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Why is it important to read to your child.

The benefits go far beyond literacy

Writer: Hannah Sheldon-Dean

Clinical Expert: Laura Phillips, PsyD, ABPdN

What You'll Learn

• How does reading to kids build their language skills?
• What other benefits does reading to your child have?
• Does it matter what you read to your child?

Parents hear all the time that it’s important to read to kids. But why exactly is that? The benefits of reading together go far beyond learning to read.

Reading to young children is an important way to help them build language skills. It exposes them to new words and ways of using language. It also helps them learn general information about the world, which makes it easier for them to learn about new subjects once they get to school.

Books also help children build empathy and learn how to handle challenging feelings. Parents can use reading time as a chance to talk about emotions and how to cope with them. For example, you might say: “Have you ever felt as angry as the girl in this book? What would you do if you did?”

Even a few minutes of reading together gives you and your child a chance to slow down and connect with each other. And the sensory experience of sitting with you and hearing your voice also engages their brain in a way that makes learning easier.

There’s no one right way to read to your child. You can read to them in any language, or multiple languages. You can do it at the same time every day or change up the routine. Your child doesn’t even need to be sitting with you — just sitting nearby with a book while they play can be a way to connect.

The important thing is for your child to hear words and language and to have books be part of their daily life. Any steps you’re able to take can make a big difference.

Parents hear it all the time: it’s important to read to your kids. But why exactly is that? And does it matter how — or when, or what — you read to them?

It makes sense that being read to would help kids learn to read themselves, and it’s true that being read to supports that crucial learning process. But the benefits of reading together — for kids and for parents — go far beyond literacy.

Language development

From birth, babies are hardwired to develop language skills, and consistent exposure to a wide variety of language patterns is what helps them do exactly that. “Just exposure to words is the single most important thing that you can do to help build the language pathways in your child’s brain,” says Laura Phillips, PsyD, the senior director of the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute. “Reading and exposure to words helps kids maximize their language and cognitive capacity.” Even the tactile experience of holding or touching a book supports babies’ cognitive development.

By reading to your child starting at a young age, even before they’re able to communicate verbally, you help lay the neurological groundwork for effective language use and literacy. That’s partly because books expose children to vocabulary and grammar that they wouldn’t normally hear. “When kids are with caregivers or parents, they’re exposed to the same language, the same vocabulary words, the same patterns of speaking, which is wonderful,” says Dr. Phillips. “But books allow them to hear new vocabulary and new ways of putting words together, which expands their ability to make sense of and use language.”

Research has found that young children whose parents read to them daily have been exposed to at least 290,000 more words by the time they enter kindergarten than kids who aren’t read to regularly. And depending on how much daily reading time kids get, that number can go up to over a million words. All that exposure likely makes it easier for kids to expand their vocabularies and understand the variety of texts they’ll need to read as they get older, both inside school and out.

Dr. Phillips notes that reading also helps kids build a wide base of background knowledge, which is especially helpful once they start school. Kids learn some of this from the books themselves, and some from talking with their caregivers during reading time (“We saw some of these animals at the zoo, remember?”). With more general knowledge — whether it’s about geography, transportation, nature, or countless other topics — kids have more context for the information they encounter at school and an easier time learning about new topics.

Empathy and emotional awareness

Aside from language and literacy, reading is also an important tool for helping children develop empathy. As kids read books about people whose lives are different from their own (and especially stories told from the perspectives of those people), they gain an appreciation for other people’s feelings, as well as other cultures, lifestyles, and perspectives.

Books can also help kids learn how to handle their own feelings in healthy ways. Seeing characters in books experience big emotions like anger or sadness lets kids know that these feelings are normal — and gives them a chance to talk about their own difficult feelings, too.

Parents can use reading time as an opportunity to foster kids’ emotional awareness and build their toolkits for handling feelings: “Have you ever felt as angry as the girl in this book? What would you do if you did?”

The parent-child bond

Having time to read with a parent or caregiver isn’t just about the activity of reading. It’s about having consistent, focused time together, without other distractions or demands. Even a few minutes of reading together gives both you and your child a chance to slow down, connect with each other, and share an enjoyable activity.

What’s more, that cozy time together has benefits for kids’ cognitive development, especially when they’re younger. The sensory experiences of sitting with a caregiver, hearing that familiar voice, and feeling a book in their hands are all important for kids’ brain development. “Hearing a book read over Alexa just isn’t going to give kids the same holistic benefit,” says Dr. Phillips.

When young children’s language capacities are developing, being exposed to words and language at the same time as those meaningful sensory experiences makes that exposure even more valuable. “The physical contact that you get from being held by your parent while you’re reading actually helps to engage neurons in the brain, which make kids more receptive to the language and the cognitive stimulation that they’re getting from that experience,” Dr. Phillips says.

What to read

Dr. Phillips notes that while being read to is beneficial for kids of all ages, the benefits are somewhat different depending on the child’s developmental stage.

“When you have a newborn, read whatever it is that you want to read, even if that’s the New York Times ,” she says. “It’s just about having them hear words and sentences and language.”

As kids get older, content starts to matter more. “Reading books with relatable themes can lead to meaningful conversations about what’s happening in their lives,” Dr. Phillips notes. “The book can be a bridge to discussing something that a child might be experiencing themselves, and give you a way to broach a topic without saying, for example, ‘Are you being bullied at school?’”

Of course, reading whatever your child enjoys is just about always a good idea. When kids get the chance to follow their own interests, they internalize that reading is fun and rewarding, and they’re more likely to pursue reading on their own.

This applies even for young kids who want to read the same book on repeat. “It’s very common for toddlers and preschoolers to want to read the same book over and over again,” Dr. Phillips notes. “And that repetition is actually part of how they master language.”

And there’s no reason to stop reading to kids once they’re able to read themselves. Kids often enjoy hearing books a bit above their ability level, for example hearing chapter books when they’re still reading picture books on their own. Reading together through elementary school supports their developing literacy and gives you both a chance to stay connected as they grow more independent.

Any and all languages

Dr. Phillips emphasizes that all of these same benefits apply no matter what language (or languages) you’re reading to your child in. “Sometimes families who speak other languages at home are concerned their child won’t become proficient in English if they read to them in another language,” she says, “but I encourage parents to read to kids in whatever language they feel most comfortable reading in.”

While the vocabulary and background knowledge they learn might vary, any cognitive benefits the child gains in one language will apply to any other languages they speak or read as well.

E-books vs. print

Lots of kids’ books are available as e-books, but it’s not clear whether reading together with an e-book has all the same benefits as a physical print book. Some research indicates that parents and kids may interact more meaningfully when reading print books compared to e-books. And some experts contend that it’s harder for kids to slow down and read attentively on a screen, since they (and their parents!) are used to scrolling through digital material quickly.

That said, there’s no reason to swear off e-books entirely, especially if they make it possible for your family to read together when you wouldn’t otherwise manage it. For example, if you’re traveling or otherwise have trouble accessing a variety of print books, e-books can make it much easier to find engaging new material to read together.

The important part is making reading time meaningful, no matter the medium. Taking your time, sitting together, and talking with your child about the book can help them (and you) get a lot of the same benefits that you would from reading a print book together.

Making it work for you

As important as reading together is, it doesn’t have to be a picture-perfect routine. Reading at the same time every day — as part of a bedtime routine, for example — can be comforting and make it easier to build the habit of reading, but anytime your child is hearing language and connecting with you makes a difference.

Dr. Phillips notes that kids’ development happens in fits and starts, so kids who are gaining a lot of motor skills quickly might not be excited to sit in your lap and read. When that’s the case, it’s more helpful to meet kids where they are rather than trying to enforce rules that could make reading a less positive experience.

“I have a nine-month-old now and she has zero interest in sitting still in my lap while I’m reading a book,” says Dr. Phillips. “But I’ll sit and look at a book myself and then she’ll come over and look with me. I can point to some words, say some words, maybe she’ll take the book from me or maybe she’ll wander away and I’ll keep reading while she’s playing in the same room. Whatever you can do is great.”

Frequently Asked Questions

The benefits of reading to children include helping them build language skills, learn about the world, and develop empathy and emotional awareness. Reading together also provides an opportunity for parents and children to connect.

The effects of reading on child development include cognitive and emotional benefits, such as helping children develop language skills and literacy, build empathy, and learn how to handle challenging feelings.

Parents should make it a habit to read to babies and young children because it helps lay the neurological groundwork for effective language use and literacy. The sensory experience of being read to is also important for brain development. Reading to children is beneficial even before they’re able to communicate verbally.

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• Dear Life Kit
• Life Skills

How reading aloud can help you bond with your kids and make them better readers

Diana Opong

Andee Tagle

We've all heard about the benefits of learning to read quietly and independently. A big part of learning at school is all about reading, but it's not always easy to find time for more reading at home.

Families have busy schedules filled with after-school activities and homework. Plus — let's be honest — with all the tech at kids' fingertips and school days already filled with required reading, it can be hard convincing kids that reading isn't a chore.

But Keisha Siriboe says there is a way, and it doesn't have to be independent or quiet! Her solution: reading aloud as a family.

Explore Life Kit

This story comes from Life Kit , NPR's family of podcasts to help make life better — covering everything from exercise to raising kids to making friends. For more, sign up for the newsletter , and follow @NPRLifeKit on Twitter .

Siriboe is a Baltimore-based early childhood literacy consultant with a Ph.D. in early childhood education. She has researched education strategies and student leadership development all over the world and says reading aloud can help people with stress management, hope and resilience.

Reading aloud is the best bang for your buck, Siriboe says, adding that she hasn't seen anything yet that gives a higher return on investment.

