The Post-Independent – Rick Blauvelt
” Learning to read is an amazing achievement. Children enter the world with no knowledge of language, and within six or seven years, they are readers. For most children, the process begins long before kindergarten or primary school as they learn language, gain verbal skills, and build basic knowledge about words, sentences and the alphabet. A large body of research confirms positive correlations between language development during the first five years of life and reading success later in life. A recent study at Stanford found that toddlers with more vocabulary – those who could immediately point to the correct item when asked – developed brains that literally processed information faster. It is easy to imagine a compounding impact. When a child hears more language and recognizes more words, her brain begins to process information faster and her learning accelerates. Similar studies have shown that children in low-verbal households can enter school two years behind in their language development, and that this lack of language starts to harm the child’s IQ.”(more)