– According to a study conducted in cooperation with the On Track Research Project at the Norwegian Reading Center in the University of Stavanger, Norway, young children who are not read to at home are at a disadvantage when they begin school. There are big differences between six-year-old kids nowadays, many of them can already read on their own, whereas some of their peers are not even capable of understanding that letters correlate to sounds. This research shows that the parents’ attitude to reading, the number of books in the home, and from when and how often kids are read to aloud determine how well prepared they will be when starting school.

– By listening adults reading to them, children get a broader vocabulary and become better readers. “Between the ages of 18 months and about three years of age is the most influential time with regard to language learning,” says Vibeke Bergensen, author of the master’s thesis “Can you read for me?” “When starting school, children who have a lot of children’s books at home and who have been read to before reaching two years of age have a vocabulary that is almost twice that of children who have few children’s books at home and who have only been read to aloud after the age of four years.” The study showed also that 80 percent of the children were taught letters before starting school, but that only 20 percent of first grade students were already able to read.

Image: Interesting Story / Laura Muntz Lyall – Wikipedia

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