The emotional benefits of reading aloud

Reading with your child is a practice that creates space for deeper independent learning and exploring. It doesn't matter if it's a traditional book, graphic novel, non-fiction or historical fiction, it all counts. What matters most is taking the time to dive deeper.

How To Read More Books

Use reading aloud to start conversations that can help your child deal with the now of wherever we are in the world. It could lead to something you may not have expected. For example, when it comes to anxiety and worry, a caregiver could use a picture book that specifically deals with that topic and turn that into an opportunity for a child to share what worries they are carrying.

Reading aloud is one of the few spaces that checks all the boxes in terms of social, emotional and mental health. For Siriboe, the simple act of sharing your love of reading with your child is bigger than just literacy. It's another expression of love and a tool for helping kids navigate the world.

Talk, read, play and sing

There's more to reading with your kids than just the words on the page. Before you dive into reading, try talking with them about the story or topic. miniseries/Getty Images hide caption

There's more to reading with your kids than just the words on the page. Before you dive into reading, try talking with them about the story or topic.

Siriboe likes to break down the global possibilities of reading into four key components:

Talk. She says take a moment to talk about the subject matter of the book, comic or recipe with your kids. If the book you're going to read is about wellness or meditation, you may want to share some of your favorite breathing exercises or ask your kiddo what coping skills they may have learned at school.

The next component is to read . Start looking at the words, finding the characters, settings and storyline of the book. Explore how the characters in the story engage with each other and their environment.

How To Start A Book Club That Actually Meets

Then play. Perhaps you and your child want to role-play some scenarios of what the character is experiencing in the real world or explore what it would be like to live inside the character's world.

The last thing is to sing . Come up with your own song or use some online resources to find some silly songs that can help you bring a story to life. Siriboe emphasizes that this whole experience should be filled with joy and laughter.

The goal is to go past the idea of phonetics alone and really think about bonding with your child. That may mean the child gets to lead instead of the adult. At the end of the day, both the caregiver and child should hopefully be having fun.

The benefits of reading aloud for neurodiverse learners

It's important to remember that every child learns differently. Siriboe says parents may need to think outside the pages of a book to connect and help a neurodiverse child thrive. Allowing kids who learn differently opportunities to experience success within literacy can help build confidence and spark that fire for reading and storytelling.

In 'We're Not Broken,' Author Eric Garcia Takes On Myths About Autism

Every child needs to discover what they like and who they are in the world of a story. If you have a child who loves to paint, you can take them to the museum and have them write down the artists that mean the most to them. Siriboe says the next step is to go to a local library and find books about the art that inspires them and give them a chance to create their version of that art.

Helping kids who may not take to reading

Not everyone takes to reading right away, and many kids struggle. Siriboe says parents need to know that it is probably safe to assume that a kid who doesn't love reading has probably had a negative experience.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

The highs and lows of high school required reading.

During Banned Books Week, Readers Explore What It Means To Challenge Texts

The first thing parents can do is help their kiddo shift their perspective. She says helping kids move from a fixed mindset about what they think their reading ability is into a growth mindset is a good starting place.

Help reassure your kid that they may not be the great reader they aspire to be yet, but they absolutely can do this. One way to do this is to incorporate aural storytelling into the fold. Invite your child to create a story that you, the adult, are willing to write down or help them use a computer or smartphone app that can do it for them while they speak. Siriboe says this helps kids to form a bridge from the inconceivable to the I can do this!

Take the step to start

It's not about how well you read or even what you read. What Siriboe wants families everywhere to know is the act of starting to read aloud and making it part of your routine for 15 minutes a day is what matters most.

Listen to the audio version of this story at the top of this page for more tips from Keisha Siriboe and get insights into what she has learned in her research.

The audio portion of this episode was produced by Andee Tagle, with engineering support from Patrick Murray.

We'd love to hear from you. If you have a good life hack, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected]. Your tip could appear in an upcoming episode.

If you love Life Kit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter .

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Read It Again! Benefits of Reading to Young Children

In this brief, learn why story time is key to children’s development. Explore how home visitors can help families set aside more time to read books with their children. Find the most up-to-date information to answer three prompts: “What does research say?”; “What does it look like?”; and “Try this!” Also, find Connecting at Home, an accompanying resource that offers easy-to-try tips for families to help children experience book reading at home.

Download the PDF

Research Notes

Story time is important for brain development, even for babies who do not talk yet. When you read with children, they are connecting the words you say to the pictures on the page and to the things in their world. All of those connections are brain connections!

The Take Home

• Even before they can talk, children need to hear language to support brain development.
• Reading and telling stories with children is a great way to expose them to a rich variety of words.
• With language, both quantity and quality matter.

What Does Research Say?

• Infants pick up on language earlier than we realize. In fact, research shows that babies’ brains prepare to speak months before they say their first words. In order to complete this important brain preparation, children need to hear language.
• Books provide a great opportunity for back-and-forth interactions with older children. This supports word learning and preliteracy skills.
• The quantity of words that children hear is important for language development, but so is the quality of language that they hear. Quality of language can refer to word diversity and to the speech signal.
• It is important to use new and different words for children to expand their vocabulary. Books often include words that adults would not otherwise use, like names of plants or animals.
• Research shows that babies prefer infant-directed speech, or "parentese." The slow, exaggerated sing-song voice grabs babies’ attention and helps them identify individual sounds.

What Does It Look Like?

• Although some infants will listen to books, other infants want to turn pages and chew on corners. That’s okay! Any interaction that infants have with books is good. As they get older, the interactions will become more focused and intentional.
• Toddlers may like to hold the book and turn the pages. They may also like to help tell the story. Pause during stories that they have heard many times and let them fill in the missing words. Or ask them to tell you the whole story.
• Dialogic reading is a type of interactive reading. When adults ask children questions, explain new vocabulary, and relate the story to a child’s life, they are engaged in dialogic reading. This helps young children develop important preliteracy skills, like story understanding and critical thinking.
• You can use the words and pictures in the books you read to introduce new words and ideas to children. “This is a giraffe. Giraffes have spots and long necks. They like to eat leaves. Can a giraffe be a pet? No!” These interactions are important for growing children’s vocabulary.
• Make reading several times a day part of your routine. Children thrive in predictable environments. Daily reading time creates the consistency and sense of stability that children need. Reading the same books over and over also allows children to predict elements of the story and learn through repetition.
• Reflect on how you use books with children. How might you encourage parents to use books for more than stories?
• Reading is not the only way to use books to engage with children. Use the pictures in a book to tell your own story. Or encourage children to be the storyteller!
• Enjoy story time! Reading is a great time to interact with children. As you read together, make funny sounds or sing songs that go along with the story. During home visits, encourage parents to do the same. Adjust your interactions to match children’s age, ability, and interests. This is how children learn best.
• Reading to babies and young children in "parentese" makes it easier for them to learn a variety of new words. "Parentese" is linked to greater language growth in later childhood.
• Connect families to the local library or other ways to access books in your community. Bring books on home visits and model dialogic reading for families.
• Selecting and Using Culturally Appropriate Children's Books in Languages Other Than English
• Tips for Parents: Choosing Books for Infants and Toddlers
• Supporting Children's Early Brain Development
• Babbling Babies: Early Language Development

Connecting at Home

Reading with your child helps build language and thinking skills. Even before children can talk, story time helps build babies’ brains.

Enjoy Story Time Together

Make funny sounds or sing songs as you read or tell stories. Reading is a great time for back-and-forth interactions with your child. This is how children learn best.

Reading Daily

Pick a regular time to read to your child, like every morning or at bedtime. Routines help children thrive. They may even like to hear the same books over and over again.

Books Introduce New Words

Choose books in your home language that focus on different topics, like animals, noises, or shapes. This is a great way to expose children to a variety of words. Reading books with new words helps build your child’s vocabulary.

Create a Dialogue

Talk to your child about the pictures in the book. “See the duck? The duck is yellow! What else in this picture is yellow?” Storytelling can go beyond the words on the page. This helps children build language and thinking skills.

« Go to Connecting Research to Practice

Resource Type: Publication

National Centers: Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

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The Checkup

Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention

By Perri Klass, M.D.

• April 16, 2018

It’s a truism in child development that the very young learn through relationships and back-and-forth interactions, including the interactions that occur when parents read to their children. A new study provides evidence of just how sustained an impact reading and playing with young children can have, shaping their social and emotional development in ways that go far beyond helping them learn language and early literacy skills. The parent-child-book moment even has the potential to help curb problem behaviors like aggression, hyperactivity and difficulty with attention, a new study has found.

“We think of reading in lots of different ways, but I don’t know that we think of reading this way,” said Dr. Alan Mendelsohn, an associate professor of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine, who is the principal investigator of the study, “ Reading Aloud, Play and Social-Emotional Development ,” published in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers, many of whom are my friends and colleagues, showed that an intervention, based in pediatric primary care, to promote parents reading aloud and playing with their young children could have a sustained impact on children’s behavior. (I am among those the authors thanked in the study acknowledgments, and I should acknowledge in return that I am not only a fervent believer in the importance of reading aloud to young children, but also the national medical director of Reach Out and Read , a related intervention, which works through pediatric checkups to promote parents reading with young children.)

This study involved 675 families with children from birth to 5; it was a randomized trial in which 225 families received the intervention, called the Video Interaction Project , and the other families served as controls. The V.I.P. model was originally developed in 1998, and has been studied extensively by this research group.

Participating families received books and toys when they visited the pediatric clinic. They met briefly with a parenting coach working with the program to talk about their child’s development, what the parents had noticed, and what they might expect developmentally, and then they were videotaped playing and reading with their child for about five minutes (or a little longer in the part of the study which continued into the preschool years). Immediately after, they watched the videotape with the study interventionist, who helped point out the child’s responses.

