBS NewsHour episode about the vocabulary gap in Chicago. The city has some fine educational programs for preschoolers at risk for low literacy, but it was startling to hear how few of them are being served. For example, Educare, a program designed especially for at-risk children, has room for only 143 of Chicago’s approximately 90,000 youngsters under the age of five. The situation is similar in most of our nation’s cities, where the demand for quality early childhood care for the neediest is far greater than the resources. And the number of young people living in poverty is breathtaking. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 22 percent of Oregon’s children under age six live in poverty. (You can check your own state at www.nccp.org/tools/risk.)

What can libraries do? Here at Multnomah County Library (MCL), our youth services staff does extensive outreach work with Head Start teachers and with other early education programs that target low-income households. In our community, many children with poor vocabularies come from families that aren’t traditional library users. In addition to our branch librarians, we have a centrally located youth outreach department whose staff travels across the county, reaching these families through a rich mix of programs for both children and adults. MCL outreach staff also targets teen and incarcerated parents through special programs that emphasize the importance of talking with children and using books and songs as catalysts for vocabulary development.

What’s our library doing to serve the childcare community? Hart and Risley and numerous other researchers have stressed the importance of quality childcare, particularly for children under three, in closing the vocabulary gap. Like many libraries nationwide, MCL offers early literacy training for childcare providers, some of whom earn continuing-education credits through these classes.

Like many public libraries, we also offer storytimes for babies and toddlers. How can storytime help narrow the vocabulary gap? The brain is primed for language development during the first three years of life. We’ve learned that even well-educated, middle-class library regulars often have no idea how important it is to talk, sing, and read to infants and toddlers. Librarians have an opportunity to spread the word: Read, sing, and give your baby words every day! Use those board books as a way to have a conversation with your baby! Say yes to your toddler when he or she wants the same book again and again! (Young children need to hear a word 9 to 14 times before they know it.) Librarians can model these behaviors for parents; we can also tell them directly, by making pointed remarks to them during storytime.

And don’t forget to use dialogic reading in storytime. Do we model how to ask open-ended questions and talk about new words? Do we point out the rich language in the best picture books? Do we share poetry? Do we use plenty of songs and fingerplays and point out their wonderful words?

It seems to us that public libraries across the country can play a significant role in decreasing the vocabulary gap. We’d even go so far as to say it’s our obligation.