As a Parent it is Never Too Early!

Previous research says on average, children living in poverty are less well prepared to start school than children from middle-income homes. Now, new research says home learning experiences may help low-income children’s school readiness.

“Our findings indicate that enriched learning experiences as early as the first year of life are important to children’s vocabulary growth, which in turn provides a foundation for children’s later school success,” said Eileen T. Rodriguez, survey researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

Over a five-year period, the study examined the learning environments of more than 1,850 children and their mothers from predominantly low-income households; that is, households at or below the federal poverty line. Researchers used home visits to gather information when the children were one, two, three and five years old.

The researchers gathered information on how often children took part in literacy activities, such as shared book reading; the quality of mothers’ engagements with their children, such as children’s exposure to frequent and varied adult speech; and the availability of learning materials, such as children’s books.

“As a parent, it is never too early to engage your child in learning,” noted Story. “This research suggests that the degree to which parents read and talk to their infant; point and label objects in the environment; and provide engaging books and toys when their child is only 15 months old can have long-lasting effects on the infant’s language skills years later.”

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