Early Words
Early Words is an early childhood literacy program that encourages more verbal interaction between adults and children from birth to age three. The program is the first of its kind to raise awareness among Boston parents about the positive impact they can have on child development and reading readiness by simply increasing the level of verbal communication with their children. The Early Words program provides trainings and seminars to teach parents the importance of talking to young children and how to increase the level of talking during everyday activities.
The Plan
ReadBoston plans to initiate the Early Words Campaign to increase adult interaction with children through talking. The proposed goals of the campaign are:
- to increase awareness of the correlation between talking with young children and their language development;
- to identify and model practices that will encourage verbal exchanges between parents and children;
- to provide intensive supports to specific at-risk populations.
- Multi-pronged public awareness campaign.
A multi-pronged public awareness campaign is planned. ReadBoston efforts include partnering with a media outlet to air public awareness spots featuring local celebrities and neighborhood leaders. Through the public awareness campaign, we plan to reach a broad spectrum of the general public including policymakers, educators and funders. A more targeted effort will directly benefit children and families that make up the achievement gap in Boston.- Identify and model practices.
The second goal, to identify and model best practices, will target both practitioners and parents. Trainings and seminars, in both large and small groups, will be held for practitioners to support their efforts with parents. ReadBoston staff will also access parent groups and gatherings to work directly with them. Materials will be included to promote adult/child communication. Examples include bibs, “sippy cups,” and towels that through imprinted messages and designs suggest appropriate questions that adults can use to begin conversations with small children.- High levels of support to specific populations.
ReadBoston plans to target specific populations, including housing development(s), with intensive interventions. This effort, planned for a minimum of 20 weeks, will include ReadBoston modeling and teaching specific language development strategies. ReadBoston’s research has indicated that the intervention needs to be strong and consistent, and the points of contact varied. An evaluation of this initiative will help ReadBoston to enhance and expand the model over the three years and include strategies for sustainability and touchback.
Partners
We are very grateful to our partner, Staples, Inc., for their commitment to this project.
Research
- One of the most important predictors of reading success is the strength of adult communication with children. Frequent verbal communication bolsters vocabulary and improves reading comprehension. Talking to young children helps them develop strong language and communication skills, which enable them to express themselves, listen, learn, read and socialize better.
- The window to stimulate brain development closes quickly. In the first three years of life, the brain grows from 25% to 90% of its adult weight. Brain development is largely a function of stimulus. The more stimulus babies and young children get in terms of being read and talked to, the greater their capacity for language and literacy.
- Some recent research has indicated that low-income parents, on average, speak to and dialogue with their children much less than higher-income parents, and they speak to them about a narrower range of topics using a smaller vocabulary. The result: the average low-income parents’ child has heard 30 million fewer words than his/her higher income peers by the time he/she is three years old.
©2009 The City of Boston