How does the way we think about early years provision affect our understanding of children’s development?
Dr. Dan Wuori joins our line up of early years experts at our upcoming Early Words Matter Conference, on 19 March 2025. As an adviser to US policymakers on early years provision, Dr. Wuori's recommendations are both backed by science and hugely inspiring.
In this article, which is part of our new TeachBrief series, we’ll take a look at Dr. Wuori's new book, The Daycare Myth, and the opportunities it presents to empower and celebrate early years practice. The book addresses what Dr. Wuori refers to as a widespread misconception - that “(custodial) care is the sole purpose of [America’s] early childhood settings” – when in fact, it is but one of many.
At the end the article, find related resources to use in your practice.
To hear more from Dr. Wuori, along with our lineup of early years experts including Dr. Stella Louis, Jan Dubiel and Greg Bottrill, join us at Early Words Matter 2025.
Playing, connecting and learning are critical parts of children’s early experiences
Dr. Wuori asserts that a key issue with terms like “daycare” and “childcare” is that they: “centre the concept of care in ways that minimize both the life-altering [developmental] promise of these settings and the urgency of the public to act accordingly. In doing so, they advance a false narrative with vast consequences, both human and economic.”
On his social media channels, Dr. Wuori shares daily child development lessons, featuring video footage of infants and toddlers contributed by parents and carers from around the world. The parents and carers in these videos are reading, talking and playing with their babies, and the babies’ movements, sounds and facial expressions illustrate their focus, contentment, excitement, awe and curiosity (as well as at times frustration and impatience). This footage serves as an important part of Dr. Wuori’s driving message: playing, connecting and learning are critical parts of children’s early experiences. All children should be provided with the stimulation modelled in Wuori’s videos, including from those providing their care.
The home environment is just as crucial for children's development as the early years setting.
A child's earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances
Dr. Wuori’s central premise aligns with the National Literacy Trust’s work, which is underpinned by the belief that a child's earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances. Our Early Words Matter campaign is calling on local organisations, the business community, volunteers, community leaders and government to take practical action to empower families with more opportunities, practical programmes for families, and resources and training for the early years sector.
At our 2022 early years conference, Alison Fleetwood from Doncaster Council described their work on closing the word gap. Their granular, evidence-informed cross sector work focused on quality EY provision: the percentage of eligible two year olds accessing entitlement to free nursery places was 80% compared to 62% nationally, and Family Hubs endeavoured to register babies within the first 8 weeks of their life. There were also Integrated Progress Checks to identify the child’s progress, strengths and needs in order to promote positive outcomes in health, wellbeing, learning and behaviour, and facilitate appropriate early intervention and support. As a result, the proportion of Doncaster’s young people reaching a Good Level of Development at Early Years Foundation Stage was above the national average. This work demonstrates that when parents, local authorities and charities work together, the care of children can be optimised to benefit learning and language development.
Our responsibility to provide babies with wholistic care
In The Daycare Myth, Dr. Wuori points out that “babies are born with an estimated 100 billion neural cells – nearly all they will ever have – but with limited connections between them (Ackerman, 1992)”, and that “the strength of our neural connections is highly dependent on our early experiences, and in particular the quality of our interactions with stable, nurturing adults, both inside and outside the home.”
As adults, it is our joint responsibility to ensure that the “care” of children involves more than satisfying their basic need for food, sanitation and affection, but also accommodates their considerable appetite for stimulation, learning and discovery.
We want to hear from you too
There is much to discuss and unpack on this topic. We hope you will join our conversation about how we can work towards excellent provision for all in this vital and exciting stage of a child’s life. Secure your ticket for Early Words Matter conference now and be part of the conversation.
Related resources for practitioners
Five top tips for supporting communication in under twos
Parents as partners: How to get families reading together in the early years