Want to give your child a leg up in kindergarten (and life)? Expose them to a million extra words. It’s easier than it sounds. I wrote recently about the vocabulary building power of reading aloud to your child. Books expose children to new worlds through their storytelling - and with those new worlds come new WORDS. Words that you may not have had occasion to use otherwise. Reading develops this vocabulary quality in part through vocabulary quantity. A recent study from Ohio State University suggests that children who are read five books a day from infancy will be exposed to 1.4 million more words by kindergarten than those who lack this advantage. If five books seems like a lot, rest assured that there’s advantage to any reading at all. Children read a single book a day will benefit to the tune of 290,000 more words. A rich vocabulary lends itself to explosive reading growth when the time comes. That’s because you can’t truly decode words you don’t know. So read, read, read with your little one. You’ll be amazed by the return on investment. This adorable little book worm was shared to IG by pitterpatterpals_.