A few years back I was interviewing a literacy expert. The interview was for another publication, and through our conversation I asked how to connect with parents to help them see the importance of reading and talking with their children. He answered, "The parents that you need to get through to won't be the ones reading your article." Although defeating, I knew he was right.

The following quotation was the reason I asked him the question.

"Twenty years ago, two researchers from the University of Kansas visited homes of families from different social classes to monitor conversations between parents and toddlers. The researchers found that, on average, professional parents spoke over 2,000 words per hour to their children, working-class parents spoke about 1,300, and welfare mothers spoke about 600. So by age 3, children of professionals had vocabularies that were nearly 50% greater than those of working-class children and twice as large as those of welfare children" (p. 28. Rothstein).

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