VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Teresa Hunter didn't know what kind of conversation she was supposed to have with her 2-month-old.

The Virginia Beach parenting class she joined told her to talk and read to her baby. But the infant wasn't going to understand why the wild things are where they are, or how Charlie got to the chocolate factory.

"At first it was weird," she said with a laugh.

But a growing body of research about early childhood education and cognitive development suggests that chatting with children, particularly from birth to age 3, is crucial. That thinking is at the heart of the prog...