Everyday moments are an opportunity to build your baby's brain and language.
We All Play a Role
All children should benefit from language-rich activities through everyday moments with the adults around them. All we have to do is talk, interact, and engage with children in everyday life conversations to enhance healthy language and brain development. Feed Me Words’ mission is to support the language and literacy development of Alabama’s youngest children by providing the adults in their lives with access to and awareness of early language and literacy resources.
Why it Matters
Language Nutrition™
Just as healthy food nourishes a growing baby’s body, Language Nutrition nourishes a baby’s brain. Quantity and quality of nourishing language, like healthy food, is critical to brain development.
Early Brain Development
Your baby’s brain grows over time. Brain growth starts during pregnancy and continues into adulthood, with the fastest growth happening during the first three years of life.
Using Any Language
More and more children come from homes where a language other than English is spoken. The term “dual language learner” (DLL) is used to refer to children who are developing in their home language and in English, and highlights their linguistic capacity in more than one language.
The Word Gap
Studies have shown that children from low-income families hear approximately 600 words every hour, whereas children from higher-income families hear approximately 2,000 words an hour. This 30 million word gap leads to dramatic differences in vocabularies of 18 month old children, which increase significantly between 18 months and 24 months.
Vocabulary Matters
Language is our most common means of interacting with others and enables us to share thoughts and communicate.
3rd Grade Reading Matters
The ability to read by the end of third grade is an important indicator of later academic success as well as economic success. Third grade marks a time when children shift from learning to read to reading to learn.
Graduating Matters
In Alabama, more than half of the inmates in state prisons lack a high school diploma or equivalent.
Economic Benefits
Low literacy is said to be connected to over $230 billion a year in health care costs. Additionally, low literacy costs the country at least $225 billion each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime, and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.
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