Forty to fifty percent of Vermont’s children are not ready for kindergarten. Why are so many of our kids unprepared for school?
Science points to the earliest years. Modern research tells us that the most critical time for a child’s development is the first five years. Eighty percent of the brain develops by age three, and ninety percent by age five. Seven hundred to one thousand new brain connections are created every second, forming a mental foundation for more complex learning. The connections that are stimulated and used are strengthened, and those that are not used will be lost. Therefore, it’s important that children have quality experiences during the earliest years that stimulate their brain connections in a healthy way.
“Serve and return” interactions are an important element of healthy brain development. Scientists use this phrase to describe the back-and-forth interactions between an infant and an adult: the baby makes a bid for attention with a coo or gesture, and the adult returns it in a direct and meaningful way—perhaps with encouraging words or a smile. These simple interactions actually strengthen the connections in the growing brain. As Dr. Lewis First writes in his Let’s Grow Kids blog post on serve and return interactions, “[Such] interactions play the critical role of strengthening brain connections between all of the different areas of the baby’s brain—helping them develop the emotional and cognitive skills they need for life.”