“They get to see themselves on videotape and it can be very eye-opening how their child reacts to them when they do different things,” said Adriana Weisleder, one of the authors of the study, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. “We try to highlight the positive things in that interaction — maybe they feel a little silly, and then we show them on the tape how much their kid loves it when they do these things, how fun it is — it can be very motivating.”

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Read With a Child 20 Minutes Every Day™

Why Reading?

Early exposure to language is the greatest factor in language development and learning to read. By reading together every day, you stimulate and strengthen your child's language and literacy skills. It is that simple. By reading and talking with your child each day, you bond with them and model the love of reading, which will benefit them in school and throughout life.

Neuroscience provides compelling evidence that 85 - 90 percent of brain growth occurs in the first five years of life. This affects not only cognitive skills but also emotional development.

Fostering your child’s cognitive development is just as important as nurturing his or her emotional and physical development. Cognitive development includes language skills, information processing, reasoning, intelligence, and memory.

The best way an adult can help a child’s cognitive development is to read with them every day, beginning at birth. When children are young, they learn language from the speech they hear. By reading with a child, you introduce many more words than those used in day-to-day communication.

Reading Research

Reading builds brains, fostering early learning and creating connections in the brain that promote language, cognitive, and social and emotional development. 

By reading with your child, you also help cultivate a lasting love of reading. Reading for pleasure can help prevent conditions such as stress, depression and dementia. (University of Liverpool)

Decades of early literacy research, from Durkin (1966), Bus van Ijezendoorn, and Pellegrini (1995), to Neuman and Celano (2006), provide convincing evidence that the interactions young children enjoy at home with their caregivers, especially conversation and hearing stories read aloud specifically play a significant role in academic success and beyond. ( www.scholastic.com )

A data set analysis of nearly 100,000 U.S. school children found that  access to printed materials — and not poverty — is the “critical variable affecting reading acquisition. ” ( McQuillan, 1996 )  

MRI scans show increased brain activity in children whose parents read with them regularly. ( WebMD )

Reading From Birth

It is never too early to read with your child. From day one, your child is learning every waking moment. In the first three years of your child’s life, 700 new connections between cells in the brain are formed each second (Center on the Developing Child).   This is a rate faster than any other time in his or her life. You build your child's listening, memory, vocabulary skills, and more when you read together.  

Keep on Reading

While parents have a tendency to stop reading with their children once they read independently, these are the years to continue reading! As you read together, you bond with your child, and help build his or her vocabulary.

Engaging Reading

Reading with your children isn’t just about reading what’s written on the page. By using dramatic voices, pointing to different pictures on the page, and asking your child to predict what will happen next, you’re engaging them on many different levels.

Paper vs. Electronic

Neuroscience research shows that paper-based content is better connected to memory in our brains (Bangor University). So while electronics are becoming more and more prevalent in our day-to-day life, keep printed books the main form of reading in your home.

When reading an e-book, the moment that book becomes interactive, the part of the brain engaged in the activity changes and it no longer is an activity that builds literacy skills. There is no give and take here, electronics should be an enhancement and not a replacement. 

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The importance of reading to kids daily

New research shows the difference between reading to kids at home and not is more than a million words by kindergarten..

Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to, a new study found.

This “million word gap” could be one key in explaining differences in vocabulary and reading development, said  Jessica Logan , lead author of the study and assistant professor of  educational studies at The Ohio State University .

Even kids who are read only one book a day will hear about 290,000 more words by age 5 than those who don’t regularly read books with a parent or caregiver.

“Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school,” said Logan, a member of Ohio State’s  Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy .

“They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily.”

The study appears online in the  Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics  and will be published in a future print edition.

Logan said the idea for this research came from one of her earlier studies, which found that about one-fourth of children in a national sample were never read to and another fourth were seldom read to (once or twice weekly).

“The fact that we had so many parents who said they never or seldom read to their kids was pretty shocking to us. We wanted to figure out what that might mean for their kids,” Logan said.

The researchers collaborated with the  Columbus Metropolitan Library , which identified the 100 most circulated books for both board books (targeting infants and toddlers) and picture books (targeting preschoolers).

Logan and her colleagues randomly selected 30 books from both lists and counted how many words were in each book. They found that board books contained an average of 140 words, while picture books contained an average of 228 words.

With that information, the researchers calculated how many words a child would hear from birth through his or her 5th birthday at different levels of reading. They assumed that kids would be read board books through their 3rd birthday and picture books the next two years, and that every reading session (except for one category) would include one book.

They also assumed that parents who reported never reading to their kids actually read one book to their children every other month.

Based on these calculations, here’s how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old:

• Never read to, 4,662 words;
• 1-2 times per week, 63,570 words;
• 3-5 times per week, 169,520 words;
• daily, 296,660 words; and
• five books a day, 1,483,300 words.

“The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking,” Logan said.

Book recommendations from Education and Human Ecology

Patricia Scharer, professor emerita of reading and literacy, reviews children’s books and makes recommendations for parents to read with their children.

• 7 books for young readers on becoming me
• 14 children’s books that break down walls
• 7 books to help kids understand times of crisis
• 11 children's books about reading and writing

EHE experts have also devised questions to start discussions with children about the books you read together.

• Engage kids in reading

The word gap examined in this research isn’t the only type kids may face.

A controversial 1992 study suggested that children growing up in poverty hear about 30 million fewer words in conversation by age 3 than those from more privileged backgrounds. Other studies since then suggest this 30 million word gap may be much smaller or even non-existent, Logan said.

The vocabulary word gap in this study is different from the conversational word gap and may have different implications for children, she said.

“This isn’t about everyday communication. The words kids hear in books are going to be much more complex, difficult words than they hear just talking to their parents and others in the home,” she said.

For instance, a children’s book may be about penguins in Antarctica – introducing words and concepts that are unlikely to come up in everyday conversation.

“The words kids hear from books may have special importance in learning to read,” she said.

Logan said the million word gap found in this study is likely to be conservative. Parents will often talk about the book they’re reading with their children or add elements if they have read the story many times.

This “extra-textual” talk will reinforce new vocabulary words that kids are hearing and may introduce even more words.

The results of this study highlight the importance of reading to children.

“Exposure to vocabulary is good for all kids. Parents can get access to books that are appropriate for their children at the local library,” Logan said.

Logan’s co-authors on the study were Laura Justice, professor of educational studies and director of the Crane Center at Ohio State; Leydi Johana Chaparro-Moreno, graduate student in educational studies at Ohio State; and Melike Yumuş of Başkent University in Turkey.

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Parents’ early book reading to children: Relation to children’s later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input

Ö. ece demir-lira.

University of Chicago

Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa.

Lauren R. Applebaum

Museum of Science and Industry Chicago.

Susan Goldin-Meadow

Susan c. levine, associated data.

It is widely believed that reading to preschool children promotes their language and literacy skills. Yet, whether early parent-child book reading is an index of generally rich linguistic input or a unique predictor of later outcomes remains unclear. To address this question, we asked whether naturally occurring parent-child book reading interactions between 1 and 2.5 years-of-age predict elementary school language and literacy outcomes, controlling for the quantity of other talk parents provide their children, family socioeconomic status, and children’s own early language skill. We find that the quantity of parent-child book reading interactions predicts children’s later receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read (but not decoding, external motivation to read, or math skill), controlling for these other factors. Importantly, we also find that parent language that occurs during book reading interactions is more sophisticated than parent language outside book reading interactions in terms of vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity.

Researchers, practitioners and parents agree that parent-child shared book reading provides an important foundation for children’s later language and literacy outcomes (e.g., Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995 ; Debaryshe, 2008 ; Mol & Bus, 2011 ; Payne, Whitehurst, & Angell, 1994 ; Sénéchal & Lefevre, 2002 ; Sénéchal, Lefevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998 ). For example, a meta-analysis by Bus, van IJzendoorn and Pellegrini (1995) reported an overall effect size of d=0.59 (a medium sized effect) for the relation between early book reading and later oral language and reading measures.

Surprisingly, however, important questions remain regarding the magnitude of this relation and its specificity. In terms of magnitude, another meta-analysis by Scarborough and Dobrich (1994) reported that only 8% of the variation in a general measure of early literacy-related skills and early reading is accounted for by early book reading interactions. Moreover, when other factors, such as SES, were taken into account, the predictive power of book reading disappeared. In terms of specificity, it is not known whether early book reading is a marker of higher socioeconomic status, rich language input in general, or a unique predictor of later language and literacy outcomes. Prior studies that have reported positive effects of early book reading have primarily relied on parent questionnaires that ask about frequency of book reading ( Payne, Whitehurst & Angell, 1994 ; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002 ) or on observations of parent-child book reading interactions around books provided by researchers in laboratory studies (e.g. Bus, Leseman, & Keultjes, 2000 ; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991 ). Thus, these studies did not control for SES or the language parents provide to children outside of the book reading context, even though we know that parent SES and early language input more generally are strong predictors of children’s later language and literacy skills (e.g. Hart & Risley, 1995 ; Hoff, 2003 ). Moreover, the book reading episodes elicited by the books that were provided to parents may not have reflected those that actually occur in the home environment. In the current study, when examining relations between parental input around books and children’s outcomes, we control for parent socioeconomic status as well as parent input outside of book reading interactions. Further, we base our analyses on our coding of book and non-book interactions that occur naturalistically in the early home environment.

