The place a child calls home is where they learn the foundations of literacy. Being exposed to a variety of texts while outside of a school environment is important to a childs early literacy development, but providing a child with day-to-day necessities is usually higher on a low socioeconomic familys list of priorities (Teale, 79). The contents of the house itself arent the only way poorer families living situations are worse off, they also have to deal with the location of the house itself. Families with low socioeconomic status children may also live in housing further away from the city center, meaning less access to book stores, libraries, etc.
Being in an area surrounded by other disenfranchised households means that the surrounding public schools available may not be up to par. A family with a higher socioeconomic status can afford to send their child to a local private school or in some cases even one out of the district. In a stu
dy, looking at the test scores of fourth-graders and eighth-graders, the private schools scored noticeably better than their public school peers. In reading, private schools were shown to score 5 points higher than public schools in fourth-grade, and 8 points in eighth-grade (Comparing Private, 5). Unlike public schools, private schools can screen who they allow in the school, leading to more positive school environments where high socioeconomic status kids are surrounded by other kids with a similar socioeconomic status. Class sizes are also smaller, with the average public school size being 25 kids per class and the average private school class at 9 kids per class (Comparing Private 35). Since class sizes are smaller, it follows that the student-to-faculty ratio would be too, with public schools at a ratio of 6., and private schools 2.2 (Comparing Private 37). This means that individual students get more direct help from their teachers.