Want to help improve the reading skills of the children of today - and tomorrow?

Want to help improve the reading skills of the children of today – and tomorrow?

Then take steps to strengthen the literacy skills of mothers and future mothers.

That is one conclusion that can be drawn from a study released by the National Institutes of Health and published in the most recent issue of “Demography.”

The new study, which was designed to help pinpoint which factors most affect children’s skill acquisition, included data collected during the 2000-01 school year from more than 2,300 Los Angeles children between the ages of 3 and 17.

Researchers found that mothers with higher reading scores were more likely to read to their own children regularly, to have child-friendly reading material in the home and to enjoy reading themselves. All of these behaviors have repeatedly been shown to help strengthen children’s reading skills.

So, what can advocates of educational and social justice, including educators, non-profit organization leaders, policy makers, early childhood advocates and others take away from this research?

That the reading skills of mothers matter – and that programs to strengthen mothers’ skills don’t just create a better foundation for the women receiving the support, but also for their children and, in time, maybe even their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

By working to establish and advocate for programs that improve the reading skills of mothers and future mothers, we as educational and social justice advocates have the potential to begin to close the achievement gap that exists between low-income and middle-class children, and to help people end cycles of poverty that often span several generations. And that, clearly, is no small achievement.