We first ask whether parent language in the context of book reading when children are 1 to 2.5 years of age predicts children’s later language and literacy outcomes, controlling for parent language input outside of the book reading context as well as children’s early language skills and parent socioeconomic background. To address this question, we videotaped naturally occurring parent-child interactions in the home, which captured language within and outside of book reading contexts. This approach contrasts with existing questionnaire and laboratory studies examining the relation of book reading to later child outcomes (e.g. Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991 ; Payne, Whitehurst & Angell, 1994 ; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002 ). Laboratory studies might not be valid reflections of the nature of parent-child book reading interactions because of demand characteristics on the parent, and because they do not capture the frequency of these interactions in the home (e.g. Hindman, Connor, Jewkes, & Morrison, 2008 ). Questionnaires might also fail to accurately capture this information, again because of demand characteristics on the parent and also limitations of parent memory. Moreover, no questionnaire or laboratory study examining parent-child book reading interactions has also captured non-book reading language interactions in the same parent-child dyads, which constitutes, by far, the majority of the language children receive from their parents.

Second, we consider the possibility that early book reading is more important for certain language and literacy outcomes than for others. Notably, early book reading may predict later oral language skills and reading comprehension, but not reading decoding skills simply because book reading interactions rarely include explicit instruction that would aid decoding ( de Jong & Leseman, 2001 ; Evans, Williamson, & Pursoo, 2008 ; Robins & Treiman, 2009 ). Indeed, although the benefit of early parent-child book reading for children’s vocabulary is consistently-reported ( Biemiller & Boote, 2006 ; Dickinson & Smith, 1994 ; Hassinger-Das, Ridge, Parker, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, & Dickinson, 2016 ), existing research is inconsistent with respect to question of whether early parent-child book reading predicts later reading decoding skill ( de Jong & Leseman, 2001 ; Sénéchal et al., 1998 ; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002 ). Intervention studies also support a stronger relation between book reading and children’s vocabulary than between book reading and emergent literacy skills, such as phonological or print awareness skills ( Lefebvre, Trudeau & Sutton, 2011 ; Toub et al., 2018 ; Wasik, Hindman, & Snell, 2016 ). Moreover, existing studies tend to focus on earlier grades, typically second grade or earlier, when reading decoding and reading comprehension might be difficult to differentiate ( Gough, Hoover, & Peterson, 1996 ; Sénéchal et al., 1998 ). Thus, it is possible that early parent-child book reading interactions will predict later reading comprehension more strongly than reading decoding if reading decoding and comprehension are assessed later during the elementary school years. In addition, because existing studies have not relied on naturalistic parent-child reading interactions, we know little about whether the ways in which parents read books to their young children differ, and whether these variations make a difference in terms of predicting later language and reading outcomes for the child. Here we explore this question about the quality of book reading interactions by coding the kinds of linguistic input parents provide in the book reading context, noting whether the parent reads the text, labels or describes the pictures in the book, and/or extends the topic of the book.

Third, in addition to assessing whether early parent-child book reading interactions predict children’s later language and reading skills, we examine whether early book reading interactions predict the child’s later motivation to read and perception of their reading competence. Intrinsic motivation is present when individuals engage in an activity for its own sake, whereas extrinsic motivation is present when individuals engage in an activity to obtain an external reward such as a good grade or praise ( Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997 ). Concurrent relations between parent-child book reading and children’s interest in books have been reported ( Morrow, 1983 ). However, no existing studies, to our knowledge, have asked whether children’s early positive interactions with their parents around books also influence how enjoyable children find reading later on. Reading motivation is an important variable in that it has cascading effects on children’s own reading frequency, which in turn influence children’s later reading and language outcomes ( Baker, Scher, & Mackler, 1997 ; Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997 ).

Finally, we examine whether parent language during book reading, on average, contains greater vocabulary diversity and/or syntactic complexity than parent language to children outside of the book reading context. This possibility is supported by a recent corpus analysis suggesting that the language in popular children’s books is richer than the language parents provide during naturalistic interactions that are part of the CHILDES database ( Montag, Jones, & Smith, 2015 ). Similarly, prior studies showed that, when asked to interact with their children in different contexts, parents produce richer language (longer sentences and more diverse and sophisticated vocabulary) around books than at meal time or while dressing ( Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991 ; Weizman and Snow, 2001 ). However, these studies did not examine naturalistic parent-child book reading interactions, and thus do not provide direct information about whether the language that naturally occurs during book reading is more complex than the language that occurs outside of the context of book reading. Moreover, these studies did not examine the relation between language provided in and outside of the context of book reading and child language and literacy outcomes. Here, we compare: (1) the language parents provide children during naturalistic book reading interactions that is present in the texts of the books; (2) the language parents provide children during naturalistic book reading interactions that does not appear in the texts; and (3) the language parents provide children in non-book reading contexts.

In sum, we ask three main questions: (1) How does the quantity of parent language during book reading relate to children’s later language and literacy outcomes, controlling for the quantity of parent language outside of the book reading context and family SES. Further, we control for the quantity of child language during book reading interactions and children’s early language skills as assessed by a standardized measure. We hypothesize that quantity of parent language during book reading will predict children’s language and literacy outcomes, controlling for these variables. (2) Does the relation of quantity of parent language during book reading differentially predict children’s language and literacy outcomes? We predict that by 4 th grade, the relation of early book reading to skills that require language comprehension will be stronger than the relation of early book reading to skills that tap reading decoding (3) Is the linguistic complexity of parent language during book reading interactions higher than that during non-book reading interactions? Based on the prior literature ( Montag et al., 2015 ), we hypothesize that this will be the case for vocabulary diversity and for the first time ask whether this is also the case for syntactic complexity. We also compare the linguistic complexity of the parent language during book reading and during non-book reading with the linguistic complexity of the written text of the book.

Participants

Fifty-five parent-child dyads (25 of the children were girls) participated in the current study, which is part of a larger longitudinal study on language development 1 ( Goldin-Meadow, Levine, Hedges, Huttenlocher, Raudenbush & Small, 2014 ). Forty-nine of the primary caregivers were mothers, 1 was a father, and the remaining 4 families shared caregiver responsibility between parents (1 family did not provide primary caregiver information). Families were recruited through direct mailing sent to approximately 5,000 families living in targeted zip codes and advertisements placed in a free, monthly parent magazine. Parents were then interviewed to obtain information on their demographic characteristics. Families were recruited until a sample of 65 families that was representative (based on race/ethnicity and income) of the greater Chicago area, as reported in the 2000 US census was created. One exception was that only families where English was the primary language spoken in the home were included. Caregivers provided race and ethnicity information. They reported that 39 children were White, 10 were African-American, and 5 were of mixed race (1 family did not respond). Additionally, 6 of these children were reported to be Hispanic. Parent education was coded on an ordinal scale (10 = less than high school degree, 12 = high school degree, 14 = some college or associates degree, 16 = college degree, 18 = more than college). In this sample, average parent education was 15.9 years ( SD = 2.04, Median = 16 years, Range = 10 – 18 years) and average family income was $61,636 ( SD = $31,177, Median = $62,500. Range = $7,500 – $100,000). Because income and education were significantly correlated, r s = .44, p < .001, we combined the two measures into a composite score of socioeconomic status (SES) using Principal Components Analysis (PCA). The first principal component weighted education and income positively and equally. This component accounted for approximately 71 percent of the original variance in income and education.

The data coded for this study are part of a larger longitudinal study examining the relation of parent input to children’s language development. We coded videotapes of parents interacting with their children for approximately 90-minutes during home visits that occurred every 4 months between child ages 14 to 58 months of age. For the purposes of this study, we transcribed four visits (at child ages 14, 18, 26 and 30 months). Parents were asked to go about their normal activities during the visits. The activities we observed frequently included toy play, book reading, and eating meals and snacks. For the current study, outcome measures came from measures administered during visits that occurred when children were in 2 nd through 4 th grade. All of these measures are described below.

Parent measures

Socioeconomic status (ses)..

As described above, SES of each family was indexed by a composite factor score that combines parental education and income information.

Parent book and non-book reading utterances (child ages 14 to 30 months).

All parent and child language from four videotaped home visits was transcribed, and all utterances that occurred within and outside of the book reading context were coded for the purpose of this study. The unit of transcription for these data was the utterance. An utterance was delimited by a pause, a change in conversational turn, or a change in intonational pattern. For reliability, a second coder transcribed 20% of the data. The two coders were considered reliable when at least 95% of their transcriptions matched on utterances (percent agreement). Inconsistencies were resolved through discussions. Coded transcripts included all dictionary words, onomatopoeic words (e.g. meow) and evaluative sounds (e.g. whoops, uh-oh).

We further coded parent-child book reading interactions that occurred during these sessions. A book reading episode began when the parent and child both focused on a book and was considered to have ended at the point when 10 consecutive utterances spoken by the parent were not relevant to the book. A second coder transcribed 20% of the book reading episodes and established reliability on identification and categorization of book reading utterances (reliability was 92%, n=24, agreement between coders, Kappa = .92). The total number of book reading utterances for a given caregiver is the combined total of the book utterances described below. We also calculated total number of non-book parent utterances. Two of the parent-child dyads missed a session.

