“Refugee children enter mainstream classes without sufficient language skills”

Olaf Köller, 60, is a qualified psychologist and director of the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education in Kiel. He heads the Standing Scientific Commission of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Mr. Köller, a key educational problem remains that many students do not have a proper command of the German language. Where are the causes to be found – at home, in daycare or in primary school?

Olaf Köller: There are different groups: Many refugee children do not learn German properly in the first few years. After a short time in the welcome classes, they are very quickly integrated into the regular classes without having sufficient language skills. But if they do not master the language of instruction, they cannot be successful in the other subjects either.

The second group concerns children with an immigrant background who were born here. If they come from an environment with little education, they actually need intensive language support in daycare centers. This is far from being the case across the board.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Teachers report that even students whose native language is German have problems.

Köller: During primary school, many children are no longer able to learn to read fluently. They cannot read line by line and have great difficulty decoding individual words. However, reading fluency is a necessary prerequisite for understanding text. We need to make teachers aware that they need to actively promote reading at the end of primary school and at the beginning of secondary school. So far, this has only been done to a limited extent.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Why do many children no longer learn to read properly in primary school?

Köller: Different children are entering primary school today than 20 years ago. The proportion of those who are exposed to very little academic language at home is increasing. In academic families, children are exposed to 45 million words in the first four years, whereas in households with little education they are exposed to only twelve million. These children have a smaller vocabulary and a lower understanding of language. It should be the job of daycare centers and schools to compensate for this.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Can a child who does not have a stimulating language environment at home still make up for language deficits if he or she spends a few hours in kindergarten in the morning at the age of three or four?

Köller: Basically, the older the child, the more repair work is required. The American economist James Heckman called this phenomenon the “return on investment”. The earlier we invest in children, the more it pays off later. In the best case scenario, you start shortly after birth: qualified staff go to the families, teach the parents how to read a picture book to the children, how to interact with them. At the moment, however, these early help programs are again suffering from a shortage of staff.

WELT AM SONNTAG: If help cannot start early enough, do you think that compulsory daycare makes sense?

Köller: Yes, but only if you combine them with good offers. Today, well over 90 percent of children over the age of three go to a daycare center. But that alone will not solve the problems. We need special programs that prepare children for primary school.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Most federal states now test the language skills of daycare children and support the weaker ones with language training in everyday life. So you are implementing what you recommended in the advisory committee of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany in the Federal Republic of Germany in 2022. Is that enough?

Köller: We no longer have any research gaps or a lack of awareness of the problem. We know which programs work. Simple training such as clapping syllables can be very effective, for example. This greatly strengthens phonological awareness.

But just ask a kindergarten teacher or primary school teacher to do that. They might tell you that there isn’t enough time for that. We still have too many implementation problems. How do we get the nursery staff to participate? Where do we get qualified staff from? How can the support offers be integrated into the training?

WELT AM SONNTAG: You advocate taking cues from countries like the USA. What works better there?

Köller: In the USA there are special programs designed to make children “school ready”. In principle they are aimed at all children. But above all they are about supporting African-American children, who tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds. From the age of four these children go through a structured program. It is about learning the language of education, but also about teaching mathematical skills. Whether the programs work is carefully evaluated.

We lack such a commitment. However, from the fourth birthday onwards at the latest, we should think carefully about how we can prepare the child for primary school in an age-appropriate manner.

WELT AM SONNTAG: For many school leavers, the job of a teacher is not particularly attractive. Do you have any suggestions?

Köller: Anyone who has completed the training is well qualified. The current educators are by no means a case of negative selection. They are good people. But of course we have to think about how to make the training more attractive. This also includes financing. At the moment, educators in training have to cover the costs themselves. It would make sense to pay them instead, if the money is available.

WELT AM SONNTAG: Until the daycare centers are set up accordingly, the primary schools have to deal with many problems. In a primary school in Rhineland-Palatinate, a quarter of the first-graders are now having to repeat a year because they lack basic language and math skills. Is that the right way to go?

Köller: I understand that the head teacher feels left alone. But repeating a year is always the worst solution for the rest of the school year. It is not only on the last day of school that we find out that the children have problems. We know this shortly after they start school. These children need additional offers from the first day of school in order to get them to the required level by the end of the school year.