Toddler speak 'key to school success'

Children who struggle to speak at the age of two are less likely to do well when they start primary school, research suggests.

It also found that children who own more books and are taken to the library as toddlers are more likely to achieve higher scores when they start school.

The study, by researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol University, Sheffield University and Edinburgh University, looked at how the environment in which a child learns to communicate affects how ready they are for school.

The findings show that children’s understanding and use of words, and their ability to say two or three word sentences by the age of two was strongly associated with their performance when they started school.

“Language development at the age of two years predicts children’s performance on entry to primary school,” the study says.

It also found that the activities and interaction a mother has with her child in the first two years of the youngster’s life was an important factor in how they performed at the age of five.

“Influential factors in the child’s communication environment included the early ownership of books, trips to the library, attendance at pre-school, parents teaching a range of activities and the number of toys and books available.

“So, for example, those children who owned more books and were taken to the library more frequently at age two achieved higher scores on the school assessment when entering primary school.”

But the more time a child spent watching television, the more their scores when they started school dropped, it adds.

Professor Sue Roulstone, of the University of the West of England, said: “These findings are an encouragement to all parents to provide a positive communication environment for their child from the very start of their lives.

“The project did identify particular aspects of the communication environment, like having children’s books around and not having the television on too much.

“But the main message is that, as parents, we can have an impact on how our children learn to talk by providing a range of communication experiences.

“And the better our children are at talking by the age of two years, the better they will do when they start school.”

The research was based on data collected on more than 9,000 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.