Language and Social Skills Shape a Child's Chances for Success

As the person responsible for training people to qualify for local jobs, he sees firsthand how literacy, language, and social skills are pivotal in defining a person’s opportunities in life. In addition, as a board member of the largest school district in Tennessee, he knows firsthand the difference that educational achievement can make in the trajectory of a child’s life.

Because of it, he is a passionate advocate for investments in early childhood development. “At the earliest age possible, we need to be investing in programs for our kids,” he said. “They need cognitive skills, literacy, numeracy, and the ability to read and write. Later, they need to be able to analyze information in high school to make them marketable in the workforce.”

Because of his work in workforce development and in education, he is directly involved in a continuum that runs from short-term – training people with the skills to get jobs – to the long-term – educating students who live in Memphis and the unincorporated areas of Shelby County.

Early development is vital to later achievement.

Nothing is more important to the future of our community and its workforce than giving every child the positive experiences and nurturing parenting they need for optimal social and emotional development. Language development – learning to talk – is closely linked to learning to read, and the majority of reading and literacy problems faced by today’s adolescents and adults stem from problems that might have been avoided or resolved in the earliest years of their lives.

Children not reading proficiently by the third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. Children with poor reading skills are more likely to repeat a grade, which too often sets the stage for a pattern of failure in school.

“The data tell us that 50 percent of our kids are not reading at grade level,” Mr. Woods said. “It can lead to eighth grade (testing) problems and to dropouts. We have to invest in tomorrow’s jobs and we do that by investing in kids at an early age.”

Today’s priorities shape the future.

When the foundation of positive early development is strong, our community can track the benefits through a child’s education and into the workforce. “For kids to be reading at grade level, we need them to have the opportunity to attend pre-K and other programs.

“At WIN, it is pretty startling to talk with people looking for work and to get an assessment of their backgrounds, the schools they attended, their lack of conflict resolution skills, and the skills they need to enter or reenter the workforce. The cycle can repeat itself if we’re not intentional about giving the best education possible and investing in our kids as early as possible.”

With one foot in the world of workforce development and another in education, Mr. Woods has specific recommendations for the community. “We have to focus more on literacy, make investments in early education, work to get kids ready for school, keep them motivated, show the possibility of college, and it’s about teachers taking them from the classroom to the real world.

“Honestly, we have to look at the whole spectrum, but we can’t just put kids on an assembly line hoping that everything will turn out right for them. We have to look at every level, starting when they are in their early years, and schools have to be more agile to their needs and the needs of the workforce, pivoting quickly to address whatever is necessary.”

It’s been said that educators touch the future, and that is certainly the case with Mr. Woods’ work with Shelby County Schools. In addition, his unique vantage point at WIN gives him a clear view of how the future is shaped in the first years of life at the time when language learning and other types of development are taking place. It’s a lesson the entire community should learn.