PRINCETON, N.J., June 22 (UPI) -- Quality home learning experiences help prepare children for kindergarten, even if they live in poverty, U.S. researchers found.
Lead author Eileen T. Rodriguez of Mathematica Policy Research Inc., who conducted the research as part of her doctoral program at New York University, says previous research found children living in poverty are, on average, not as ready to start school as children from middle-income homes.
"Our findings indicate that enriched learning experiences as early as the first year of life are important to children's vocabulary growth, which in turn provides a foundation for children's later school success," Rodriguez said in a statement.
The five-year study examined the learning environments of more than 1,850 children and their mothers from predominantly low-income households -- at or below the federal poverty line. Researchers used home visits to gather information when the children were ages 1, 2, 3 and 5.
The researchers collected data on how often children took part in literacy activities, such as shared book reading; the quality of mothers' engagements with their children, such as adult speech; and the availability of learning materials, such as children's books.
The study suggests the degree to which parents read and talk to their infant, or point and label objects in the environment and provide engaging books and toys when their child is only 15 months old, can have long-lasting effects on the infant's language skills.
