Living the Play-Full Life

Living the Play-Full Life: For decades researchers have noted the wide-reaching power of play and recreation to teach persistence, build confidence, and improve family relationships, while also warning of broad threats to them: schedules packed with extracurricular activities, media overload, and hovering parents. BYU scholars like Freeman, chair of the Department of Recreation Management, have added strong voices to that conversation—a conversation that has taken on personal relevance for many of them as they have worked to integrate play and recreation into their own families.

Why your doctor wants you to read aloud to your toddler | Deseret News National

Why your doctor wants you to read aloud to your toddler | Deseret News National: Fourteen published studies prove that ROR works, said Brian Gallagher, acting executive director of Reach Out and Read. These studies include a handful of “gold standard” random controlled experiments.

At least four strong studies show that kids given the ROR treatment had more advanced vocabularies than the control groups. And other studies showed that ROR shifted parental attitudes and behavior shifted significantly.

What you do with the book varies by the child’s age, High said. “At six months, the child reaches for the book, looks at it and pats some of the pictures. As they get older they learn how to orient the book and open the pages, and name the objects in pictures.”

Organizations Explore Cheap, Home-Based Early Childhood Development | Heartlander Magazine

Organizations Explore Cheap, Home-Based Early Childhood Development | Heartlander Magazine: Institutions outside of the home are increasingly viewed, and funded, as the best developers of young minds, although studies show the few early learning gains of institutionalized preschoolers fade out within the first few years of entering school.