Scientists have calculated the effect of reading books and found that it can be a decisive factor in the development of preschool children.
About a quarter of parents never read books to their young children for the coming dream. Another quarter of mums and dads do it very rarely - once or twice a week. Jessica Logan, a child cognitive development specialist and assistant professor of educational research at Ohio State University, was so impressed by this data from the American national study that she decided to find out how it affects the abilities of babies.
Jessica and her colleagues reached out to the Columbus Metropolitan Library for a list of the 100 most common children's books. Scientists estimate that picture books contain an average of 228 words, and the dictionary of cardboard books for the little ones is about 140 words. Then, using simple mathematical operations, it was calculated how many words children will hear by the time they turn 5 years old. At the same time, experts suggested that parents who said that they were not on friendly terms with books, in fact, still read 1 book to their children every 2 months.
As a result, we got the following statistics:
- children of parents who do not read by the age of 5 heard only 4,662 words.
- kids who were read 1-2 times a week had 63,570 words in their luggage.
- if parents read 3-5 books a week to children, then 169,520 words flew into the child's ears and flew out.
- daily reading a book a day gave an increase of 296,660 words.
Promotional video:
- and restless parents, capable of non-stop broadcasting 5 books a day, by the age of 5 were raining down on their offspring a “waterfall” of 1 million 483 thousand 300 words.
According to scientists, it is this gap of more than 1 million words that is key to explaining the huge difference that is found by the age of 5 between children who grew up in a rich linguistic environment and children from dysfunctional and non-reading families.
- Everyday communication with a child is not able to compensate for the lack of reading, - Jessica Logan is convinced. - The words that children learn while reading books are much more complex and difficult than the simple everyday vocabulary used in the conversations of parents. For example, it can be a book about the adventures of penguins in Antarctica, and thus concepts and words that are not found in everyday life are included in the circulation. In addition, parents often discuss books with their children and answer questions that arise in connection with the reading. And such conversations outside the text itself can significantly expand the active vocabulary of kids. These children show more impressive developmental gains and are better equipped to master familiar words in printed form when they learn to read in school. This is how a handicap arises,which is difficult for children from poor families to play later.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV