Back in the 1990’s researchers discovered something that has wide ranging impacts to anyone interested in early childhood development. Children who grow up in families struggling with poverty hear 30 million fewer words by age 3 than those who grow up in more affluent homes.
The idea is that academic success and achievement in many other areas, begins far earlier than many previously thought. It’s an idea that our next guest has first-hand experience with. Pediatric surgeon Dana Suskind is the founder of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, and the author of a book of the same name. She is speaking in Visalia next Monday for an event at the Visalia Fox Theater presented by the local literacy non-profit Read For Life.She joined us on Valley Edition to talk about the project and what how to solve the problem.