READING: AGES 0-3
The Power of Parent
Talk
Today's Snack:
Have your child line up a long row of Cheerios on a plate or napkin. Now you
speak in short sentences to your child. "I love you." "Please eat four
Cheerios." "You are a funny monkey." Raise up one finger for every word you
say. That's how many Cheerios your child should eat! Serve a glass of milk with
the cereal, and enjoy giving your child counting and listening practice as well
as good nutrition!
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Supplies:
A vocabulary-rich
picture book
from the library or
bookstore to read aloud,
such as Goggles by Ezra Jack Keats
At any age of childhood, but particularly in the early years, it's
really, really important that parents TALK a lot with their children.
This builds their vocabulary immensely, and gives them much-needed
practice in listening, thinking and giving feedback. Those are all important
skills for school as well as for life.
Children from homes in which parents spoke aloud a lot tended to
be well ahead academically of their peers from nonverbal homes, especially in
the communication arts of reading, writing and spelling.
So make speaking to your child a top priority every day all
through childhood - just as you already are making a 20- or 30-minute read-aloud
period daily part of your "must-do" routine.
With this After School Treat, you can do both:
Take your child into your lap early in the day, and read aloud a
picture book. Then remember 5 or 6 of the words from that book, and work them
into your conversation so that you say them aloud to your child later on in the
day.
For example, in Goggles,
you might notice the words "goggles," "motorcycle," "stuffed," "pipe" and
"hideout." Later in the day, try to work those words into your conversations
with your child.
Why this is important comes from brain expert John Medina:
In a key study, researchers went into more
than 40 families' home every month for three years. They recorded every aspect
of verbal communication parents gave their children. They measured size of
vocabulary, diversity and growth rate of vocabulary, frequency of verbal
interaction, and the emotional content of the speech. After three years, they
gave IQ tests to the children, and followed up several years later.
These findings emerged:
1) The number of words matters.
The more parents talk to their children, even in the earliest moments of life,
the better their kids' language abilities become. The most powerful parent talk
is a lot of it: 2,100 words per hour. That's a LOT of words! Do you say
anywhere near that many around your child?
2) The variety of the words matters.
Children need to hear all different
kinds of nouns, verbs, and adjectives in order to build their vocabulary base
and descriptive power. Variety is nearly as important as the number of words
spoken - so when you speak around your young child, try to have quality as well
as quantity.
3) Positive feedback matters.
Try not to make your interactions with
your young children negative, if you can possibly help it. Try to make your
child associate communication with feeling good, happy, safe and curious.
Frowning, yelling, loud talking and other negative aspects of communication can
shut down the ability of your child to think clearly and respond clearly.
4) Interaction matters.
It's not enough just to babble words.
You have to interact with your child while speaking in order to kindle and
sustain your child's interest. You can reinforce language skills through
interaction: looking at your infant; imitating his or her vocal sounds, laughter
and facial expressions; rewarding his or her language attempts with heightened
attention.
5) Talking increases IQ.
Talking to children early in life raises their intelligence quotients. Family
income and other factors don't matter. Children who were talked to regularly by
their parents (which the researchers called "the talkative group") had IQ
scores 1.5 times higher than those kids whose parents talked to them the least
(called "the taciturn group").
This increase in IQ is thought to be
responsible for the talkative group's advantage in grades.
Because of the need for interaction
between adults and children, you can't just plant your child in front of a TV
to hear words. It takes a real, live person, and the back-and-forth,
give-and-take, of real, live communication, to benefit your baby's brain.
So get ready to exercise your vocal
cords. Not the portable DVD players, not your television's surround sound . . .
but you!
Your voice . . . your mind . . . your
heart . . . helping your child learn to learn in the best, most natural way.
