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  Remember how good you felt when Black History Month rolledaround and you finally got to learn and talk about significant African American historical figures in school? Well, according to new research published in theJournal of Child Development, affirming a black child’s desire to learn about their race does more than just give them a personal boost, it helps them academically as well.    The study, conducted by Ming-Te Wang and James P. Huguley of the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University respectively, found that “racial socialization”—teaching kids about their culture and involving them in activities that promote racial pride and...

[P]lenty of parents are ... wondering what they can do to boost their children’s academic performance. Newly published research suggests there is a simple and effective answer: Build up your home library. “We find that books in the home have a positive payoff in improved test scores throughout the world,” writes a research team led by University of Nevada Reno sociologist Mariah Evans. “The relationship is strong, clear, and statistically significant in every one of the 42 nations (we studied).” Evans made this same point in a 2010 study, which found “home library size has a very substantial effect on...

JESSICA HUSEMANFEB 17, 2015 - The Atlantic Marvell Robinson was in kindergarten when a classmate reportedly poured an anthill on him at the playground. After that, the gibes reportedly became sharper: "Why are you that color?" one boy taunted at the swing set, leaving Marvell scared and speechless. The slow build of racial bullying would push his mother, Vanessa Robinson, to pull him from his public school and homeschool him instead. Marvell is one of an estimated 220,000 African American children currently being homeschooled, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. Black families have become one of the fastest-growing demographics...

When it comes to your children, the books in your house matter more than your education or income A study recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility found that just having books around the house (the more, the better) is correlated with how many years of schooling a child will complete. The study (authored by M.D.R. Evans, Jonathan Kelley, Joanna Sikorac and Donald J. Treimand) looked at samples from 27 nations, and according to its abstract, found that growing up in a household with 500 or more books is “as great an advantage as having university-educated...

Start Early: The First Three Years Just as a child develops language skills long before being able to speak, the child also develops literacy skills long before being able to read. What parents do, or don't do, has a lasting impact on their child's reading skill and literacy. Children develop much of their capacity for learning in the first three years of life, when their brains grow to 90 percent of their eventual adult weight. When parents talk, sing, and read to their child, links among the child's brain cells are strengthened and new cells and links are formed. Play...