The 30 Million Word Gap
“By age three, children from privileged families have heard 30 million more words than children from poor families. By kindergarten the gap is even greater. The consequences are catastrophic.” – American Educator, Spring 2003 (Click here to download a 6 page summary of the groundbreaking research done by Drs. Risley and Hart.)
“With few exceptions, the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies grew and the higher the children’s IQ test scores were at ages three and up.” -Dr. Betty Hart and Dr. Todd D. Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young Children
The Challenge
Did you know, the average adult only uses about 5,000 to 10,000 words in what is known as their daily “common lexicon” (or common-use vocabulary)? But it is the “rare words” above and beyond those 10,000 that truly determine a child’s literacy level.
How Do You Grow A Child’s Vocabulary?
So how do you do it? How do you grow a child’s vocabulary?
There are really only two ways, and both of them are critical.
- Proactive Talking to your child (also known as Intentional Talking or Interactive Talking).
- Reading out loud to your child.
Solutions on the Market
1. Lena Baby – a device (shown in the video above) that tracks the number of words a child hears each day. This is an amazing and wonderful product, and for anyone who can afford the $700 for the device, plus the extra for the custom clothes, we support you in your efforts to help your children progress!
2. The only other option available on the market today is our series Child Genius 101. Indeed, this is the very reason why we developed the series! We could not find any other meaningful product or program to help the every-day parent implement the findings of this research.
The simple truth is most people can not afford $700 upfront.We all love our children and would willingly give $700 for their futures, but when it’s a challenge to put food on the table and diapers on the baby’s behind, purchasing a device that expensive is simply not feasible for everyone.
We felt there needed to be a more affordable alternative!
Child Genius 101 is the solution. Child Genius 101 makes it easier for parents to give their children the words they need by providing daily mini-lesson plans, fun and easy activities, resources and vocabulary words, all focused around a new topic for every day of the month.
The Book
The book series offers a new book each month with 30 or 31 daily topics, activities, vocabulary words and more! Each book retails at $9.95. Click here to see the books on Amazon. Kindle versions start at just $4.95.
The Digital Subscription
Because we believe in making literacy resources affordable, we are also now offering the Child Genius 101 series in a digital format. Click here to subscribe for a FULL YEAR of daily lessons (the same ones as the book gives!) for just $20.00.
Not All Talk is Good Talk
Whether you use our products or not, it is important to know that not all talk is equal. We encourage you to read the 6-page summary of the 10 year research project to learn more.