New Program Teaches Parents to Talk Early and Often

(October 26, 2009) Did you know that talking with children when they’re still babies and toddlers is one of the biggest keys to helping them succeed in school?  Based on this knowledge, the New Britain Discovery Collaborative, with support from the Community Chest of New Britain and Berlin, is launching Let’s Talk, It Makes a Difference, an innovative new program developed to help close the achievement gap in New Britain’s schools.

Modeled after a program in Cambridge, MA, Let’s Talk will focus on promoting language acquisition and vocabulary development among very young, poor children.  Through a partnership with WIC, the collaborative will reach out to low-income parents of infants and toddlers with a special focus on families whose primary language is Spanish - the largest group of children struggling with reading in New Britain’s schools. 

The Discovery Collaborative staff will make home visits, sharing tips on how to develop literacy skills through talking, interactive reading and enjoyable activities. The staff will also offer small group workshops and reading workshops at the Library that encourage parents to talk and read with their babies and toddlers.

“Early childhood is the critical window for language development. This is because the brain has formed 75 percent of its communications’ synapses by age three and is fully done with that building process by age five,”  explains Merrill Gay, executive director of the Discovery Collaborative. Funded by the Community Foundation’s First Year’s First Early Childhood Development initiative, the Discovery Collaborative brings together parents, childcare providers, social service providers, educators and local government to improve the lives of New Britain’s children from birth to age 8.

Gay said that there is a clear correlation between the education and economic status of the parents and the level of quality early childhood interaction. “The program is based on ground breaking research showing that by age three, poor children typically hear 30 million fewer words spoken to them and have vocabularies half the size of three year olds in wealthier professional families,” he explained.

The main message from Let’s Talk to New Britain’s parents is that early and frequent communication is something they can control and it will make a big difference in their child’s success. 

The Let’s Talk program is one of several initiatives coming out of a recently completed birth to eight community planning process.  This planning process created a community-wide Blueprint for New Britain’s Young Children. The Blueprint and the initiatives it calls for will be unveiled Dec. 2nd at a public meeting to be held at Vance School in New Britain. For more information about Let’s Talk, It Makes a Difference, the public is encouraged to attend the unveiling of the community plan at 6:30pm.

Let’s Talk is also looking for volunteers to lead reading workshops and people and/or organizations to fund the purchase of quality books for the workshops. If interested or want more information, please contact Merrill Gay at 860-229-6018 x 309 or merrillg@nbdiscovery.org.