[AAACE-NLA] FW: Request for Information

[tsticht@znet.com]

Art: Following is a brief note I posted in 2002 with references to mother’s
education and children’s (even grown up children) achievement of literacy.
It may be of interest to know that the frequently quoted statement, "the
single most effective predictor of children’s literacy is mother’s
education level" comes from workshops on Functional Context Education that
I originally gave in 1987. In those workshops I cited research by the
Department of Defense to re-norm the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude
Battery (ASVAB). In that work the researchers found that, after taking into
account the young adults’ own years of education, their mother’s years of
education was the single best predictor of scores on all 10 sub-tests of
the ASVAB, including the basic skills of vocabulary and paragraph reading
and mathematics. The citation for this study is

Bock, R. D. & Moore, E. G. J. (1984, February). Profile of American Youth:
Demograpic Influences on ASVAB Performance. Washington, DC: Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Installations and Logistics).

Good luck, Tom Sticht


September 4, 2002

Teach the Mothers and Reach The Children

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Traditionally, nations have emphasized the education and literacy
development of boys and men. The failure to focus resources on girls and
women shows itself in the international literacy statistics compiled by
UNESCO. From 1980 to 1995, the illiterate population of men fell from 327
to 318 million, while the numbers of illiterate women grew from 551 to 565
million (Aksornkool, 2001).

Typically, providing educational services to adults stimulates a greater
interest on the part of parents, especially mothers, to become involved
with the education of their children. Research by Wider Opportunities for
Women (WOW) in Washington, DC studied the effects of women's participation
in workforce basic skills training on (1) their behavior toward their
children, (2) their interactions with teachers and participation in school
activities, and (3) their children's behavior in school (Van Fossen &
Sticht, 1991).

In the WOW research,  welfare mothers were trained in the work skills needed
for higher paying,  non-traditional jobs for women, such as carpentry. WOW
also taught women reading and mathematics skills using materials from the
jobs  for which they were training. In their research on how a mother’s
education affects behavior with her children, they found that as a result 
of their participation in the work-oriented basic skills programs mothers
spent more time with their children talking about school, helping with 
homework, reading  with their children, going to and helping with school
activities and they talked more with teachers about their children's
education. The WOW mothers also  reported that their children liked and
attended school more, and they showed improvements in their school grades,
test scores, and reading.

Research for UNESCO (Sticht & McDonald, 1990) illustrates the effects of
girl’s and women’s education on children and their educational development
at various stages from before birth to the school years:

Before Pregnancy
Better educated girls/women show higher economic productivity; better
personal health care; lower fertility rates; and hence they produce smaller
families. The latter, in turn, is related to the preschool cognitive
development of children and their subsequent achievement in school.

During Pregnancy and at Birth
Better educated women provide better pre-natal care; produce more full term
babies; provide better post-natal care and this results in babies with
fewer learning disabilities.

Before Going To School
Better educated women produce better children’s health care; better
cognitive, language, and pre-literacy development; and better preparation
for schoolwork.

During The School Years
Better educated women produce higher participation rates in schooling;
better management of homework; better advocacy for children’s education and
negotiation of school/child conflicts; and they produce children who achieve
higher levels of education and literacy.

All this suggests that we should pay special attention to the need for
resources to provide literacy educational opportunities to the millions of
less literate women who will bring the next generation of children into the
world. We should remember that, when we teach the mothers, we reach the
children!

References
Aksornkool, N. (2001). Literacy: A key to Empowering Women Farmers. Paris:
United National Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Sticht, T. & McDonald, B. (1990). Teach the Mother and Reach the Child:
Literacy Across Generations. Geneva: UNESCO International Bureau of
Education.

Van Fossen, S. & Sticht, T. (1991, July). Teach the Mother and Reach the
Child: Results of the Intergenerational Literacy Action Research Project of
Wider Opportunities for Women. Washington, DC: Wider Opportunities for
Women.

Additional Resources
Mason, J. & Kerr, B. (1992). Literacy transfer from parents to children in
the preschool years. In: T. Sticht, M. Beeler, & B. McDonald (Eds.) The
Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills. Vol. II: Theory and
Research in Cognitive Science. Norwood, NJ: ABLEX.

Sticht, T. (1983, February). Literacy and Human Resources Development at
Work: Investing in the Education of Adults to Improve the Educability of
Children. Professional Paper 2-83. Alexandria, VA: Human Resources Research
Organization. (ERIC No. ED 262 201)

Sticht, T., Beeler, M., & McDonald, B. (Eds.) (1992). The Intergenerational
Transfer of Cognitive Skills. Vol. I: Programs, Policy, and Research
Issues. Norwood, NJ: ABLEX.