Note that we are not talking about 30 million different words, but the total number of words, including those that are repeated.
The 30 million vocabulary gap is emerging.
The socio-economic status of a family is mainly determined by parents' occupation, parents' education level and family income. Forty-two groups of families from all walks of life were selected to participate in this study, including 65,438+03 families with high socioeconomic status, 65,438+00 families with medium socioeconomic status, 65,438+03 families with low socioeconomic status and 6 families with poor level. Researchers will continue to pay attention to the growth of children aged 9 months to 3 years.
This research has been going on for three years. Every month for three years, they held a seminar for nearly an hour, and they recorded the whole meeting with audio and notes.
Through half a year's observation and data collection, the researchers estimated the time for each family to talk to their children. Of course, the research team also met some relatively "silent" families during the visits in turn, and parents and children almost had "zero communication". In an hour, we found that some families spent at least 40 minutes talking to their children, while others only spent 20 minutes.
Over time, the gap between families is becoming more and more amazing. This is also related to the different social and economic status of each family. In an hour, the average number of words heard by children from high socioeconomic status families is 2000. Children from poor families can only hear 600 words. In addition, parents' reactions to their children are also very different. In families with high socioeconomic status, parents respond to their children 250 times per hour, but in families with low socioeconomic status, parents respond to their children less than 50 times per hour. Take verbal approval from parents as an example. Children from high socioeconomic status families will hear about 40 verbal approvals every hour, however, children from poor families will only hear four verbal approvals.
From the beginning of the study to the end of the study, parents who are good at communicating with their children will continue to maintain very good interaction with their children, while those parents who are not good at words do not like talking to their children, even if their children can talk themselves.
Can the amount of language a child hears early really affect his ultimate learning ability?
Early language environment is the key to affect children's ultimate learning ability, that is, how much parents should say to their children and how to talk to them. The more children feel about their parents' language, the better their language ability will be, which has little to do with their parents' educational level and socio-economic status.
Real difference
A good early language environment has a positive impact on children's development, while a bad language environment has a negative impact, including children's negative impact on word learning. It will even affect the IQ of children when they are three years old.
"Almost without exception, the more conversations parents have with their children, the faster the children's vocabulary grows and the higher their IQ after they are three years old. Vocabulary is really important for children, but if children are forced or forbidden to accept vocabulary, their language learning ability will be stifled. Some parents begin to use some mandatory sentences as soon as they talk to their children, such as "don't", "stop" and "don't". This is an example we have witnessed in the process of children's language learning. "
There are two other factors that are beneficial to language learning and intellectual development. One factor is that parents say different kinds of things to their children. If parents tell their children fewer kinds of words, then don't expect their children to speak rich kinds of words before they are three years old. Another factor is that the whole family has the habit of chatting together.
Children will behave like their parents when they grow up. Even after a child can speak completely, whether he is good at speaking depends on his parents' performance and demonstration at home. "
Children's early language ability has a direct impact on their learning ability after entering school.
Three important characteristics when communicating with children:
Symbolic participation * * * Also note that mothers and children use meaningful language and gestures when sharing an activity.
Fluency and relevance of communication: connecting the process of mother-child interaction.
Daily routine and fixed activities: such as playing "I will wait for you" games, or doing daily activities such as cooking and sleeping.
These communication elements are isomorphic to form the best environment for language learning.
The importance of small talk
Families with high socioeconomic status tend to repeat language interactions in the dialogues they initiate. For families with low socioeconomic status, the time from the beginning to the end is very short: one side speaks, the other side responds, and the rest is nothing. This gap is very important, because all the necessary nutrients for the rich development of the brain are contained in "other dialogues". Hart and Leslie call this verbal interaction between mother and child "ballroom dancing". Every step and every reaction in the interaction increases the complexity of language, and this complexity will further strengthen children's intellectual development.
For me, the most critical gap is affirmation ("well done!") )) and the use of taboos ("stop").
Families with high socioeconomic status will reprimand their children, but the frequency is much lower than that of groups with low socioeconomic status. Children from poor families hear more than twice as much negative language every hour as children from mental workers. This gap will widen because of the different words children hear. The reason is that in families with low socio-economic status, children hear far less total vocabulary, and taboo words and negative words account for a higher proportion of positive and positive words.
Compared with children from families with high socioeconomic status, children from families with low socioeconomic status are less likely to hear verbal encouragement such as "You are right", "Good" and "You are really smart". Children from mental workers' families will hear 30 affirmative sentences every hour, twice as much as children from working-class families and five times as much as children from welfare families.
"You are great/you are right!" You suck/you are wrong! (within one year)
"You are great/you are right!" You suck/you are wrong! (at the age of four)
For a better understanding, you can imagine that you are influenced by two different types of discourse. How do you feel when you keep hearing such words as "You are wrong", "You suck" and "You will never finish"? No matter how much your parents actually love you, it is hard to overcome this childhood shadow.
