| The term 30-million-word gap was originally coined by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley in their book: Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children and reprinted in the article “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3.” They found that “the average child in a professional family hears 2,153 words per waking hour, the average child in a working-class family hears 1,251 words per hour, and an average child in a working poor family only 616 words per hour.” Extrapolating, they stated that, “in four years, an average child in a professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family 26 million words, and an average child in a welfare family 13 million words.” The journals here are designed to increase communication in busy working families by providing easy to digest, relevant topics that can help close the 30 million word gap and increase literacy in the practice of daily conversation. |
