17,000 Words Daily

On "Good Morning America" today, there was a report about Lena (Language Environment Analysis), which was described on GMA as a "verbal pedometer." It collects data through a digital processor and can tell you at the end of the day how many words you spoke to your child, how many "vocalizations" your child made in response, the percentile rank of those counts, and other bits of analysis. The creators of this gizmo is banking on the 1995 study that reported how well a child does in school is directly related to how much the parents talked to him or her before the age of three. GMA continues with this staggering information: Research indicates that children ought to hear 25 million words in their first four years of life, or about 17,000 words per day.

The elephant is holding the digital processor.


At about $400, this verbal pedometer won't be coming to my house. It's another "Parenting, Inc." trap. Do we really need to be told we're deficient because we haven't met the 17,000-word quota? I know the technology is not meant to be used in that way. For professionals, it helps gather valuable information about the human mind. But to suggest that the average family spend $400 on Lena is overkill.

I do believe language is important. It's been fascinating to observe my daughter's speech and mental development. One day, she can't say a word. The next day, she can. This week, she is speaking in phrases, which she wasn't doing last week. What's even more interesting is how her immersion in a bilingual home (trilingual, if you count my reading her "Tintin" in French) has provided her a broader spectrum of expression.

For example, she can say "xie xie" in Mandarin, but she can't say "thank you." If I tell her, "Say thank you." She understands and will say "xie xie," because she has the "sh" sound but not the "th" sound. In Mandarin, "kai" means "turn on." Meilee can say "kai" -- and she does so every time she sees a light switch -- but can't say "turn on." She hasn't been able to say "I love you," or some derivative, in either Mandarin or English. But she can say "amo" -- as in te amo, or I love you in Spanish. (I don't speak Spanish, but if you know one Romance language, you can figure out the basics of another.)

To be honest, some days I'm so tired I barely have the energy to talk much less be a conscientious parental speaker who narrates every action. But I gave myself permission not to stress out about it. We all know children are sponges and they absorb way more information than we realize. (My one regret is that Meilee picked up a certain four-letter "s" word.) I have been singing her the alphabet song for months and getting no response. Today, out of the blue, she started calling out letters. I instantly jumped out of my chair, got on the floor with her and pointed out on her alphabet floor mat each of the letters she was saying.

Amazing.

Meilee recently started Sponge School. Her dad takes her every Sunday. It's a bonding experience and a way for Dad to learn some Chinese so he's not left in the dust. The Sponge School offers classes in Mandarin, Japanese, French and Spanish for children 0-5 years old. Watch this piece from "Evening Magazine," which airs on the NBC affiliate in Seattle. And it just so happens that my husband was the producer of the segment.

Here's what I know: When I was the food editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I would receive calls from desperate readers who had lost a recipe and needed the exact proportions in order to prepare what inevitably was a family favorite. What I never understood was why, if this recipe had been prepared so many times that it was a family favorite, the person had not internalized the method and proportions for the dish. Recipes, it turns out, are like speed dial: If you have speed dial, why bother remembering the number. Recipes render us incapable of cooking. We are a land of recipe followers.

I feel that if we count our words, we'll be on speed-dial mode and forget how to have a genuine conversation with our children.


Topics: Family Life , Activities , Language , In the Media