Parent talk during parent-child book reading interactions took many forms. We divided the talk into the following seven categories: reading the text, labeling or describing a picture, extending the topic, print-related talk, behavioral directives, conversational utterances, and comments . Reading the text captured all utterances read directly from the text of the book. Parents did not read the books from start to the end verbatim and frequently recast certain sentences in their own words. Thus, unlike Montag et al. (2015) , our reading the text measure is not exclusively the verbatim text of the book, but rather parent utterances that came from the book, including minor recasts (e.g. “He is taking a break”, instead of “He was taking a break”). Labeling or describing a picture included providing labels and asking questions relevant to the book (e.g. “That’s a ball,” “Where is the elephant?”). This category also included descriptions focusing on attributes including but not limited to shape (e.g. “This is a round one”), color (e.g. “This one is red”) or number (e.g. “Walrus has two tusks”). Extending the topic consisted of utterances that connected the topic of the book to the child’s own experiences (e.g., “Do you remember the last time we went to the zoo?” when reading a book about animals in a zoo). Predictions, evaluations, and inferences about the story were also included in this category (e.g. “What are they going to do next?” “Why is she sad?”). Print-related utterances included all talk about letter-sound correspondences (e.g., “These are all words that sound alike”), spelling (e.g., “How do you spell dog?”), and letter names (e.g., “This is L”). Behavioral directives included utterances aiming to direct the child’s behavior or attention around the book (“Sit down”). Comments included utterances about the child, parent, or the book (“You are a good listener”, “I like this book”). Conversational utterances included agreement (“Yes”), disagreement (“No), requests for clarification and prompts (“What?”). Irrelevant utterances that were not about the book reading activity (“We will eat after this”) constituted 7% of the book utterances and were excluded from the analyses described below. These categories were identified on the basis of the previous literature focusing on book reading interactions ( Bus, Leseman, & Keultjes, 2000 ; Dale, Crain-Thoreson, Notari-Syverson, & Cole, 1996 ; Reese and Cox, 1999), and on the basis of the kinds of talk surrounding book reading that we observed in the current dataset.

In order to examine whether the linguistic complexity of book reading utterances differed from the complexity of non-book reading utterances, we analyzed vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity of both types of utterances over time, using growth modeling. We measured vocabulary diversity using word type-token ratios of all of the book and non-book reading utterances. We measured syntactic complexity for all utterances that occurred in book reading contexts and non-book reading contexts with mean length of utterances in words (MLU), as well as number of unique verbs (verb types) per utterance. Tokens and types were tallied automatically by a program written specifically for this project. All dictionary words, onomatopoeic words (e.g. meow), and evaluative sounds (e.g., whoops, uh-oh) were included when counting word tokens. Additional criteria were used to decide what constituted a word type. In particular, morphologically inflected variants of words (e.g., run, running) were considered a single type. Words produced in imitation and words that were produced while reading were included when counting word tokens and types, and later separated in our analyses of language within and outside of the book reading context.

The literature suggests that type-token ratio is heavily influenced by total amount of talk; type-token ratios of language samples of different sizes (e.g., different numbers of tokens or utterances) should thus not be compared ( Hess, Sefton & Landry, 1986 ). As described below, book reading utterances (included parents’ reading of the text of the book and their utterances surrounding the book) constituted a small proportion of the overall utterances parents produced. We took several measures to decrease the influence of different number of utterances produced during and outside of book reading interactions. In order to equate book and non-book talk for amount so that we could meaningfully compare type-token ratios in these contexts, for each session and each parent, we randomly selected 10 samples from non-book reading utterances that were matched in length to that parent’s book utterances. We then compared the average word type to word token ratio (type-token ratio) in the non-book and book utterance samples for each parent. Because our measure of type-token ratio takes the relation between type-token ratio and word tokens in the sample into account, the measure closely resembles other vocabulary diversity measures in the literature, such as D, which accounts for sample size when calculating type-token ratio (Richards & Malvern, 1988). In calculating the type-token ratio, we used the Mass index of lexical diversity which is influenced by text length to a lesser extent than other measures in the field ( McCarthy & Jarvis, 2010 ). The two syntactic complexity measures described above (MLU in words and number of unique verbs per utterance) have been widely used to assess parental language input in the literature and have been shown to reliably predict children’s outcomes ( Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991 ; Gopnik, Choi, & Baumberger, 1996 ; Pancsofar & Vernon-Feagans, 2006 ; Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009 ; Rowe, Coker & Pan, 2004 ; Vigil, Hodges, & Klee, 2005 ; Rowe, Levine, Fisher, & Goldin-Meadow, 2009 ). Because these measures have not been found to be influenced by sample size in the same way as type/token ratios, we used the entire sample of non-book related utterances to calculate these measures and compared them to the measures derived from book related utterances.

Child measures

Child book reading utterances (child ages 14 to 30 months)..

Child book reading utterances were identified using the same criteria we used for parent book reading utterances, as described above.

Child non-book reading utterances (child age 14 to 30 months).

As a measure of children’s overall language production, we calculated the total number of non-book child utterances.

Standardized and unstandardized outcome measures.

The following tests were administered to children between 2 nd and 4 th grades to assess their receptive vocabulary, reading decoding, reading comprehension, mathematics problem solving, and reading motivation (three measures: internal motivation to read, external motivation to read, perceived reading competence). Not all children completed all assessments. This was because they missed the particular visit when a measure was administered or the measure was not administered due to experimenter error or child fatiguing during the visit.

Receptive vocabulary.

During 2 nd grade, children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-3, Dunn & Dunn, 2007 ), a standardized test that measures receptive vocabulary skill. Standardized scores were used (n=53/55).

Reading comprehension.

The Comprehension subtest from Gates-MacGinitie ( MacGinitie, 2000 ) administered at the beginning and end of 3rd grade served as our reading comprehension measure. This subtest measures children’s ability to silently read and understand different types of prose as assessed by comprehension questions that followed each passage. W scores, averaged across the two sessions, served as our measure of children’s reading comprehension achievement (n=52/55).

Reading decoding.

At the beginning and end of 3 rd grade, children completed the Letter Word Identification subtest and the Word Attack subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement (WJ-III, Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001 ). The Letter Word Identification subtest measures word reading skills and the Word Attack subtest measures skill in applying phonic and structural analysis skills to the reading of non-words. The two subtests constituted the Basic Reading Skills Cluster, which served as our decoding measure. W scores on these two subtests, averaged across the two sessions, served as our measure of children’s reading decoding achievement (n= 52/55).

Mathematics problem solving.

The Applied Problems subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement were given to children in the middle of 3 rd grade and Calculation subtest was given at the end of 3 rd grade (WJ-III, Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001 ). The Applied Problems subtest consists of math word problems and the Calculation consists of number-fact problems. W scores on each of these tasks were used as measures of math achievement (Calculation subtest n = 49/55, Applied Problems subtest n = 47/55).

Reading motivation.

Reading motivation was assessed in the beginning of 4 th grade through a questionnaire that probed the child’s attitudes towards reading. Questions used to measure reading motivation were based on the Wigfield and Guthrie (1997) questionnaire, and assessed children’s reading motivation with three sets of questions (see Appendix 1 for questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha = .72): (1) Questions assessing internal motivation asked whether the child reads books for internal reward or personal pleasure (Cronbach’s alpha= .77) (2) Questions assessing external motivation measured whether the child reads books for external rewards, such as good grades or praise (Cronbach’s alpha = .50). (3) Questions assessing perceived reading competence measured the child’s perceptions of his/her reading performance (Cronbach’s alpha = .70) (n = 52/55).

Analytical approach

In this paper, we hypothesize that quantity of parent’s book utterances between 14 and 30 months will predict children’s outcomes, controlling for parent SES, quantity of parent non-book utterances, quantity of child book and non-book utterances. To test this hypothesis, we took a two-step approach. In the first step, to examine quantity of parent book utterances over the 2 years we focus on, we built a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM, Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong & Congdon 2000) of change in parent book utterances between 14 and 30 months. To account for the contribution of overall parent talk and children’s own language skills, we also built parallel models for quantity of parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances. We then extracted the parameters of these two-level models defining change in the quantity of parent and child book and non-book utterances.

In the second step, we built prediction models where we examined how parameters that describe change in the quantity of parent and child book and non-book utterances related to children’s outcomes in school years. Specifically, in our prediction models, we examined how parameters that define the change in quantity of parent and child utterances relate to child outcomes, controlling for parent SES, and quantity of parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances in a multivariate HLM. Below, we first describe the two-level model describing parent-and child-specific change and then we describe our prediction model.

The two-level models for parent-and child-specific change in book and non-book utterances:

First, we used HLM to examine the number of book and non-book utterances produced by parents and children between 14 and 30 months. This statistical model has two levels: a Level-1 model that accounts for variation in repeated measures within each individual; and a Level-2 model that represents variation between individuals. We built four parallel models, one for each category of utterances: parent book, parent non-book, child book, and child non-book utterances. We use parent book utterances to describe our analytical approach, which also applies to other three utterance categories. At Level-1 (within parents), we represent the trajectory of parents’ book utterances as a quadratic model. For each parent i at time t, we have:

In this equation, a ti is the age of the child i at visit time t, π 0 i is parent i ’s status at child age 22 months (age was centered at 22 months, since it is the middle time point between 14 and 30 months), corresponding to average number of book utterances at 22 months. π 1 i is the parent’s linear change in book utterances (velocity) at child age 22 months of age, and π 2 i is the parent’s acceleration in book utterances at child age 22 months. The residual e ti is the portion of parent i ’s book utterances at child age t not predicted by child age.

At Level-2 (between parents), we examined whether parents’ status (intercept centered at 22 months) and linear change (velocity) of book utterances are predicted by SES. This provides a between-person model for each variable, in which there is a separate equation for each Level 1 coefficient, π pi , where p = 0, 1, 2:

In this equation, π pi is the p th growth parameter from the Level 1 model, β p0 and β p1 are linear regression coefficients, and r pi is a random effect. We allow random effects to be correlated within parents but not between parents.

Our goal is to examine how parents’ SES status, velocity and acceleration of various utterance types at child age 22 months predict later child outcomes controlling for background characteristics such as SES, as well as parameters for change in parent non-book, child book, and child non-book utterances. Thus, in the next step, we compute empirical Bayes posterior means for these parameters by estimating the two-level models described above and outputting empirical Bayes coefficients for these parameters in parent-level and child-level files. For further details on this analytical approach, please see Rowe, Raudenbush & Goldin-Meadow (2012) . We next describe how we use these parameters to predict children’s outcomes using multivariate hierarchical linear modeling.

