Babblebooks. A whole new chapter in children’s learning

Babblebooks. A whole new chapter in children’s learning

The story of babblebooks starts like many great stories begin... with the discovery of something completely unexpected. Emma Bolser, the creator of babblebooks is a mum who, like any other mum, wanted her young children to reach their full potential in life.

Checking out the many mum’s blogs online Emma came across an article in the New York Times about groundbreaking research developed in the United States. The research had proven that hearing lots and lots of words is crucial to a child’s early development, and that children who hear the most words by the age of 3 have the highest IQs

“This genuinely surprised me. I knew parents were meant to chat to their babies as much as possible, but I didn’t know that it was actually linked to intelligence later in life”, Emma says.”It struck me that if I didn’t know, other parents wouldn’t know either.” It seemed such an incredibly simple way to positively affect the lives of children, so she presumed there would be a multitude of books available which helped broaden the words a baby hears.

Initially she looked for any suitable books available on the market but there was nothing on the shelves of her local book shops or in the library that didn’ t contain all the normal everyday words. Undeterred, she decided that there was only one answer... create her own.

She set to work on babblebooks, a series of four enchanting board books for children from 0+.The books use more sophisticated words than you may come across during an ordinary day, and even though children won’t initially understand them, they will benefit from simply hearing them. Emma looks back on that day as one that changed her life, and the lives of her family.

“As a mum of two young children, I couldn’t believe what I’d read. This was information that every parent should know and I wanted to share the message with as many people as possible. Starting small with close friends and other mums from my coffee group, I developed the idea and the interest was unbelievable. From there I have begged and borrowed favours from some incredible people to develop a range of books that I’m really proud of – the feedback has been amazing and I’ve had so many messages of support for the work I’ve been doing.”

Emma is conscious that not all children’s life stories are happy ones. She decided from the very beginning that babblebooks would help rewrite the story of children who struggle to have even the basics of life: food, water, and shelter.

“I approached Unicef NZ very early on in the process, because I felt really strongly that I wanted to share the success of the books directly with kids who wouldn’t be likely to have parents who could afford to worry about later intelligence, as their current situations are so difficult. I was absolutely thrilled when Unicef NZ agreed to be involved”.

$1 from each book is donated to Unicef NZ in the work they do helping children globally, so that everyone who buys a book is helping someone else’s child, as well as their own.

Babblebooks are available from http://www.babblebooks.co.nz/

ENDS

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