Little readers

I was doing some research on reading and the young child. I thought it was interesting that the single most important factor in encouraging future reading was a language rich environment. That means not just reading to your child, but involving them in other language activities, such as singing, reciting nursery rhymes, and listening to music. Hmmm... Sounds like a Kindermusik class to me. :-)

According to the Zero to Three website, "there are a number of studies that show that when children hear a good deal of 'live' language, when they are spoken to often and encouraged to communicate, they are more proficient with language than children who have more limited language exposure. For example, Janellan Huttenlocher, University of Chicago, found that at 20 months of age children of "chatty" moms averaged 131 more words than kids of 'non-chatty' moms and by age two the gap had increased to a difference of 295 words. Only live language, not television, produced these vocabulary-boosting effects (Begley, 1997)."