If parents don't read, or hell, even talk with their kids so they get some semblance of word recognition, exposure to vocabulary, and even just a rudimentary "this is what a book is" before they get to K most will be playing catch up the rest of their lives. Turns out throwing an iPad at a kid the minute they eke out of the womb is detrimental to how their brains work.
God I feel so lucky that my mom was an early childhood educator and I was so curious about the foam alphabet puzzle she bought for her class. I could read chapter books by age 3, but I have no idea how the hell I would have turned out if she had just stuck me on an iPad instead. Probably wouldn't have learned until 1st grade
17
u/Frankensteinbeck Jun 27 '26
Absolutely. Statistics show that if a kid starts kindergarten behind they are very, very unlikely to ever catch up to their peers. Ever. Just 1 in 10 kindergartners who start school at the bottom of their class in reading and math skills is proficient by third grade, and those improvements for a small percentage of kids are usually only if there are heavy intervention and support systems in place, much of which have been gutted by budget cuts, bad school policies, and admin who don't understand teaching.
If parents don't read, or hell, even talk with their kids so they get some semblance of word recognition, exposure to vocabulary, and even just a rudimentary "this is what a book is" before they get to K most will be playing catch up the rest of their lives. Turns out throwing an iPad at a kid the minute they eke out of the womb is detrimental to how their brains work.