Patience in priming pre-kindergartners for learning is pretty much gone.

It doesn’t matter that power saws were still buzzing on the other side of temporary plywood walls when Hickman Mills rushed its new child center into service last week.

It doesn’t matter, with Kansas City pushing a citywide campaign, whether the financing cavalry of federal grants, state funding or local levies is coming.

No one wants to wait. Not in schools, and not in homes and neighborhoods.

Kansas City is throwing its voice, clamoring to be heard all the way into the ears of every adult who circles around a child in a baby chair, with calls to action that everyone can apply:

All the world’s an early learning stage.

Not just in preschool. Not just in dutiful bedtime reading.

Everywhere. In wondering about the fruit in the grocery store. In watching the colored clothes swirling in the laundromat dryer. In laughing over a cartoon character’s motives.

They want us talking to children. Flooding them with language. Filling their heads with words.

Educators, social service providers, pediatricians, church leader……………. continues on Kansas City Star

One of the earliest indicators of a child’s future success is the number of words he or she hears prior to kindergarten. Language development begins with the interplay of words between the parent and child and helps nurture vocabulary, which is considered the building block of education. The frequency and richness of natural conversation in a child’s first years plays a key role in development.

An at-risk child who lacks these early interactions often enters kindergarten with a vocabulary 18 months behind that of a middle-income child. As the child ages, the gap widens instead of narrowing. With vocabulary proficiency such a vital marker of a child’s capacity to learn, the child risks falling so far behind that his or her prospects for graduating high school or finding a meaningful job are greatly diminished.

Central to a child’s keeping pace in vocabulary development is the parents’ active role in his or her education, so that learning takes place in the home long before schooling begins. Children are more likely to succeed when families understand the value of speaking with them. Rather than have them memorize a hundred words, parents m……………. continues on Sun Sentinel