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Essay on Reading Differences between Children from Low SES & Middle SES Communities
In educational studies, furthermore, the socioeconomic level of a school or district may be estimated by the percentage of the enrollment qualifying for federal lunch subsidies. (For a critique and a discussion of some recommended modifications of current methods of measuring socioecomomic status (SES), see Entwisle and Astone, 1994).Families rated low in SES are not only less affluent and less educated than other families but also tend to live in communities in which the average family SES is low and tend to receive less adequate nutrition and health services, including prenatal and pediatric care.
In other ways, too, low SES often encompasses a broad array of conditions that may be detrimental to the health, safety, and development of young children, which on their own may serve as risk factors for reading difficulties.Socioeconomic differences are conventionally indexed by such demographic variables as household income and parents' education and occupation, alone or in some weighted combination.
Teasing apart the various aspects of the environment associated with low SES is virtually impossible, and this should be borne in mind as we discuss some particular risk factors that are linked to poverty. As far back as Galton's (1874) studies of English scientists, SES has consistently been shown to predict cognitive and academic outcomes.
Although reliable, the relationship between SES and reading achievement is more complex than is generally realized.Consider, for example, how the findings of Alexander and Entwisle (1996) – that low SES students progress at identical rates as middle and high SES students during the school year, but they lose ground during the summer – shed light on the relationship between SES and reading achievement.The degree of risk associated with the SES of the individual child's family differs considerably from the degree of risk associated with the SES level of the group of students attending a particular school.......
