A recent study from researchers at The Ohio State University found that the disparity between the number of words young children who are frequently read to have heard compared to those who have not been read to is significant. The study first appeared online in the Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics and found that young children whose parents read them five books a day entered kindergarten having heard roughly 1.48 million words. By comparison, children whose parents never read to them had heard just over 4,600 words by the time they entered kindergarten. Even children who are read to daily hear significantly fewer words than children whose parents read them five books a day. Such children hear just under 300,000 words prior to entering kindergarten.
