During the toddler and preschool years, most children are building their vocabularies rapidly. Since toddler age, children employ an innate skill called fast mapping, in which they quickly connect and contrast new words they hear with words they already know, and thereby almost instantly learn new words when hearing them even only once. Parents […]
I still remember fondly the days when my dad read the Harry Potter series to me and my siblings. His silly voices made the fantastic world seem all the more magical! As I grew older, my mom would sometimes read her book club books aloud to me, and we’d discuss the stories and ideas. Those […]
For parents, days are often consumed with work, tasks, and responsibilities. Almost everything that we do as parents is so that we can provide better lives for our children. Unfortunately, this can lead to us being so busy that we miss the opportunity to read to our children daily. The good news is, reading to […]
We’ve all seen those moms or dads cooing and babbling to their little one, making silly faces, or telling the baby about what’s happening around them. While it may seem silly to talk to a baby before baby can really respond, those parents are doing the right thing! As Stanford’s Dr. Anne Fernald says, […]
As parents and child educators, we understand that reading is important for children. Early reading and comprehension skills are linked to later success in adult life. Children who have plenty of experiences with books and reading before kindergarten are more likely to be successful readers. But even some of these children struggle with reading. […]
When a new baby is around a group of adults, chances are that you will hear many people launch into an animated, high-pitched voice and make silly sounds that would be quite amusing out of context. It just so happens that this type of silly communication we use in fawning over babies is helpful to […]
