The Cradle Of Culture Analysis

It is hard to imagine a world without reading or writing. Many times we take for granted the important value it holds in each of our and our children 's lives. In the article, The Cradle of Culture and What Children Know About Writing and Numbers Before Being Taught, Liliana Tolchinsky Landsmann attempts to persuade readers that literacy begins way before formal classroom education. It is her belief that preliterate children show signs of literacy before parents and educator 's realize the distinct process of development. In the article, Learning Related Behaviors and Literacy Achievement in Elementary School-Aged Children by Deborah Stipek, Steven Newton and Amita Chudgar, three university professors test elementary school-aged children

According to Learning-Related Behaviors and Literacy Achievement in Elementary School-Aged Children written by Deborah Stipek and Stephen Newton of Stanford University and Amita Chudgar of Michigan State University, "[e[vidence for the benefits of preschool education is strong now, but controversy continues about which dimensions of children 's development should be emphasized" ( Stipek, Newton, Chudgar, p. 3, 2010). They emphasize the importance of good learning behaviors in their early elementary school career to comprehend more and to attain literary proficiency more swiftly. Stipek, Newton, and Chudgar observed children in kindergarten or first grade to third grade and from third grade to fifth grade. They found through close examination of students in these particular grade sequences that the "direction of the relationship between learning-related behavior and literacy skills may change, or at least become more reciprocal in the later grades." They found that "children 's ability to plan, evaluate and regulate problem solving activities, attend to tasks, persist and resist distraction" closely correlated with their academic achievement (Stipek, Newton, and Chudgar, p.6, 2010). They also found that students work performance such as following directions and completing tasks in kindergarten directly affected their academic performance in kindergarten (Stipek, Newton, and Chudgar, p. 6, 2010). Stipek, Newton and Chudgar also explain that students in third and fifth grade were given two tests. Gender, household income and ethnicity were were kept equal for this trial and students were divided into three distinct categories. The first test measured student 's understanding of decoding individual words. In the second test, students were given a passage to read and then they were instructed to fill in the missing words. Stipek, Newton, and Chudgar found that "positive learning-related behavior promotes literacy achievement" (Stipek, Newton, and Chudgar, p. 17,