Juditta Academy

Here’s how to navigate murky waters of parenting in the digital age Children are becoming tech-savvy at a tender age, posing a challenge to parents who cannot keep abreast and ensure their young ones are safe online.

Serving ‘hot air’ punishments: The making of poor parenting I am making less idle threats, and as a result, my children are becoming more obedient and are now quicker to listen.

When parenting styles clash
Whether you're right or wrong, call a cease-fire and find a way to build a united front for the kids’ sake.

The hidden benefits of reading aloud — even for older kids

It’s long established in science and research: the child who comes to school with a large vocabulary does better than the child who comes to school with little familiarity with words and a low vocabulary.

Why is that? If you think about it, in the early years of school, almost all instruction is oral. In kindergarten through second and third grades, kids aren’t reading yet, or are just starting, so it’s all about the teacher talking to the kids. This isn’t just true in reading but in all subjects; the teacher isn’t telling kids to open their textbooks and read chapter three. The teaching is oral and the kids with the largest vocabularies have an advantage because they understand most of what the teacher is saying. The kids with small vocabularies don’t get what is going on from the start, and they’re likely to fall further and further behind as time goes on.

How does a child develop a large vocabulary even before school starts? Children who are spoken to and read to most often are the ones with the largest vocabularies. If you think about it, you can’t get a word out of the child’s mouth unless he has heard it before. For example, the word “complicated.” A child isn’t going to say the word unless he has heard it before — and in fact to remember it, a child probably has to hear it multiple times. (That’s not true with swear words, of course. If a child hears his parent swear he’ll remember it the first time, and happily repeat it whenever he gets the chance.) But kids have to hear most words multiple times, so it’s important that their parents talk to and around them from the time they are very young, because that’s how they learn words.

Inside the preschooler's brain | Parenting What insights can neuroscience offer parents into a preschooler's brain? A lot — and it can really help.

Your elementary school child's life in the time of coronavirus Your elementary school child has an outsized enthusiasm. Here's how to help kids cope while school is closed.