their child however not every parent is
given the same opportunity to advocate
for their child’s best interest in the
way that they should
Providence Rhode Island identified this
need and with funding from Bloomberg
Durant Bloomberg philanthropies has
developed innovative programming which
aims to quotes the gap that so many of
our young children face our program
Providence talks supports families and
identifying this need and helping them
to prioritize talk and engagement at a
time when children need at most those
first three years of life something we
know is talk builds the brain we must
talk to our children this simple fact
can appear overwhelming to families who
don’t have the supports in place to
understand its importance every parent
every parent has the ability to
transform the trajectory of their
child’s learning together we can help
them to actualize this potential
together we can inspire parents to be
their child’s first and most important
teacher as a new mother and teacher I
witnessed firsthand the disparity and
opportunity for young people as a home
visitor I have worked with families who
question the importance of their
language they they question whether
their experiences are even worth
discussion I have met families who only
take their child out of the home for
periodic pediatrician appointments I
have met two-year-olds who have never
experienced rain and have never touched
grass this has to change every
experience no matter the monetary value
of its impact is worth our recognition
and I’ll tell you what it’s worth our
language here is a picture of my son
Milo we’re gonna leave this up for a
little bit of extra time he was born in
December of 2015 I am a mother a new
mother with all of the supports
necessary with an immediate access I had
the experience and the knowledge and
family within very close distance of
where I live and even with these
supports I felt incredibly alone and to
question my ability to parent
imagine how others without these four
can’t fortunate circumstances feel in
those first few months of parenting this
is where Providence Talks comes in
Providence talks recognizes parents as
their child’s first and most important
teacher through practice and research we
understand the importance of enhancing
engagement within a child’s life and
within their home and the impact this
will inevitably have on the child’s
future for most families our program
will be the first introduction they have
into the education system as a mother
and as a teacher I take this
responsibility very seriously our
children are the first and most
important step to closing the sequence
of gaps that trouble our nation we must
prioritize our children and we must
support our families in Providence Rhode
Island we identified a problem over
two-thirds of our children enter
kindergarten behind on literacy state
tests a key cause of disparity between
low-income children and their higher
income Paris is the language environment
of the household they grow up in
research shows that low-income children
have heard thirty million fewer words
than their higher income peers by the
time they enter kindergarten researchers
Hart and Risley term this disparity the
word gap I call it deplorable through
our innovative programming Providence
talks aims to close that word gap and
the resulting achievement gap to support
families in developing a language
environment of in their home to
development to improve the development
of their children Providence has defined
the word gap as the first and most
important gap in a series of gaps to
damage the nation Providence Talks is
the first program which aims to close
the word gap at a citywide scale by
coaching parents to use more words
during the critical brain development
years Providence aims to close the word
gap one child at a time the goal is to
increase engagement between parent and
child the use of our curriculum trained
home visitors introduced and model
strategies to improve both the quantity
in the quality of language interaction
these strategies are exists are
integrated into their existing daily
activities cooking mealtime laundry the
Providence tox intervention is targeted
to influence parent behavior creating
long-term benefits for children who then
grow up in healthy language environments
for teachers like myself this can feel
researchers estimate that a child should
hear between nineteen thousand and
twenty one thousand words in a day to
monitor progress towards this benchmark
and their personal goals each
participating family is given a small
wearable recording device which counts
the number of words the child hears and
the number of parent-child
conversational turns taking place in the
home these devices record all of what a
child hears in the course of a day and
software analyzes the recording and
counts the number of words number of
parent-child interactions and the amount
of television the child is exposed to
the recording which is never listened to
is then immediately deleted and the and
the results are this easy to read
feedback report it shows parents their
progress this technology was developed
by our partners in Colorado the Lena
Research Foundation the coaching
services are delivered through three
different models each of which follow
curriculum specifically designed for the
program we offer home visiting we offer
parent and child play groups and a
professional development series for
early childhood professionals we have
some very early results but they’re
promising over a thousand children have
enrolled in Providence talks over 160
children have graduated from our
programming 32 trained professionals are
delivering high quality service to
increase engagement and talk for
families and Providence over 4700
children books have distribute been
distributed to families and two-thirds
of our families make progress in the in
the program as demonstrated by increased
language use within the home the word
gap is the first gap in a series of gaps
and this disparity affects not only our
children it affects our community and
our country these are our children their
futures directly influence the growth
and
success of our nation we must invest in
our young people from day one our
investment in their learning benefits us
not only as individuals we benefit as a
community and as a country because of
the develop of the contribution they’re
developed intellect and abilities
provide we are not able to realize our
potential as a nation until we
prioritize the development of our
children there is an inherent injustice
in denying all children the same
opportunity to succeed the same
opportunity I have been able to provide
for my son Milo I believe in every
child’s ability to thrive I believe in
their ability to succeed
please join Providence and my son Milo
as we join Providence in this fight to close the 30 million word gap