Veronica McClendon is a mom of a 4-year-old girl and a newborn.
"She will be three months in June," McClendon said.
However, she is not new to sharing the love of reading with her young children.
"We've been reading to my daughter, my older daughter, since she was born. When she was one, we had everyone bring books to her party instead of toys," McClendon said.
Now, Middle Georgia Regional Libraries are offering a tool that makes every one of those words count through the Starling.
The Starling is a small, wearable device that parents can attach to their clothes and hook up to the Starling app.
The app monitors how many words parents say to their infants or toddlers daily, and can even decipher between direct conversations and background noise.
McClendon says she thinks the device is a neat concept.
"We talk all the time, she hears lots of words, but it would be cool to see how many she hears," she said.
Jeanne Peloquin, the marketing director for Middle Georgia Regional Libraries, says these words have a larger benefit than the number the Starling tracks.
"Research for over 30 years has shown the more words a child hears before age five, the more successful they're going to be in life," said Peloquin.
McClendon says her family has no plans to stop reading anytime soon.
"We don't even think about if we love books, we just do," she said.
The Starling devices can be checked out at any Middle Georgia Regional Library location for one week at a time.
All you need is a library card, which is free with an I.D. if you don't currently have one.
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