The prediction model:

Second, we use multivariate hierarchical linear modeling to examine children’s outcome measures. Whereas in standard application of multivariate measures, missing values are not allowed, HLM allows analysis of incomplete data, specifically multivariate HLM allows the study of multivariate outcomes with missing data. In this case, at level 1 (within children), we have:

In this equation, there is no intercept, and π ti is an indicator for child i ’s outcome measure t . The residual e ti is the portion of child i ’s performance not predicted by the measures.

At level 2 (between children), we examined whether children’s performance on an outcome measure was predicted by quantity of parent book utterances. We also included parent SES, quantity of parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances as controls. As described above, here we use empirical Bayes (EB) estimates of parent book utterances, parent non-book utterances, child book utterances, child non-book utterances computed from the models described in the previous section. Thus, we create a between-person model, in which there is a separate equation for each Level 1 coefficient, π pi :

Here where π pi is the pth parameter from the Level 1 model, β p0 , β p1 , β p2 , β p4 and β p5 are linear regression coefficients, and r pi is a random effect.

Linguistic complexity analyses:

We used HLM to examine the linguistic complexity of book and non-book utterances produced by parents and children between 14 and 30 months. Using the approach described above, we built parallel models for parent book and non-book utterance type-token ratio, MLU and verbs per utterances. We then compared EB estimates from these models to compare linguistic complexity across book and non-book utterances. Following these, we built parallel models differentiating book reading the text utterances and other book utterances.

Quantity of parent book and non-book reading utterances

Seven children did not have any parent-child book reading episodes during any of the sessions. Parents of children who did not read books to their children had significantly lower income ( t (53) = 2.61, p = .02) and fewer years of education ( t (53) = 3.38, p < .01) than those who read books to their children during at least one session. In addition, children who did not have parent-child book reading episodes had marginally significantly lower PPVT scores ( t (51) = 1.84, p = .07) and reading comprehension scores ( t (50) = 1.69, p = .09) than their peers. There were no other significant differences between those who were read to vs. not read to on the other assessments we administered (all p ’s >= .10). Because we had no information about early reading interactions for these 7 participants, we excluded them from our remaining analyses, leaving 48 participants.

On average, the remaining 48 parent-child dyads read books during 2.3 of the 4 sessions ( SD = 0.82, Median = 2, Range = 1–4), had 5.3 book reading episodes ( SD = 3.7, Range = 1–17), and read 6.5 books ( SD = 5.6, Range = 1–33). When averaged across the four sessions, the average number of utterances parents produced during book reading episodes at each observation session was 96 ( SD = 91, Range = 5 – 459), compared to 963 utterances outside of book reading episodes ( SD = 329, Range = 283 – 1710). Thus, on average, book reading utterances constituted only 9% of the overall talk children heard from their caregivers ( SD = .07, Range = .01 to .25). Table 1 represents the number of book utterances parents produced at each session.

Average number of parent book utterances at each visit.

When averaged across the four sessions, the number of book reading utterances was significantly correlated with other book reading measures: number of home visits with book episodes ( r = .65, p < .01), overall number of book reading episodes across sessions ( r = .82, p < .01), and overall number of books read across sessions, including repeated readings of the same book ( r = .77, p < .01). Similarly, the number of non-book reading utterances was correlated with other measures of parental input, such as the number of word tokens outside book reading interactions ( r = .74, p < .01). In all subsequent analyses, the number of book reading utterances and the number of non-book reading utterances were used as our measures of quantity of parent input.

Table 2 presents correlations between parent book reading utterances and parent non-book reading utterances, correlations between child book reading utterances and child non-book reading utterances, and the relation of all of these variables to SES. Here we present the numbers averaged across the four sessions (with the exception of the two participants who were missing a session, in which case the average was calculated over three sessions). The average number of parent book utterances was correlated with the average number of parent utterances outside of book reading interactions, and the number of parent book reading utterances was correlated with parent SES. Similarly, the average number of child utterances in the book reading context was correlated with the average number of child utterances outside of the book reading context. However, neither was correlated with SES. Finally, the number of parent book utterances was significantly correlated with the number of child book reading utterances. Several other correlations were positive but did not reach significance.

Correlations between number of parent and child book and non-book reading utterances (average across 4 visits).

Types of parent book reading utterances

Per session, parents produced an average of 31 book reading utterances describing the pictures ( SD = 31, Range = .25 – 127), 23 utterances that involved reading the text (SD = 24, Range = 0–94), 9 utterances that involved extending the topic of the book ( SD = 11.62, Range = 0– 44), 1 print-related utterance ( SD = 3, Range = 0–12), 12 behavioral directives ( SD = 12, Range = 0 – 69), 3 comments ( SD = 3.41, Range = 0 – 16), and 17 conversational utterances ( SD = 2, Range = .5 – 133). The different types of book reading utterances were significantly correlated, controlling for overall non-book talk (see Table 3 ). Moreover, a factor analysis showed that all of the different types of book reading utterances loaded onto one factor, which explained 70% of the variance. Because of the high collinearity of the different types of parent book reading utterances, our main analyses focus on the average number of parent book utterances over all categories as a predictor of children’s later outcomes, without distinguishing among the different types ( Table 1 ). We present exploratory analyses examining the relation between specific book utterance types and children’s later outcomes in Supplementary Materials.

Correlations between number of different types of book utterances.

Predicting child language and literacy from number of early parent book reading utterances

Our results are presented in two steps. In the first step, we use individual growth modeling (employing HLM; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong & Congdon 2000) to model parents’ book utterances between 14 and 30 months, parent non-book utterances, as well as child book and non-book utterances. We also incorporate SES as a predictor in that change. Table 4 presents a taxonomy of models investigating these relations. Second, we use empirical Bayes estimated parameters from these models to predict children’s outcomes.

Estimates of fixed effects, random effects, and goodness of fit for growth models using SES to predict intercept and change in parent and child book and non-book utterances. Coefficients are presented outside the brackets, and standard errors are presented inside the brackets.

Note . SES = socioeconomic status.

The two-level models for parent-and child-specific change in book and non-book utterances.

To obtain the best fitting Level 1, or within-person, model for parent book reading utterances, we examined empirical plots of all parents’ book utterances between 14 and 30 months. We fit a quadratic growth model to the data because it had a lower goodness-of-fit statistic (−2 log likelihood) than a linear model and because the plot of this model best mirrored the plot of the empirical data. Age was centered at 22 months, the midpoint of the data. We looked at fixed effects with robust standard errors. We included SES as Level 2 predictors in these four models. Model 1 in Table 4 is the quadratic growth model for parent book utterances. This model shows that at 22 months, parents have an estimated 136.9 book utterances, with an estimated decrease of 3.9 utterances per month at child age 22 months. The significant quadratic term indicates that, over time, the monthly rate of decrease itself decreases. SES does not have a significant effect on intercept, linear change, or acceleration (Model 1).

We built parallel models for parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances. We fit a linear growth model to parent non-book utterances because it had a lower goodness-of-fit statistic (−2 log likelihood) than a quadratic model and because the plot of the linear model best mirrored the plot of the empirical data. This model shows that at 22 months, parents have an estimated 961.9 non-book utterances. The linear change was not significant. SES had a trending effect on the intercept of number of non-book utterances, and its effect on linear change was not significant (Model 2).

We fit quadratic growth models to the data on child book utterances (Model 3) and child non-book utterances (Model 4) because they had a lower goodness-of-fit statistic (−2 log likelihood) than linear models and because the plot of the quadratic model best mirrored the plot of the empirical data. Model 3 shows that children have an estimated 28.1 book utterances at 22 months, with an estimated increase of 1.3 utterances per month. Quadratic change is significant and negative, suggesting that the linear increase in book reading utterances decreases over time. SES does not have a significant effect on the intercept or quadratic change, but has a marginal positive effect on the linear change (Model 3). Model 4 shows that children have an estimated 341.3 non-book utterances at 22 months, with an estimated increase of 35.5 utterances per month. Quadratic change was not significant. SES did not have a significant effect on the intercept or quadratic change, but it had a marginally significant positive effect on the linear change (Model 4). Finally, we outputted empirical Bayes coefficients for the parameters (e.g. intercept of parent book utterances) described above in parent-level and child-level files.

Predicting later child outcomes.

Our goal is to examine how parents’ status, velocity and acceleration of various utterance types at child age 22 months predict later child outcomes controlling for background characteristics such as SES, as well as parameters for change in parent non-book, child book, and child non-book utterances. For this, we use empirical Bayes estimated growth rates from the growth models described above. However, collinearity is too high and our sample size is too small to include all of the parameters as predictors of children’s outcomes. We have three empirical Bayes estimated growth parameters per model for the models describing change in parent book, child book and child non-book utterances (intercept, linear change and quadratic change). Additionally, we have two empirical Bayes estimated growth parameters for the models describing change in parent non-book utterances (intercept, linear change). To determine which aspects of growth (intercept, linear change, quadratic change) are most related to children’s outcomes, we conducted preliminary analyses.

Selection of variables.

First, we only considered empirical Bayes estimated parameters that significantly varied across individuals as indicated by random effects ( Table 4 ). These parameters included intercept for all four measures, linear change for child book and non-book utterances and quadratic change for child book-utterances. Second, as expected, parameters from a single model were highly correlated with each other. For example, child book intercept was significantly and highly correlated with linear change (r = .88) and quadratic change (r = −.89). Similarly, intercept for child non-book utterances was significantly and highly correlated with linear change (r = .89) and quadratic change (r = −.88). Thus, we only included intercept for parent book, parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances in our prediction models. Prediction models including slopes for parent book, parent non-book, child book and child non-book revealed results parallel to the those including-the slower was the decrease in parent book utterances with child age, the higher was children’s performance on the measures discussed above, with the strength of the relations of slope being slightly weaker than relations of intercept.

