Posts Tagged: reading
Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center's 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino parents (those with at least one immigrant parent). And the share falls to just 49% among third or higher generation Latino parents – those born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents.
Spanish use also declines in mixed families where one spouse or partner is non-Latino. About 92% of Latino parents with a Latino spouse or partner speak Spanish to their children. By contrast, just 55% of Latino parents with a non-Latino-partner or spouse say they speak Spanish to their children.
Spanish has long been a part of life for today's Latino adults. Nine-in-ten (90%) say Spanish was spoken in their home when they were growing up, and 81% say their parents often or sometimes encouraged them to speak Spanish when growing up. (Notably, 20% of Latino adults say their parents often or sometimes discouraged them from speaking Spanish when growing up.) Today, nearly all Latinos (96%) say their parents speak Spanish, and unlike some other language measures, this share holds relatively steady across generations.
Not only do nearly all Hispanic adults have a personal connection to Spanish, they also express a desire for the language to live on: 88% say it is important to them that future generations of Hispanics living in the U.S. be able to speak Spanish, with vast majorities holding this view across generations.
Overall, about 40 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish at home, making it the country's second-most spoken language. At the same time, growth in the number of Spanish-speaking Hispanics has slowed, according to the Center's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. As a result, the share of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has declined, while the share that speaks only English at home has increased, especially among children.
These trends are expected to continue as Hispanics born in the U.S. increasingly drive the group's population growth, in large part due to slowing immigration from Mexico (and, to a lesser extent, high intermarriage rates). Already, most U.S. Hispanics say a person doesn't need to speak Spanish to be considered Hispanic.
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations, by Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad & Antonio Flores, April 2nd 18th , 2018.
School Gardens Are Vital!
As a grandmother of three darling children, I worry about so much: Are they happy? Are they...
October is National Farm-to-School Month
There are plenty of opportunities for teachers and schools to celebrate and get involved in National Farm to School Month with the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). Here are a few ideas to get you started.
4-H youth development
Launch a 4-H Club at your school. The 4-H Youth Development Program emphasizes enrichment education through inquiry-based learning. Core content areas include Healthy Living as well as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Clubs have access to a wealth of curricula materials exploring food, agriculture and natural resources. 4-H also offers the Ag in the Classroom school enrichment program.
Invite UC ANR academics and program staff to your career day or science fair or to make a classroom presentation. Specialists from Master Gardeners, Nutrition Education, Project Learning Tree, California Naturalist and other UC ANR programs know how to engage and inspire your students.
Some programs, including Project Learning Tree, offer "train the trainer" professional development workshops that equip educators with the skills and knowledge to teach concepts in their own classrooms. Project Learning Tree also provides free activity guides to teachers who attend their workshops. The guides highlight differentiated instruction, reading connections, and assessment strategies and offer ideas to integrate technology into classroom instruction,
Research and Extension Centers
Take your students on a field trip to a UC ANR Research and Extension Center (REC). The nine RECs in California are focal points for community participation and for active involvement in current and relevant regional agricultural and natural resource challenges.
Visiting a REC offers students a unique opportunity to learn about food production through the lens of applied science research in plant pathology, integrated pest management, conservation tillage, water conservation, development of new crop varieties, and much more. Some RECs also host extended education programs such as Sustainable You! Summer Camp and FARM SMART.
The 2016 National Farm to School Month theme is One Small Step, which highlights the easy ways anyone can get informed, get involved and take action to advance farm to school in their own communities and across the country.
Each week will have a different focus:
- Education (October 3-7)
- Healthy School Meals (October 10-14)
- Farmers & Producers (October 17-21)
- The Next Generation (October 24-28)
Join the celebrations by signing the One Small Step pledge then take your own small step to support healthy kids, thriving farms and vibrant communities this October by partnering with UC ANR.
This story en español.
Immigrant parents less likely to read to their children
The study found that parents in Hispanic or Asian immigrant families in California were less likely to read or look at picture books with their young children than non-Hispanic white parents.
“I think there's enough research that reading to children early on prepares them better for school,” senior author Dr. Fernando Mendoza told Reuters Health. “Early reading enlarges vocabulary and becomes a tool for many other kinds of learning later on in school.”
Mendoza worked on the study at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.
“There is a difference in the reported reading in immigrant households, but we have a long way to go in understanding what is behind that,” added Natalia Festa, who also worked on the study at Stanford.
The researchers looked at data from statewide telephone surveys of households in California in 2005, 2007 and 2009. The surveys asked almost 15,000 parents of children under age six how often anyone in the household read stories or looked at picture books with the child.
About half of the children in the study had two U.S.-born parents, with the other half having at least one foreign-born parent, which qualified as an immigrant family.
As a whole, 67 percent of kids shared books with their parents on a daily basis, and another 22 percent did so almost daily, according to the surveys. Seven percent of kids shared books with parents one or two days per week, and the remaining four percent never shared books, the researchers reported in Pediatrics.
Parents with low education levels or a low household income were less likely to book share with their kids. But even when those factors were taken into account, immigrant parents were less likely to share books than native-born parents.
“This paper just says there is a difference, and not because they're poor, but because they are immigrants,” Mendoza said.