Brain and language processing speed
When studying children from families with low socio-economic status, it is found that the number of words spoken by parents varies greatly: from 670 words to 12000 words every day. The study also found that there is an important relationship between children's early language environment and language processing speed, regardless of their socio-economic status. At the age of two, children who rarely hear conversations have less vocabulary and slower language processing speed. Children who hear a lot of conversations have larger vocabularies and faster language processing. This applies to all social and economic classes.
Everything depends on the degree to which words nourish the brain.
The decisive influence of early language environment
Anne Nalder's careful research shows that children with poor early language environment will be slower and less efficient in language processing.
Hart and Risley found that through intensive vocabulary intervention, these children showed no difference in learning ability. Their intervention is very effective, but if the early language environment is not ideal and has a certain impact on the brain, it cannot be improved.
Timing is everything.
In the process of brain development, basic ability is the premise of acquiring more complex skills. Every skill is like building a building. You must build one building block well before you can build the next one better.
In other words, the development of the brain appears in the form of hierarchy, and it has basic ability dependence on more complex skills. Therefore, it is of great significance to miss this window of opportunity for a "simple" skill, because it may become increasingly difficult to learn new things. This is especially important in the natural development of language. In the first three years, language not only helps to build vocabulary and conversation skills, but also lays the foundation for the development of social, emotional and cognitive abilities.
Why is it more difficult to learn a new language as you get older?
In the heyday of neuroplasticity, the baby's brain can distinguish the sounds of every language, including vowel changes in German, pinyin, glottis and slight sonic booms in Marseilles, and it is also ready to learn the language to which this sound belongs, even languages with different sounds.
As Professor Kuhl said, babies are real "citizens of the world". However, this skill is not always available. Similar to the situation that the brain will eventually remove unused or underused synapses, the infinite potential of listening and speaking any language has long been cut off, leaving us with only the extraordinary ability to use our mother tongue, while shielding the ability to use those sounds we don't use.
Professor Patricia Kuhl's experience in studying babies in Japan in her early years is a good proof of the above. At the age of seven months, the baby was still a "citizen of the world". They can easily distinguish the "R" and "L" sounds in English, but after three months, this ability will disappear. Professor Kuhl studies American babies with different pronunciations, and the same thing happens to American babies. In the above two cases, realizing the rapid decline of neural plasticity, the brain will "devote itself wholeheartedly" to the pronunciation of the language it wants and refuse to consume nerve cells in unnecessary languages.
The Power of Language: From Thinking Ability to Outlook on Life
Parents' Mathematical Vocabulary and Children's Mathematical Ability
When Susan Levin carefully watched the recorded video, she found that the great changes in mathematical dialogue made the expected changes in vocabulary quality and quantity more complicated.
During each 90-minute home visit, some children only heard four words related to mathematics, and some children heard more than 250 words related to mathematics. Within a week, some children * * * heard eight math words, and some heard 1799 math words.
Within a year, there will be a huge gap between children who hear the word 1500 and those who hear the word 10000.
Parents' language affects children's spatial ability.
During the two-and-a-half-year study period, from 14 months, the number and types of spatial conversations that each child heard were obviously different. Undoubtedly, during the recording time of *** 13.5 hours, some children only heard five spatial words, and some children heard more than 525 spatial words. Children who hear more spatial words are also more likely to say 4-200 spatial words.
Two years later, when the children were four and a half years old, Susan's team began to evaluate them again. Children who hear and use more spatial vocabulary perform better in spatial tests. The data shows that this is not only because they are "smarter", but is entirely related to the spatial vocabulary they are exposed to.
How does parental language affect children's self-regulation?
The ideal caregiver language can help children to be independent at an early age. Every compliment, every effort to encourage and correct is a conscious or unconscious strategy to make children become excellent, independent and make a difference.
When parents encourage their children to control their behavior, explain the truth of the rules to them and discipline them without emotion, their self-regulation ability will be improved. These children don't react immediately, but they are more likely to think carefully.
On the other hand, it is the negative influence brought by controlling parents. Parents use pressure and authority to restrain their children's behavior, which will make them obedient in the short term, but in the long run, children's self-regulation and executive function will become worse, and serious self-control problems may occur in adulthood.
There are two main types of discipline:
Imperative: an order that restricts children from inputting information, including reprimands and demands;
Suggestive prompt type: induce children to input information, opinions or choices.
In both types of parents' speeches, "suggestions and hints" contribute to self-regulation skills in the long run, while commands weaken this skill.
The most suitable environment for children must be a warm, educated and positive environment. For children, the harmful environment of stress is negative, which will inhibit the development of executive function and self-regulation ability, and will have an impact on children and children as adults.
"You suck" and "You did a very bad thing"
Of course, parents talk about not only praising and encouraging good behaviors, but also responding to unacceptable behaviors. Guilt and shame are two extremes in the emotional spectrum, and they are two reactions after we do something wrong. On the one hand, shame will penetrate into our hearts and be reflected in our own eyes. On the other hand, guilt is a concrete feeling for some behaviors that are contrary to self-feeling: this is the difference between "bad" and "doing bad things".