Finally, we ran a series of first-order partial correlations to examine the relations between parent book utterances and child outcomes, controlling for parental SES. These correlations showed that the intercept of parent book utterances was significantly related to decoding, reading comprehension, vocabulary, math word problems and internal motivation, but not to calculation, external motivation or perceived reading competence. It should be noted that the lack of significant relations to external motivation could be due to the low reliability of this sub-scale. Thus, in the models below, we only considered relations to the former set of outcomes. We did not further examine relations to calculation or external motivation. Table 5 lists these correlations as well as correlations with parent non-book, child book and child non-book utterances.

Partial correlations between parent and child book and non-book empirical Bayes estimated growth parameters and child language, literacy and math outcomes, controlling for parental SES.

Predictive models.

The steps above enabled us to narrow down the predictors we include in our prediction models. We next examined how the predictors identified above (parent SES, parent book reading utterances, parent non-book reading utterances, child book reading utterances, child non-book utterances) related to children’s outcomes. These models are presented in Table 6 . In the first model (Model 1), we started with parent SES, as well as parent book and parent non-book utterances as predictors of children’s outcomes. Parent SES was included as a measure of socio-economic background and non-book utterances were included as a measure of overall parental talkativeness. We included parent variables first because the main question of interest is on the role of parental input. We then included child variables to make sure that parents would predict even after we account for children’s own language skill which could elicit parental input. In terms of children’s outcomes, we included child measures that showed a significant first-order correlation with parent book utterances as identified above. These included decoding, reading comprehension, vocabulary, math word problems and internal motivation to read. The ordering of the variables did not change the results.

Estimates of fixed effects, random effects, and goodness of fit for growth models using SES and book and non-book growth estimates to predict child school language, literacy and math outcomes. Coefficients are presented outside the brackets, and standard errors are presented inside the brackets.

Note. SES = socioeconomic status.

This first model (Model 1) showed that parental SES is a significant predictor of child reading comprehension, vocabulary and math word problem performance. Controlling for SES and parent non-book utterances, parent book utterances significantly predicted later reading comprehension, vocabulary, internal motivation to read, and performance on math word problems, but not reading decoding. A one standard deviation increase in the intercept of parent book utterances was associated with a 1.8 point (.05 standard deviations) increase in reading comprehension, a 4 point (.28 standard deviations) increase in vocabulary, a 3.6 point (.21 standard deviations) increase in math word problems performance, and a 7.8 point (3.7 standard deviations) increase in internal motivation to read. Further, HLM’s multivariate hypothesis testing revealed that the estimate for the effect of parent book utterances on decoding is significantly different than reading comprehension, χ2=5.83, p =.01, vocabulary, χ2=6.75, p <.01, math word problems, χ2=4.06, p =.04, and internal motivation to read, χ2=8.32, p <. 01.

Further, in this model, controlling for both SES and parent book utterances, parent non-book utterances did not significantly predict any of the child outcomes (Model 1). We also tested whether an interaction term between SES and parent book utterances would improve Model 1, and found that this was not the case, χ2= 4.704, p > .50 and the interaction term did not significantly predict any of the other outcomes, all p ’s >.05. Thus, the interaction term was excluded from subsequent models.

In the next model (Model 2), we added child non-book and book utterances as Level 2 predictors. Child non-book utterances significantly predicted child reading comprehension, vocabulary performance and math word problems performance (Model 2). Surprisingly, child book utterances significantly and negatively predicted vocabulary performance. This should be interpreted cautiously as child book utterances were significantly and highly correlated with parent book utterances ( r = .55, p <.001) which may lead to collinearity (Model 2). In addition, because children’s language during non-book interactions provides a broader sample of their spontaneous language in a wider range of settings, these utterances might significantly correlate with their vocabulary performance. More importantly for our purposes, controlling for SES, parent non-book utterances, child non-book utterances, and child book utterances, parent book utterances remained as a significant predictor of reading comprehension, internal motivation, vocabulary and math word problems performance.

Linguistic complexity of book reading compared to non-book reading utterances.

We next examined whether the linguistic complexity of parent book reading utterances differed from that of their non-book reading utterances, even though parent book reading utterances constituted a relatively small part (9%) of the child’s overall linguistic input. As described earlier, we used type-token ratio on samples that were matched in specific ways (see Methods ) as a measure of vocabulary diversity, and we used MLU and number of verb types per utterance as measures of syntactic complexity.

We first built linear growth models for parent non-book and book utterance type-token ratio, MLU and verb types per utterances. We then divided the book utterances to address the question of whether possible differences between book and non-book utterances are due to the text of the books being more complex than other talk, and/or to the parents’ language around the books being more complex than other talk. To examine this question, we compared the complexity of the book text, the complexity of parent talk around the book, and the complexity of parent utterances produced outside the book reading interactions.

To obtain the best fitting Level 1, or within-person, model for these utterances, we examined empirical plots of all measures between 14 and 30 months. For all measures, we fit a linear growth models to the data of all measures because they had a lower goodness-of-fit statistic (−2 log likelihood) than linear models and because the plot of these model best mirrored the plots of the empirical data. Age was centered at 22 months, the midpoint of the data. We looked at fixed effects with robust standard errors. Descriptive statistics for linguistic complexity and detailed information on these models are provided in the Supplementary Materials .

Next, we outputted empirical Bayes coefficients for the parameters (e.g. intercept of parent book utterance type-token ratio) in parent-level files as described above. Using these coefficients, we first compared type-token ratio, mean length of utterance in words (MLU) and number of verbs per utterance in non-book versus book utterances. Paired samples t-tests revealed that book utterances were significantly higher on these three measures than non-book utterances (type-token ratio: t(47) = 7.88, p <.001, MLU: t(47) = 4.08, p <.001, verbs per utterance: t(47) = 3.14, p = .003). We then compared type-token ratio, MLU and number of verbs per utterance in non-book, reading the text and other book utterances using repeated measures ANOVAs. This analysis revealed a main effect of utterance type on type-token ratio, F (2,86) = 255.12, p <.001, where type-token ratio of book text utterances was significantly higher than other book utterances ( p = .001), which was higher than non-book utterances (p < .001). ANOVA on MLU similarly revealed a main effect of utterance, F (2,86) = 145.69, p < .001. Paralleling these findings, MLU of text utterances was significantly higher than MLU of other book utterances ( p < .001), which was higher than non-book utterances ( p < .001). Finally, ANOVA on the number of verb types per utterance ( F (2,86) = 111.21, p < .001 also revealed a main effect of utterance type. We again found evidence of more complex utterances (more verb types per utterance) in text than in other book utterances ( p < .001), and more complex utterances in other book utterances than in non-book utterances ( p =.002).

Parent-child book reading interactions are considered to be one of the most important and valuable preschool experiences, and are widely believed to support children’s later language and reading outcomes (e.g., Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995 ; Debaryshe, 2008 ; Mol & Bus, 2011 ; Payne, Whitehurst, & Angell, 1994 ; Sénéchal & Lefevre, 2002 ; Sénéchal, Lefevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998 ). Surprisingly, many questions remain about the specificity and underlying mechanism of how early parent-child book reading interactions support later language and literacy outcomes, some of which are addressed in the current study. Notably, we demonstrated, for the first time, that the quantity of parent book reading predicts important child language and literacy outcomes, controlling for parent language input outside of the book reading context, the child’s own contribution to book reading interactions, overall child talk, and parent socioeconomic background. Further, we found that parent language during book reading contains greater vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity than parents’ language outside of the book reading context.

Our findings are consistent with many prior studies reporting positive relations between early parent-child book reading and later child language and literacy outcomes (e.g., Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995 ; Debaryshe, 2008 ; Mol & Bus, 2011 ; Payne, Whitehurst, & Angell, 1994 ; Sénéchal & Lefevre, 2002 ; Sénéchal, Lefevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998 ). Importantly, our findings move the existing literature forward in multiple ways. We found specific relations between early parent-child book reading utterances and certain later child outcomes, showing that early parent book reading utterances predicted children’s later receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read even when controlling for early parent language input outside of the context of book reading, children’s own language contributions to book reading interactions, and parent socioeconomic background. In view of the relation between early reading and later vocabulary knowledge, we also observed a relation between early reading and children’s performance on math word problems, which is to be expected given that these math problems involve language comprehension. By also showing that these relations were specific––that is, that early book reading interactions did not significantly predict reading decoding, performance on math calculation problems or external motivation to read––we provide evidence that early book reading interactions are not merely a general marker of positive input in the early home environment. Below, we discuss potential reasons for the relations we found.

An important finding that emerged from our analyses is that naturally occurring parent-child book interactions included greater parent vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity than naturally occurring parent-child interactions that did not involve books, with these measures obtained from the same set of parents at the same time points. Given that written language affords complex words and syntactic constructions that are not common in daily language ( Westby, 1991 ), it is not surprising that we found that the linguistic complexity of the book texts exceeded the complexity of the spoken language use around the books and outside of book interactions. This finding adds to the findings of Montag et al. (2015) , who compared vocabulary diversity in the text of common children’s books to vocabulary diversity in parent speech in CHILDES. Another recent study using parent-reported activity logs showed that book-reading interactions include a higher number of conversational turns and parent word count compared to non-book interactions ( Gilkerson, Richards, & Topping, 2017 ). Our unique contribution is that because of the nature of our data, which consisted of naturalistic parent-child interactions, we also were able to examine parent language around book reading (e.g., extending the topic, describing the pictures), not just their reading of the text of the books. Analyzing this aspect of parent language revealed that greater parent linguistic complexity was not confined to the text of the books. Parents brought up a diverse set of topics around the books, described the pictures in their own words, recast the text utterances, and frequently related the book content to children’s own experiences. The content of the books may have encouraged parents to use a richer vocabulary when discussing books with their children, compared to both their daily language outside of book reading interactions and their reading of the text within the books. Our small sample size did not allow us to examine whether the greater parent linguistic complexity that characterized early book reading interactions provides a possible mechanism to explain the power of early parent-child reading interactions in predicting child language and literacy development. Future studies with larger sample sizes should examine whether the predictive power of book utterances might be in part due to their linguistic complexity, aspects of language that are known to positively predict children’s language and literacy outcomes (e.g., Hart & Risley, 1995 ; Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991 ; Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002 ; Rowe, 2012 ). Overall, books might present an ecologically-valid way to elicit rich input from parents.

