Research

A study in the journal Pediatrics has concluded that children who have limited vocabulary and language skills at age 5 are more likely to have lower literacy levels in adulthood.  However, the study also found that adults who overcame this childhood language deficit were most often those who were read to by their parents. "Our study suggests that reading to a child might also have long-term beneficial effects," [Dr. Ingrid Schoon] said.

According to Alison Gopnik, University of California, Berkeley psychologist, research is changing our understanding of the first years of life, showing early childhood to be a period of intellectual, emotional, and moral development. "Any child will put the most productive scientist to shame," she writes in her new book, The Philosophical Baby." Read the full article here.

An article in the Seattle Times discusses new brain research that affirms that babies are learning even before birth. Parents are therefore a child's first and most important teachers. "The bottom line, scientists say, is that no amount of teacher training, brain scans or curriculum research can trump the parent-child connection."