Investment in early childhood education pays dividends over a child's lifetime. The Human brain develops most before the age 5 700 synapses (the neural connections that power the brain) develop every second! The First Five Years Fund aims to have every child hear 33 million words by age 3 (instead of 10 million, the average today). Given the right opportunities, by age 3 children will have greater cognitive development, larger vocabularies, and higher levels of social interaction. By 5, many job skills have already been established. Make them count!