How many words did you hear today?

You may think I'm making this up, but I swear it's the truth.

Poor children in Providence, Rhode Island, are being given digital voice recorders to carry with them to count the number of words they hear each day. The program is called "Providence Talks," and it's designed to erase the disparity between the number of words rich kids hear and the number of words poor kids hear. You see, research shows that rich kids hear more words than poor ones do. Social workers will make home visits and go over the word counts with the disadvantaged parents and give them tips on how to hear more words.

And how much does this cost? The outlay so far is $5 million in private funding; however, I predict that when that $5 million is gone, the liberals will insist that the nasty Republicans don't like poor children if they refuse to kick in government funds to keep it going.

From another perspective, I have to wonder who, besides the social workers, is listening to those recordings.

"Poor families given word counters." The Dallas Morning News; February 10, 2014; p. 4A.