Poorer children already behind wealthier peers when they start school

From the time they start school children from low to middle income families are already behind their most affluent peers, according to a new study.
Children from these families are typically five months behind in terms of vocabulary skills and exhibit more behavioural problems than children from wealthier families.
The study, from the independent think tank the Resolution Foundation, looked at more than 15,000 five year olds and determined that higher income families were able to create a richer learning environment in their homes.
By spending more time reading to their children and taking them to museums and libraries, affluent parents gave their children a head start by the time they started full-time education.
Among the higher income brackets 75% of children were read to every day at three years old compared with 62% of low to middle income kids (which broadly equates to a household income of between £24,000 and £42,000 for a couple with two children).
Similarly, 42% of children from higher income families were taken to a library once a month compared with 35% of lower income children.
In children with the worst behavioural problems, the most significant factor was found to be the poorer mental health and greater social isolation of mothers in low-to-middle income households. These mothers were at greater risk of post-natal depression, lower self-esteem and a sense of less control in their lives.
Parents in lower and middle income families were three times more likely to have no formal qualifications beyond GCSE than better off parents. The differences in income and education also impacted on the parents’ approach to bringing up their children.
Vidhya Alakeson, director of research at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Policy makers tend to focus on trying to improve outcomes for children in the very poorest families, where it is well documented that they start off - and remain - disadvantaged.
"But this new study shows the perils of ignoring the low to middle group — who are after all a third of our future workforce. With parents increasingly squeezed for time and money, this only creates more stress and even less positive environments for their children.”
The finding are based on data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally recognised representative sample of around 15,000 children born in 2000 and 2001 and aged five in 2006