How do children learn language?
One of the best ways to predict a child's success and ability to learn and read in school is their vocabulary size when they enter kindergarten. It is incredibly important for the language learning that parents talk to their young children. "The key to early learning is [...] a child’s exposure to language spoken by parents and caretakers from birth to age 3, the more the better." (NYTimes)
The way that babies learn how to speak is by imitating language that they hear and that is spoken to them. But TV and media is not a substitution for a real human!
"Educational" TV?
Recent research has shown that infants that watch "educational" baby DVDs and shows may learn fewer words than other children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently stated that there is no such thing as "educational TV" for children under 2. They have a huge battle to fight in America on that front though, as "90% of parents reported that their children under 2 watch some TV. And more than half of parents said they think educational television programming is important for their young child." (IT's NOT!!)
