The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3 by Betty Hart & Todd R. Risley Presented by Sandi McCracken September 23, 2013

The Early Catastrophe “We undertook 2 ½ years of observing 42 families for an hour each month to learn what typically went on in homes with 1- and 2-year- old children learning to talk.” “Our goal in the longitudinal study was to discover what was happening in children’s early experience that could account for the intractable difference in rates of vocabulary growth we saw among 4-year-olds.” “We decided to start when the children were 7 – 9 months old so we would have time for the families to adapt to observation before the children actually began talking. We followed the children until they turned 3 years old.” “The final sample was 42 families that remained in the study from beginning to end...13 of the families were upper socioeconomic status (SES), 10 were middle SES, 13 were lower SES, and six were on welfare.” “By the time the children were 3 years old, trends in amount of talk, vocabulary growth, and style of interaction were well-established and clearly suggested widening gaps to come.”

Now, read the last two sections of the article, starting on page 8 of the handout. “The 30 Million Word Gap By Age 3” and “The Importance of Early Years Experience.”

Why Should We Teach Vocabulary? Cumulative Monthly Vocabulary Spoken in the Home Children in professional homes1,100 words Children in working-class homes700 words Children in high-poverty homes500 words Each month, children in high-poverty homes are exposed to 600 fewer different words than children in professional homes. By age 4, children in high-poverty homes have heard 32 million fewer words than those in professional homes. (Hart & Risley, 2003) © 2013 Texas Education Agency / The University of Texas System 4