Method
Words that come back
Short audio stories reuse a vocabulary curriculum, so words return at spaced intervals and in context, inside stories rather than drills.
The science behind RootED
Backed by research, built by parents
Research across several decades points to the same ideas about how children learn language. Here is how we turned them into stories.
Research brief · October 2026
What research found, and what RootED does about it
Studies cited below show associations. They do not promise outcomes for any one child.
Key takeaways
Children learn the language they hear most.
Toddlers’ proficiency in each language tracks how much of it they hear. More minutes of the home language in the day is the lever.
Two languages do not confuse children.
Hearing two languages adds one alongside the other. Stories in your language sit beside English, not instead of it.
The home language fades by the third generation unless something holds it.
English tends to become the main home language by the grandchildren’s generation. Daily listening keeps your language in the mix before that shift.
Finding 1 · Trust
Children learn the language they hear most.
RootED: short stories that fit the time you already have.
Place & Hoff (2011), Child Development
Finding 2 · Trust
Two languages don’t confuse children.
RootED: your language alongside English, not instead of it.
Hoff et al. (2012), Journal of Child Language
Finding 3 · Identity
Heritage language goes with closer families and stronger identity.
RootED: stories built around your family’s own people and traditions.
Tseng & Fuligni (2000); Oh & Fuligni (2010)
Finding 4 · Identity
By the third generation, English usually takes over at home.
RootED: daily listening, before that shift happens.
Alba, Logan, Lutz & Stults (2002), Demography
Finding 5 · Connection
Lose the language, and families lose things to talk about.
RootED: every story ends with something to ask on the next call.
Wong Fillmore (1991), Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Our method
Two ways we look after every story
People
Checked by a person
A native speaker checks the language and the cultural details before your child hears them.