MPs back singing and smiling lessons for parents of newborns The call comes in a report by the All party Parliamentary Sure Start Group chaired by Andrea Leadsom, the leading Tory MP, which calls for services such as community midwives, health visitors and children's centres to be made to work more closely together. It also draws attention to a string of reports showing that children whose parents do not interact with them and exposed to language are less likely to succeed in life. One recent study estimated that children from the poorest households have heard 23 million fewer words by the time they start school than those from the wealthiest homes. "Despite considerable investment in early education and early childhood services there is still a shocking and unacceptable gap between the poorest children and their better off peers when they reach school age," the report says. It calls for all children's centres - the council run advice and support centres for parents - to be required to offer activities, already in place in some areas, to boost children's early brain development. The report recommends making "singing and story sessions" universally available and including training on how to speak to children in "affectionate tones" to be made a core part of all antenatal classes. "They should help parents overcome any sense of shyness or embarrassment about doing so, particularly in public," the report adds. Dads should be encouraged to take up an active role in their baby or child's life, particularly in communicating with them. Anne Longfield, chief executive of the charity 4Children, which supports the report, said: "It sounds very basic but we know that the failure to bond with your baby and develop attachment and indeed, as time goes on, develop communication skills are absolutely are the epicentre of the ability to succeed in life. We know that communication skills and language skills are the things that hold most people back later on.