Project Providence Talks Update

February 15, I wrote about the Providence Talks project ("How many words did you hear today?") that tracks how many words pre-schoolers hear, because poor children don't hear as many words as rich children. There was an update in the newspaper recently, and, if it's possible, the comments in it are even more inane than the initial report.

One of the participants in Providence is 16-month-old Deisy Ixcuna-Gonzalez and her Guatemalan immigrant parents. The home visitor monitoring how many words Deisy hears counsels her parents: "When she grabs your hand and brings you to the refrigerator and points to the cabinet, that is an opportunity for you to say,'Deisy, are you hungry? You want cereal? Let's go look for the cereal.'" Someone who has to be told to ask his child if she's hungry probably should never have been a parent in the first place!

But I'm not being fair. "Educators say that many parents, especially among the poor and immigrants, do not know that talking, as well as reading, singing and playing with their young children, is important." My gosh! What do they do with them? Stick them in a corner and throw them a scrap every now and then? Why are these people having children? Is it possible they don't know what's causing them? According to Ann O'Leary, one of the do-gooders involved in this project, "We want to move the needle from this being an optional activity to a must-do activity."  And we wonder why this world is going to hell in a handbasket!!

"Don't wait to stimulate child's mind, parents urged." The Dallas Morning News; March 26, 2014; p. 11A.