June 22, 2013
Pushy Parenting or PURE Genius?
About 33% of children arrive at school without the necessary tools to properly interact and communicate.
Researchers at Bristol University conducted a study that looked into the significance of a child's environment prior to age 2 and how it affects their language. They discovered that children whose parents chatted with them often scored much higher in tests of reading, language and math upon beginning school.
Some educators feel that this severely impacts their education, and eventually, their overall success in life. Studies show that teenagers with subpar literary skills are more likely to become young offenders.
Writer Tracey Blake teamed up with speech therapist friend Nicola Lathey to write, Small Talk: Simple Ways To Boost Your Child's Speech And Language Skills From Birth.
Blake, whose daughter has been speaking in full sentences since she was 18 months, can now carry on a full conversation at 3 ½. She aptly uses tenses, and has mastered the finer art of narration. This in a world where some 3 year olds are hardly talking at all.
Small Talk encourages parents to speak with their children as soon as possible. Even in utero. Babies can recognize their mother’s voice between 24-27 weeks in the womb.
At first, this may seem a little overzealous. We mean, let kids be kids, right? All children develop differently. Some are speaking in full sentences by 18 months, like Blake’s daughter, and others don’t utter a single word until they are 3 or 4 or even later. (Einstein didn’t speak until he was 5 years old.)
Here’s the thing: Small Talk doesn’t encourage parents to put their babies through bootcamp language training. It offers simple and comprehensive suggestions to help effortlessly lead your children into a loving lifetime relationship with words. Most parents are already employing a lot of these approaches, and some may be using a variation of the technique.
Here are some of the ways Small Talk suggests you help ease your baby into language: