Toddlers with bigger vocabularies are more successful in kindergarten: study

Teaching your toddlers to say more words and phrases may have an advantage for them when they start school. Based on a new study, children who have wider and bigger vocabularies tend to be better in both academics and behavior when they start kindergarten.

Fox News reports that according to Paul Morgan, lead author from the Pennsylvania State University, the results can help identify at-risk kids. At 24 months, experts can easily detect if the toddler is showing signs of having lower vocabulary.

Morgan and his team has observed about 9000 children where they have asked their parents to list the 50 most common words they use when they are two. The researchers have discovered that kids from higher socioeconomic background, female, and who have experienced high quality parenting are more than likely to get a wider range of vocabulary. Incidentally, children who have been born with low birth weight or mothers with health problems also manifest smaller vocabularies.

Eureka Alert adds that after the survey conducted on parents, the kids' academic achievement in kindergarten is then gauged individually by their teachers through reading and math, as well as their behavioral pattern after three years.

Morgan said the oral vocabulary of the children has greatly influenced their early development. Their findings are also consistent with how parents who have less interactions, stressed, overburdened and less engaged in their children's development are contributing to the child's lesser and smaller vocabulary.

George Farkas, coauthor of the study and professor of education from the University of California, explained that gaps for vocabulary can occur as early as age two. Identifying who are at risk can help increase their vocabulary, resulting to better performance in school, Business Standard writes. These interventions may be used to target kids living in disadvantaged home situations.

The researchers encourage parents to frequently read storybooks or have informal conversations with their toddlers to help increase their vocabulary as it can be modified and changed. In case this is not possible, government can intervene by launching home visits by nurses to help disadvantaged households and first time mothers to make kids ready for school.

The study is titled "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort," and has been published in the journal Child Development. Funding for the study has come from the collaboration of several sectors of the US Department of Health, National Institutes of Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.