More than two thirds of parents in English-speaking households reported daily book sharing, compared to half of parents in non-English-speaking homes.
“Findings like this are really important, they continue to document the ways that immigrant families are at risk,” said Dr. Alan L. Mendelsohn, who studies child development at the New York University School of Medicine. He was not part of the new research.
Reading or storytelling in early life predicts how well children will do when they enter preschool, which translates to how they do when they start kindergarten, which is incredibly predictive of achievement later in school and in life, Mendelsohn said.
Since economic differences don't explain the trends seen in the study, cultural differences in child rearing might, according to pediatrics researcher Dr. Barry S. Zuckerman of the Boston University School of Medicine.
“Most immigrant parents, particularly those from rural areas of their native countries, grew up where their parents didn't read to them,” Zuckerman told Reuters Health. He also didn't participate in the new study.
What's important about book sharing, he said, is that it's an interactive experience between parent and child.
“We do know that input into the brain system changes the brain architecture, and not reading specifically, but exposure to words,” he said. “Children learn words and language when it's a response to them.”
With picture books, parents help the child name an animal or elaborate on the stories in the pictures, he said.
Many immigrant parents may have two jobs or work long hours, leaving less time for book sharing, Mendoza said.
The experts agreed that it is likely not an issue of available children's books in languages other than English, since telling a story based on a picture book requires almost no actual reading for the parent.
“What this work really highlights is the importance of engaging families early in life,” Mendelsohn said.
The study authors highlight programs that promote childhood literacy and center on family visits to the pediatrician, like Reach Out and Read, which Zuckerman founded. Reach Out and Read provides books in the family's preferred language and involves taking some time out of regular pediatric visits for the doctor and parent to discuss the importance of reading.
A language barrier between the doctor and parent in that setting could make reading advocacy programs less effective for immigrant families, but that's a question that needs further investigation, Mendoza said.
More than half of children born in California today are Latino, and investing in their future is investing in the future of the country as a whole, he said.
Source: Published originally on Reuters.com as Immigrant parents less likely to read to their children: study by Kathryn Doyle, Jun 2, 2014.
A growing share of Latinos get their news in English
In 2012, 82 percent of Hispanic adults said they got at least some of their news in English, up from 78 percent who said the same in 2006. By contrast, the share who get at least some of their news in Spanish has declined, to 68 percent in 2012 from 78 percent in 2006.
Half (50%) of Latino adults say they get their news in both languages, down from 57 percent in 2010.
The rise in use of English news sources has been driven by an increase in the share of Hispanics who say they get their news exclusively in English. One-third (32%) of Hispanic adults in 2012 did this, up from 22 percent in 2006. By contrast, the share of Hispanic adults who get their news exclusively in Spanish has decreased to 18 percent in 2012 from 22 percent in 2006.
These changes in news consumption patterns reflect several ongoing demographic trends within the Hispanic community: a growing share of Latino adults who speak English well; slowing migration to the United States; Latino immigrants living in the U.S. for longer periods of time; and the growth of Latinos born in the U.S.
Even though the share of Hispanic adults who consume news media in Spanish has declined, the number of potential Spanish news media consumers is growing as a result of the rapid overall rise in the number of Hispanics in the U.S.---- to 52 million in 2011, up from 35 million in 2000. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, a record 35 million Hispanics ages 5 and older speak Spanish (at home), up from 25 million in 2000 and 10 million in 1980. At the same time, a record 31 million Hispanics ages 5 and older are proficient in English, up from 19 million in 2000 and 8 million in 1980.
Among the report's other findings:
Following the News: About eight-in-ten Hispanic adults say they keep up with the news "a lot" (45%) or "some" (36%) and about two-in-ten keep up "not much" (15%) or "not at all" (4%).
Television Most Popular; Internet on the Rise: Fully 86 percent of Latino adults say that on a typical weekday they get their news from television. That is down slightly from 92 percent who said the same in 2006, but is higher than the share of Latinos who get their news from radio (56%), the internet (56%) or print newspapers (42%). Use of internet news media has grown among Latino adults since 2006 while radio news media and print newspapers have seen the biggest declines.
Number of Platforms Used: Latino adults on average use 2.4 news media platforms among the four tested---- television, print newspapers, radio and the internet---- when they consume news media. Overall, 3 percent of Latino adults do not use any of the four news media platforms tested, 17 percent use one, 32 percent use two, 33 percent use three and 15 percent use all four platforms.
Accuracy: When asked if news organizations get their facts straight or are often inaccurate, 60 percent of all Hispanics say Spanish-language news organizations "get the facts straight" and 59 percent say the same of English-language news organizations.
Best at Covering News Relevant to Hispanics: Seven-in-ten Hispanic adults say the Spanish-language news media do an "excellent" (24%) or "good" job (46%) covering news specifically relevant to Hispanics in the U.S. By contrast, about six-in-ten Hispanic adults say the English-language news media do an "excellent" (17%) or "good" job (42%) covering news relevant to Hispanics in the U.S.
This report is largely based on a nationally representative bilingual telephone survey of 1,765 Latino adults conducted from September 7 to October 4, 2012.
Source: Published originally on The Pew Research Center as "A Growing Share of Latinos Get Their News in English, July 23, 2013.