ABSTRACT
Parents are children’s first teachers, and the home environment is children’s first classroom. Before children begin formal schooling, they spend most of their waking hours at home, in unstructured interactions with parents. A substantial portion of children’s “everyday lessons” revolves around learning how to use language to communicate with other people and learning what can be done with the objects around them. Children’s everyday practice with words and objects makes the first years of life a time of astounding growth in language and play skills—two major hallmarks of early development.
