Preventing school dropout from the first years of life

The sum of 13.8 billion dollars per year. This is the cost of dropping out of school in Quebec, according to the study by Frédéric Laurin, economist at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières. Dropping out of school not only entails an individual cost (lower income among dropouts), but also significant costs for society (loss of revenue for governments, costs linked to dependency, crime, social assistance, etc. .).

Difficulties in reading and writing are one of the main causes of school dropouts in Quebec. Young people detected as poor readers at the end of their first year most often continue to be so throughout their school career. If you didn’t know, I’m sincerely sorry to tell you. This is why possible solutions must be put in place. Preventing dropping out of school starts well before you start school!

Very early in life, considerable differences are observed among children of the same age. Among two-year-old Quebec children, the number of words expressed ranges from 120 for the least advanced to 500 for the most advanced. However, these vocabulary gaps tend to amplify and not disappear over time. The fewer words the child knows, the more difficult it is to acquire new ones. Children with limited vocabularies are at higher risk of poor academic performance.

There is a clear link between the living conditions of families and the language development of children. It is in neighborhoods where there are higher unemployment rates, family incomes below the low-income threshold and parents with little education that we see a higher prevalence of language difficulties among children. Those who live in neighborhoods where there are fewer libraries, fewer quality books in schools, fewer educational places, such as museums, and where there is more crime are at greater risk of having language difficulties.

The good news is that, even among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, children who are read to regularly before the age of three and a half show less delay in the acquisition of language. vocabulary. In other words, reading has a protective effect, whatever the family environment. For what ? There are more rare words in children’s books than on prime-time adult television shows! The books are filled with rich and precise words and address different subjects that go beyond everyday routine.

While a toddler plays with his boat in the bath, he discovers through books that the boat can be a ship, a canoe, a sailboat… The child quietly adds words to his vocabulary that are unfamiliar to him. The syntax of sentences is more complex, and the verb tenses are more diverse (no one in life speaks in the simple past!). Families that regularly go to the library, even when the mother is less educated, encourage young children’s interest in writing. It is important to expose children to literary vocabulary. Those who have language difficulties need it as much, if not more, than those in whom language develops well. Reading to your child early will help avoid the emergence of difficulties for some, and limit the damage for others.

Furthermore, chattering toddlers will make good writers. According to a study conducted at Laval University, the language skills of toddlers, from 18 months old, can allow us to predict not only their reading skills at school age, but also their writing skills until ‘adolescence. In other words, a child who speaks well at two years old has a good chance of writing well at 15 years old. And writing is a determining skill for both academic and professional success.

Speech therapy is a relatively young profession in Quebec (1956), which undoubtedly explains, at least in part, why we only consult speech therapy when we face a problem. Let’s think about it for a moment. Do you only see your dentist when you have a cavity? What about your optometrist when you are practically blind? So why should it be any different for the speech therapist? What if we started asking for prevention advice rather than only when we suspect a disorder? In the long term, waiting lists would be better off… Society too, I firmly believe.

In a context where the demand for speech therapy services far exceeds the available supply, setting up training projects and raising awareness among the general public of the importance of reading from a very young age has become essential. How can we ensure that so many young people who complete their secondary education are functionally illiterate? What preschool skills are most associated with later reading and writing success? How to better read to children? These are all questions to which speech therapists can provide answers supported by science.

Beyond assessment and intervention, it is high time to turn to speech therapists for prevention. Because communicating plays a vital role in our lives. Since the dawn of time, even before theHomo sapiens does not develop language!

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