@osol: "Increasing the knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age 6 is the single highest correlate with later success."https://twitter.com/osol/status/255925136400719873
Guessing still no twitter cards in blogger?
Oh well, is is a quotes from NYT - in a piece on the challenges of teaching, and it links onwards to a review by E. D. Hirsch of the book "How Children Succeed" (kindle) which is still creeping up towards the top of my 'soon to read' wishlist in Amazon.
But the point is well made, building both vocabulary, reading skills - and interests at an early age is seen as a boost up, starting the "race" already at speed rather than from a standstill.
Looking at the "most sold" lists in the iPad Appstore I wonder how this will play out over the next years.
The top ten paid apps are more and more often keyed towards kids edutainment and learning. Estimates put the number of tablets sold in Norway last year at around 500k - that is one for every four households. And expected growth of 50% in 2013, so an additional 750k.
Does that mean that "everybody" is getting a tablet, or that some households have two or more? Most likely the latter. And add in willingness to pay for apps, and the time to use them with the kids, and we are talking about a possible gap of basic skills going into the first year at school. This is the digital divide. Or?
Sidenote;
Considering how much effort Amazon is apparently putting into "big data" and predictions, i'm amazed at how little weight the wish list feature is given. I buy probably around 70% of my reading from there, with direct purchases, mainly from social media recommendations or posts, making up ~25% and "samples as reminders" the last 5%. But when I browse around it is mostly my recent history or similar purchases that get pushed. And the oh so cute "get yourself a little something". But where is the "hey, looking at this book and planning to read that book? Then you should really check out..."?
