Talk to Me Baby, Thirty Million Words

The research is in, kids aren't born smart. They are made smart by their parents talking to them. A study in 1990 found that a child born into poverty hears 30 million fewer words than a child born to well off parents and this creates a literacy gap with negative implications that can last a lifetime. Thus the inspiration for the program called the Thirty Million Words Project happening in Chicago with a bunch of project staff members and student research assistants developing strategies to get parents involved in engaging their kids in rich, meaningful conversation from the moment they are born. One part of the project has the staff visiting the homes of low income mothers and training them with a parent talk curriculum developed by the Thirty Million Words Project team. The child wears a small electronic device, like a pedometer for counting steps, but instead of steps this device counts words heard and spoken and the number of turns, or back and forth in a conversation with a parent. TV talk doesn't count. Another smart thing the project coordinators are working on is a way to partner with existing well established home visit programs and other outreach ideas for working with young fathers and pediatricians offices. So this means that along with reading to our infants and children every day we need to include meaningful discussion about what’s going on in the story and let conversation intrude in all the other things we do too, with naptime maybe as one of the only daytime exceptions. So talk to me baby!