For centuries people weren’t sure how a child learned to speak. During all that time all children learned to speak a lot of different languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and more. Some people thought that learning to talk was a miracle. Researchers at Harvard and M.I.T. devoted their lives to figuring out how children learned to speak. In 1995 two researchers from Kansas, Betty Hart and Todd Risley published Meaningful Differences in the Lives of American Childre

A big vocabulary keeps Clara from having to rely on her smiles or hugs. Instead of nodding her head, pointing, crying, kicking, biting, and screaming she can use the words for what she wants. Clara loves learning new words. She really likes it when her mother tells her the words for what she is eating, wearing, playing, getting dressed, or riding in her stroller or the car. By giving a child the gift of words a mother empowers her child to deal with the world. Children with