Words

"A pair of psychologists did a close-up study of two sets of families. One group in which the parents were on welfare, and another in which the parents held professional jobs. It turned out that the biggest difference between the two sets of homes was language. The kids with the professional parents heard 20 million more words in the first three years of their lives than the kids on welfare - mostly just the regular jibber-jabber of parents talking to their children. And those extra words had a huge effect on their verbal ability. It was stunning news, that the biggest factor in determining a kid's later success in school wasn't any of the things we always assume to be true - it wasn't money, it wasn't parental education, it wasn't race - it was the sheer number of words that your parents spoke to you as a child.

Among scholars who study inequality, there is more and more evidence out there that the divide between the kids who make it and the kids who don't, starts in the very first years of life."

--Paul Tough, This American Life