The language used by parents in dealing with unacceptable behaviors is very important to determine their children's self-feeling. If we want children to become positive, but because children are different from expectations, we criticize some behaviors of children, which will make children understand that they are "kind" and only make a recoverable mistake, instead of letting children find themselves "bad".
Finally, Professor Grant pointed out that there is something more powerful than parents' language in cultivating children's kindness and moral sense. It is also helpful to have a kind, moral and virtuous parent.
3T Principle: Optimizing Parent-child Communication in Brain Development
Whether parents are talking to their children about the smell of diapers, the color of flowers, or triangular objects, they should all involve the 3T principle. Because the rich language environment of early childhood education plays a vital role in children's brain development.
The first test: * * * attention
In the 3T principle, "* * * concern" is the most subtle one. It requires parents to consciously observe what their children are paying attention to. When the time is ripe, parents will talk to their children about it. In other words, you pay attention to what your child cares about. Even if the child is too young to understand what adults say, or the child's focus is constantly changing, parents should follow this principle and respond to the child's behavior immediately. This is the first step to develop children's brains through parents' language. If parents don't follow the principle of "caring for each other", the remaining principles won't work.
The core purpose of "emotional care" is parents' response.
Can be summarized as the following three steps:
1. Observe;
2. understanding;
3. Action.
No matter what the purpose of the child's behavior is and whether it is appropriate, parents should give the child a warm response. Only when children feel the warmth of their parents can they thrive.
The second test: full communication
The second principle requires parents to communicate with their children more. Communication cannot be just sporadic words. The purpose of communication is to let children master all kinds of words and learn how to use them.
The communication between parents and children is two-way, not a one-way conversation led by adults. The content of the conversation between the two sides is naturally the content that children care about. As far as two-way and one-way are concerned, there are subtle differences between the two. From the standpoint of the "30 Million Word Initiative" team, only when parents and children are fully engaged in communication can they play a role.
tell about
When you ramble about your works at the same time, this narrative is a good way to immerse children in the language environment.
"Come on, baby, let's change a new diaper."
"Now we are going to squeeze toothpaste on the toothbrush."
"Come on, squeeze bit by bit. Well done! "
Parallel dialogue
When parents talk about the activities they are engaged in, the focus of the parallel dialogue falls on the children. Ideally, parents and children make eye contact when talking about what is happening now.
"The key can't eat! It's not food. "
"Are you going to drive with that key?"
"That's the key to the door."
"Come on, open the door with the key."
Use fewer pronouns.
For adults, the use of pronouns is as natural as breathing. It lives in our minds, and only we know its referential relationship.
Children will be confused when they talk about pronouns: uncle Michael, grandmother, drowning person? Do you see it?
If a child handed you a scribbled picture, how would you respond?
"I like it!" No, you don't like it at all. )
"I like your paintings!" Yes, you really like it! )
Each appellation represents the vocabulary itself and the child's understanding of things. Appellation can also promote children's brain development.
Language Out of Context: Non-current Communication
Parents can talk to their children about the experience of doing something together, their children's recent favorite toys, former friends and so on. Because there is no clue provided by the direct environment, that is, context, children have to understand unknown concepts according to their own vocabulary level. If a child can understand and deal with "language taken out of context" well, then his grades in school have nothing to worry about.
Expansion, expansion and support of speech
Speech expansion is to help children have a more complex and in-depth dialogue at the existing vocabulary level. In this process, children may need to add some verbs, adjectives or prepositional phrases to achieve the expansion effect.
For example, "this ice cream is delicious" can be expanded to "this strawberry ice cream is delicious, but it's really cold!"
Before children's expression and communication skills are formed, language expansion, expansion and construction are all good ways for parents to lay a good foundation. Through these methods, parents can encourage their children to explore more detailed and complicated communication modes, and at the same time achieve the goal of "full communication".
The third T: Take turns talking.
The third principle is called "taking turns to talk", which requires parents and children to take turns to participate in the conversation when communicating. It is not only the golden rule of parent-child communication, but also the most important part of the 3T principle, which plays a decisive role in children's brain development.
First of all, parents must "pay close attention" to their children's interests and then "fully communicate" with them. In addition, whether it is the interaction initiated by parents or the interaction initiated by parents in response to children, the key to success is that parents must wait patiently for their children's response. This is a key step in "speaking in turn".
Babies can communicate with their parents smoothly before they learn to speak. We know that the baby's crying is telling parents that the diaper needs to be replaced when it is wet. If the baby rubs his eyes, it means it's time for bed. When communicating with babies, we should learn to interpret the clues they provide, understand the meaning behind these clues and give appropriate responses.
Communication with the baby may not be a familiar model, but in this one-on-one interaction, the baby's intelligence has not only developed, but also established an attachment complex to his parents.
As children learn to walk slowly, "taking turns to talk" has also changed. Although the child is speaking his own words at this time, or some words are not fully pronounced, or only occasionally say something that parents can understand, parents must seize their language signals, respond well, and then wait patiently for the child's response. At this stage, whether parents can do this is particularly important.