The founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, Professor Dana Suskind, explains why the most important - and astoundingly simple - thing you can do for your child's future success in life is to talk to him or her, reveals the recent science behind this truth, and outlines precisely how parents can best put it into practice. The research is in: Academic achievement begins on the first day of life with the first word said by a cooing mother just after delivery.A study by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley in 1995 found that some children heard thirty million fewer words by their fourth birthdays than others. The children who heard more words were better prepared when they entered school. These same kids, when followed into third grade, had bigger vocabularies, were stronger readers, and got higher test scores.
