Wordsmiths Rule the World?: A Look at the "Word Gap"

So, I had heard about this 30 million word gap between impoverished students and the most privileged ones. I totally understand how life experiences yield a discrepancy in expressive language skills...I see it every day. But 30 million words? Who knows that many? Are there even that many words  in the English language? The claim seemed dubious. However, I thought about other research saying that even controlling for income, African American children lag behind white children in academic achievement and vocabulary.  This got my attention, and I haven’t forgotten it. But three instances showed me that this thing is truly much more culturally based and subtle than I’d really realized.

Categorization

In scenario number one, I've signed my 4 year old for a study on the cognitive development of
toddlers. The job was to look at a computer screen and watch certain items, along wit categorizing
certain items.  This kid has both an amazing memory and quite a sophisticated vocabulary, so I
was amazed when he did not-so-well on a categories vocabulary task. Shown groups of pictures
and asked, for example, “Which one is fancy?”  he picked random answers.  Granted, he had said
several times that he seemed ready to move on from the whole activity, and his attention
span at that time caused me to wonder how much he was guessing.  Still, it was interesting to
think that there was a gap even in the vocabulary experiences of this very verbal household--
deliberately using particular adjectives to describe classes of items. Who knew you could get tested on that at 4?

Specificity

Scenario 2 found me in the doctor’s office with my 2 pre-schoolers.  The office fish tank never ceases

to be fascinating for them, and they watched the fish swim around next to a little Caucasian boy who

was with his mommy, as well.  As the boy and his mother discussed the fish, he offered, “That’s an

anemone--right, Mommy?” It had not occurred to me to call them anything beyond fish--Not because I

wasn't familiar with the particular name, but because in general I don't see lots of specificity as

necessary for items in which they have not taken a detailed interest.  In other words, it was enough

for me that they’re aware that they’re fishies--let’s talk about the size, the color, what you see them

doing...but I'm not so concerned that you know what kind they are. Yet hearing this little kid, who

had to be all of 3 years old, boldly proclaim the fish’s name, made me wonder if I was cheating my

children by not telling them that that this is an “anemone.”

Simplicity?

I was telling my school's custodian (an older African American man) about some things I was working
on with my son.  I shared with him that empathy was an area of focus. Among his other thoughts, Mr. D.
advised, “...And don’t be saying all them big words to him--empathy and all that--just tell him real simply what you want him to know.” I realized this as advice from the
black cultural canon--don’t get too complicated, too high-falutin', too much.   Hold off on the
“big words” right now, because your goal is understanding, not loftiness. My thought was that this
little mind could handle exactly that--a vocabulary word as part of the understanding.  
And as I thought on the private school that had accepted him for Pre-K, this is exactly what they
were doing--introducing young children to
these terms.   We’d come home with a rubber ducky emblazoned with this very word, in fact, from the
open house. So the age-old cultural wisdom from our community and the practices of the upper crust
kids we were exposing him to, were running counter to one another. Just one more subtle but
innocent expression of how the word gap could come into play.  It’s not about not having the words,
but about the cultural definitions of when these words are necessary to know and what purpose they
fulfill.

Really, this is fascinating stuff to tease out, because being aware of these subtleties and finding a place
to deliberately land will definitely affect the outcomes for my children and how they are perceived in the
world. It is about values and focus as much as about vocabulary.  Words, after all, are our expression of
how we live life.