Not that this is ground-breaking news (because of course your kids will have a better vocabulary if you do as well), but more as a reminder to use extra descriptors that you normally would when talking with your children. Yes, it's easy to describe the oval by it's name, and color it is, but how often do we say "thin" or "squat" oval, or say it's "standing up" or "laying down". It's neat that the more descriptors used, the better the kids were later at spacial reasoning - the power of mere static words to enable our analysis skills amazes me still!
I wonder if there's a correlation between using more descriptors than the average in describing everyday objects/scenes and children's verbal, writing, and/or reading ability later in life? When you are reading to your kids, do you ask them extra questions about the pictures in the books, or point out details that aren't mentioned in the stories? I admit that I often forget to do this. This article is a good reminder!
When parents describe the size and shape of objects to their preschool children and the kids then use those words in their day-to-day interactions, the children later perform much better on spatial skills tests, a new study shows.
Children who had been exposed to more spatial terms during the recorded sessions and had learned to use those words themselves performed much better on spatial tests than children who did not hear and speak as many of these terms.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
