why in news?

• Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than children who were never read to, a study has found.
• This “million-word gap” could be one key in explaining differences in vocabulary and reading development, said Jessica Logan, assistant professor at The Ohio State University in the U.S.

Back ground:

• Even children who read only one book a day will hear about
• 2,90,000 more words by age 5 than those who don’t regularly read books with a parent or caregiver. Kids who hear more words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school.
• The researchers identified the 100 most circulated books for both board books and picture books. They also assumed that parents who reported never reading to their kids actually read one book to their children every other month.
• Based on these calculations, children who have never been
• read to would have heard 4,662 words by the time they were 5 years old. Those who are read five books a day, hear about 1,483,300 words. “The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking.