‘Chatty children will do better at school’
Early verbal skills ‘boost performance’
EDUCATION: Chatty children, who are encouraged to read and talk from a young age, have the best chance of academic success, a study suggests.
The research by University of York academics looked at why children from wealthier and well-educated family backgrounds tend to do better at school.
CHATTY CHILDREN, who are encouraged to read and talk from a young age, have the best chance of academic success, a study suggests.
The research by University of York academics looked at why children from wealthier and welleducated family backgrounds tend to do better at school.
The researchers found that children from better-off families had superior language abilities at nursery school age and that these verbal skills boosted their later academic performance throughout school.
They examined data from nearly 700 British children, whose verbal ability was tested at four years old and whose educational outcomes were tracked throughout school until the age of 16.
Lead author Professor Sophie von Stumm, of the Department of Education, said: “What we found is that verbal ability is a strong predictor of school performance.
Children who come from more privileged family homes have bigger vocabulary and better grammar, and that makes them better able to deal with the challenges of school.
“They better understand what their teachers ask them to do and can better communicate with other students. In the beginning it gives them only a small advantage, but we know over time that small advantage increases and augments. Children with a small disadvantage tend to disengage a bit earlier.”
The research is the first major study to look at children’s abilities in their early years and the extent to which it explains their later educational achievement.
Prof von Stumm said the research highlighted the importance of activities like reading bedtime stories – even if it was for just five minutes. “Activities designed to improve verbal skills boost cognitive, social and emotional development, in addition to benefiting parent-child bonding,” she said.
The researchers also looked at non-verbal ability at nursery school age and found that it had a smaller, but never-the-less significant role in explaining the link between background inequalities and academic success. Children from better-off families were better at doing things like solving puzzles and drawing shapes before starting at school.