Customer Reviews

Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children

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Hart and Risley have created an easy to read volume that speaks readily to parents, policy makers and educators. This book is a must for anyone who truly wants to understand the relationship between the way we interact with children and the evolution of their intellectual development. If you are interested in poverty prevention, early literacy intervention or the impact of family based literacy on childrens' academic success, you will be inspired by the work of Hart Risley.

This book is a contemporary classic. Published in 1995, in my opinion it remains one of the most important books ever published in the areas of developmental psychology, intelligence, and language development, and it has powerful implications for education.

Perhaps more than any other book, it undermines the nativist views of people like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker. Nativists argue that cognitive development is largely an automatic process, the result of in-born brain mechanisms; experience makes little difference. What Hart & Risley found was that experience makes a profound difference. Children whose parents provide a rich linguistic environment are far more advanced linguistically and intellectually when they start school, and do far better in school, than children whose parents do not.

The study compares professional, working class and welfare families, so some may assume that the results merely reflect differences in genes: Poor kids don't do so well because the genes they inherit are just not as good. There's no denying that genes play a role in development, but what Hart & Risley found was that the quality and quantity of linguistic interactions, not income, was what predicted outcome. The children who did best were those who heard the most words, were given the most feedback, got the most positive feedback, and got the most complete answers to their questions.

One reviewer, a librarian, complains that the book's language is scholarly and jargony. It's true that this book does not read like a John Updike novel. It is, after all, the description and analysis of a scientific study. But as scholarly books go, this one is a breeze.

I believe most undergraduates majoring in psychology, early childhood development, and elementary education could read this book without difficulty and would find it interesting and useful. Many parents with a high school education would profit from the book. When this book first appeared I reviewed it in Psychology Today magazine and in Phi Delta Kappan. I should also have reviewed it on Amazon.com. I don't think I've reviewed any other book in three places, but this one deserves it. After all, it's a classic.

This book is one of the by-products of one of the most dedicated efforts to understand variances in the development of language. One of the reviewers of the book states that the work "...is a detective story of the most serious academic kind." Yet the book is written in a manner that would allow it to be required reading for "Parenting 102" if not "Parenting 101". The implications for parenting and public policy are profound

Here's some not-so-new news: Poor and rich families talk to their kids differently which may result in why the later group does better academically than the former.

Hart and Risley's book thoroughly investigates what is said in poverty, low SES, professional, and elite families over 10 years (both data compilation and analysis). Most interestingly is the nature of the TYPES of utterances said. The prevalence of directive (i.e. giving orders or chastizement over misbehaviors) dialogue increases as the SES of a family decreases. On the other hand, the prevalence of conversational (i.e. exploration, discussing about things, and problem solving dialogue) talk increases as the SES increases and decreases as SES decreases.

As an early childhood professional, I think it speaks volumes to experts in emergent literacy and parent education. Parents MUST talk to their children as intelligent adults would talk to them--not as babies or in a condescending way--if they are to promote optimal language, literacy, and communication proficiency for later life.

I bought this book by mistake, as it was removed from the required textbook list for a class I registered for. In spite of not being needed for the class, I still read it. I enjoyed the level of detail and the identification of control measures for minimizing observer bias. The research and conclusions are very helpful to anyone who works in the early childhood development arena.

Both authors, heroes of mine, deserved and got accolades for this work. I give it to every relative and friend who has a new baby, as I think that every parent should understand the development of their babies' brains. This is well written and is a must read for anyone in human services.

This is an academic study, presented in a scholarly manner. While it is very good, it will only hold the interest of those who want to read scholarly jargon.