Research has found that children from low-income families are exposed to 30,000,000 fewer words by the age of three than are children from high-income families. Interventions to close the 30,000,000 word gap are currently being implemented but have not yet been evaluated. Read and view the links below that describe the research behind the 30,000,000 word gap and describe the interventions developed to address it.
Please write a brief (1-3 page) response to these questions: Given what you know about language development in young children, in what areas of development do you hypothesize we will see improvements for children whose families have participated in these interventions? What improvements beyond an increased vocabulary would you expect to see, if any? Why?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/us/trying-to-close-a-knowledge-gap-word-by-word.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1 (Links to an external site.)
http://www.npr.org/2013/12/29/257922222/closing-the-word-gap-between-rich-and-poor (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOFnRoUiO6Y