Nikki J
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- Joined
- Mar 22, 2012
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- 16,476
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- PALS
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- 04/2014
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The Million Word Gap
Parents who take time to read aloud to their children are doing them a huge favor. Not only is it a memorable bonding activity, but it's also a way to jump-start a child's education and put them on the fast track to literacy. Many parents and caretakers know this intuitively, but a new study published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics reveals just how instrumental those bedtime stories really are. According to Jessica Logan, the study's lead author, kids who are read one short book per day enter kindergarten knowing 290,000 more words than kids whose parents didn't read to them. If you increase the number of books to five per day, that vocabulary disparity swells to 1.4 million words. Logan calls it the "million word gap," and she believes it could help explain why vocabulary and reading ability vary so greatly from one 5-year-old to the next. "The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking," Logan said in a statement from The Ohio State University, where she is an assistant professor of educational studies. "Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school. They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily."
This was an email from my library. So when you gave in to the “ just one more story PLEASE” it was a good thing!
Parents who take time to read aloud to their children are doing them a huge favor. Not only is it a memorable bonding activity, but it's also a way to jump-start a child's education and put them on the fast track to literacy. Many parents and caretakers know this intuitively, but a new study published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics reveals just how instrumental those bedtime stories really are. According to Jessica Logan, the study's lead author, kids who are read one short book per day enter kindergarten knowing 290,000 more words than kids whose parents didn't read to them. If you increase the number of books to five per day, that vocabulary disparity swells to 1.4 million words. Logan calls it the "million word gap," and she believes it could help explain why vocabulary and reading ability vary so greatly from one 5-year-old to the next. "The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking," Logan said in a statement from The Ohio State University, where she is an assistant professor of educational studies. "Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school. They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily."
This was an email from my library. So when you gave in to the “ just one more story PLEASE” it was a good thing!