Study Questions “Word Gap” Among Low-Income Kids
A study to be published in Child Development contests the long-accepted finding that by age 4, low-income young children hear an average of 30 million fewer words than their wealthier peers, leading to achievement gaps later in life. The new study finds a much more nuanced picture, including that some kids in poor and working-class neighborhoods actually hear more words than their middle-class peers when conversations with various caretakers are included.