2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

Appendix C, girls in the study families were more likely than boys to be combining words frequently andtalking in sentences (see Table C- 8). This is consistent with most research on early languagedevelopment. Also, as shown in Table C- 9, foreign-born mothers were less likely than U.S.-born mothersto report that their focal child speaks in either long, complicated sentences or short sentences.Table 19. Language Skills of Focal Children over Time a% MothersHow Child CommunicatesYear 3 Year 4 Year 5(n=305) (n=306) (n=306)Does not talk yet 1 0 0Mostly talks in 1-word sentences 23 8 2Talks in 2- to 3-word phrases 50 20 5Talks in fairly complete, short sentences 23 37 23Talks in long complicated sentences 2 35 70a Data were weighted to adjust for the oversampling of mothers in the Glades and mothers screened “at risk.” Four to fivemothers did not respond to these questions.Chi-square tests at year 3 and at year 5 indicate that girls are significantly more likely to use complete sentences than boys(p < .01).Emerging Literacy and Pre-Academic SkillsAt year 5, most of the focal children appeared to be engaging in a variety of preliteracy activities,including drawing, writing, and looking at books, that are typical of their age (see Table 20).As shown in Table 21, a large majority of mothers reported that their children could count, recognize orname colors, and say letters of the alphabet. All but a few of the children were drawing, and at least twothirdswere drawing or attempting to draw recognizable shapes, numbers, or letters and pictures of people.Almost all of the mothers said their children have started counting, although just 48 percent reported thatthe child could count to 10. Table C- 10 in the Appendix indicates that all of these behaviors and skillsincreased between the year 4 and year 5 surveys. In a subsequent report, we will compare these resultswith data from the national ECLS-B study.Table 20. Emerging Literacy Skills of Focal Children at Year 5 a% Mothers (N=310)Emergent Literacy/Pre-Academic Behaviors“Almost All“Sometimes”the Time”Child looks at picture books on his/her own 91 8Child points to pictures while looking at picture books 90 8Child pretends to read the words in a book 75 16Child can tell what is in each picture in a picture book 82 16Child reads the written words in a book 4 24a Data were weighted to adjust for the oversampling of mothers in the Glades and mothers screened “at risk.”Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 38