We did not find a significant relation between parent language provided during book reading and later child reading decoding skills or child calculation skills. The differential relations were also confirmed by the fact that the estimate for the effect of parent book utterances on decoding was significantly lower than reading comprehension, vocabulary, math word problems, and internal motivation. While we must be cautious in interpreting non-statistically significant correlations, the lack of a significant relation is consistent with reports in the literature of weaker relations between early book reading and decoding than between early book reading and reading comprehension and vocabulary ( de Jong & Leseman, 2001 ; Sénéchal et al., 1998 ; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002 ). Moreover, our findings are not surprising given that both our results and the prior literature suggest that parents rarely engage in print-related talk in the context of early book reading, the type of talk that has been found to support later reading decoding. Interactions other than book reading that focus on phonological features or decoding skills, such as writing interactions or nursery rhymes, might more strongly predict children’s decoding skills ( Evans, Williamson, & Pursoo, 2008 ; Robins & Treiman, 2009 ). Overall, the current study suggests that, in the age range we focused on, parents rarely use book interactions to focus on print or phonological aspects of language. Relations of book-reading to oral language and reading comprehension might be especially stronger in later elementary school years where reading comprehension increasingly depends on individual differences in oral language skills and to a lesser degree individual differences in decoding skills ( Chall & Jacobs, 2003 ).

Our findings showed that early book reading not only predicts children’s later reading comprehension skill, but also their later motivation to read for enjoyment. Prior studies have found contemporaneous relations between reading to young children and children’s interest in reading ( Baker, Scher, & Mackler, 1997 ; Morrow, 1983 ). For example, Morrow (1983) found that kindergarten children who are read to daily are more interested in books. Extending these findings, we found that early parent-child interactions around books during the second and third years of life was related to children’s internal, but not external, motivation in 4th grade––a longitudinal relation that to our knowledge has not been identified in previous research. The relation between early parent-child book reading interactions and internal motivation to read may be due to these early interactions initiating a snowball effect, such that children who are read to more early in life become interested in books earlier on, enjoy reading more, develop stronger language skills, and later read more themselves, thus exhibiting greater internal motivation to read ( Baker et al., 1997 ; Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997 ). This kind of virtuous cycle provides a potential mechanism for how early book reading can contribute to the breadth of children’s vocabulary knowledge, as well as their language and reading comprehension skills. Future studies with larger samples could test these hypotheses through longitudinal structural equation modelling or path analyses.

By videotaping and coding naturally occurring parent-child book reading interactions, we were able to obtain detailed information about the different kinds of language parents provided during book reading, which ranged from reading the text to describing the pictures to extending the text to directing children’s attention and behavior. All parents produced each of these different types of utterances and the quantities of these different types of utterances were highly correlated with each other, making it difficult to examine the relation between a specific kind of a parent book utterance and children’s later outcomes. Our exploratory analyses, however, revealed that parents’ utterances extending the topic of the book and their utterances describing and labeling the book pictures might be particularly important in predicting a variety of outcomes including the development of young children’s receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read (see Supplementary Materials for a further discussion of these results ). The kind of parent talk that would be most important to later outcomes might differ as children get older and gain more language skills. To gain finer grained and causal evidence about the role of different inputs in the development of children’s later language and literacy skills, we need studies that examine and experimentally manipulate parent input around books for children of different ages.

Importantly, observing naturally occurring book reading activities has enabled us to assess both the frequency and the nature of naturally-occurring book reading interactions, without the memory limitations that characterize parent questionnaires or the artificiality of observations of book reading in experimental settings. In addition, observing naturally occurring book reading interactions allowed us to measure not only the frequency, but also the nature of parents’ book reading talk, including their reading of the text of the books and their talk around the books. Moreover, the fact that we found a significant relation between early book reading and certain later language and literacy skills suggests that we identified meaningful variability among parents.

Our study provides new information about how and why early book reading supports later language and literacy skills. Nevertheless, it has some limitations. First, the study is correlational and thus cannot provide causal evidence for the role of book reading in later child outcomes the way that an experimental study can. However, our study does serve to identify promising hypotheses that can be explored in experimental studies. Second, we measured book reading episodes during four home visits that typically occurred during the daytime. Thus, we might have missed book reading episodes that occurred at bedtime or at other non-visit times. Third, parents might act differently when they are not being observed than when they know that they are being observed and recorded. Although we believe that the frequency and duration of our visits (and the positive long-term relations we find) mitigate this concern, we cannot, of course, be certain. Other dimensions of parent-child interactions, such as general parental responsiveness, also contribute to academic outcomes. Our inclusion of parental SES and parental overall talk account for the variability in such aspects, as parental SES is correlated with responsiveness ( Evans, 2004 ). Further, parental language input and responsiveness has been argued to relate to later outcomes via independent pathways ( Wade, Jenkins, Venkadasalam, Binnoon-Erez, & Ganea, 2018 ). Finally, our sample only included families where English was the primary language spoken at home, which limits the generalizability of our findings. Future work should expand explore book-reading interactions in multi-language family settings.

In sum, our results show positive relations between early parent child book reading and children’s later language and literacy outcomes, controlling for non-book parent language, child language skills, and parent SES. We also found that parent language during early book reading interactions was linguistically more complex than parent language during non-book reading interactions provides a possible mechanism for these relations. Thus, our findings offer a potential explanation for the success that interventions encouraging parent-child book reading have had in increasing language skills and school achievement (e.g., Mendelsohn et al., 2001 ; Whitehurst et al., 1994 ). Overall, changing parents’ talk in the context of book reading interactions may, in the end, be easier than changing their spontaneous talk more globally, and may carry important long-term consequences for children’s achievement.

Research Highlights

• The quantity of parent language provided during naturally occurring parent-child book reading interactions between child ages 1 and 2.5 years predicts elementary school language and literacy outcomes, controlling for other talk parents provide their children outside of book reading interactions, family socioeconomic status, and children’s own early language skill.
• The particular child outcomes significantly predicted by the language parents provide during parent-child book reading utterances include children’s elementary school receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension and internal motivation to read, but not children’s reading decoding, external motivation to read, or math skill.
• The linguistic complexity of parent language during book reading interactions is more sophisticated than parent language outside book reading interactions in terms of both vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary, acknowledgements.

This research was supported by P01HD40605 from NICHD to Susan C. Levine and Susan Goldin-Meadow. We thank participating families and children; Katherine Petty for help in earlier phases of the project; Chicago Language Developmental Project research assistants for help in collecting and transcribing the data; and Kristi Schonwald, Jodi Khan, and Jason Voigt for administrative and technical assistance.

Appendix 1. Reading Motivation Questionnaire

Internal Motivation

Reading is one of my favorite activities

I think reading is a great way to spend time

External Motivation

I read to improve my grades

I like to get compliments for my reading

I like having the teacher say I read well

Perceived reading competence

I am a good reader

I am a fast reader

When I am reading by myself, I understand what I read

1 Sixty-four families participated in the original study. Nine families dropped out before their children started school and thus were excluded from the current study.

Contributor Information

Ö. Ece Demir-Lira, University of Chicago. Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa.

Lauren R. Applebaum, University of Chicago. Museum of Science and Industry Chicago.

Susan Goldin-Meadow, University of Chicago.

Susan C. Levine, University of Chicago.

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30 Key Child Literacy Stats Parents Need To Be Aware Of

There’s no question that literacy is an essential element to a child’s development and opens the door to a brighter future. Just how important literacy becomes has been a question many educators and researchers have sought to answer. Foundations such as The Literacy Project seek to improve reading skill levels among struggling readers and target the growing illiteracy among school-age children. Some of the most important statistics from the National Institute for Literacy, National Center for Adult Literacy, The Literacy Company, and U.S. Census Bureau underscore the critical need to address illiteracy in the United States:

• Currently, 45 million Americans are functionally illiterate and cannot read above a fifth-grade level
• 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth-grade level
• 57% of students failed the California Standards Test in English
• 1/3 of fourth-graders reach the proficient reading level
• 25% of students in California school systems are able to perform basic reading skills
• 85% of juvenile offenders have problems reading
• 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can’t read
• 3 out of 4 people on welfare can’t read

If you’re a parent and want a deeper dive at the situation, read below for a collection of stats in keys areas in child literacy to help prepare you to make a difference in the lives of your children.

On Literacy Development and Early Application

• By age 2, a child’s brain is as active as an adult’s and by age 3 the brain is more than twice as active as an adult’s – and stays that way for the first 10 years of life.
• Cognitive processes develop rapidly in the first few years of life. In fact, by age 3, roughly 85% of the brain is developed . However, traditional education takes places in grades K-12, which begin at age five.
• According to the Department of Education , the more students read or are read to for fun on their own time and at home, the higher their reading scores, generally.
• Reading and being read aloud to has an impact that extends beyond just hearing stories.
• 65% of America’s fourth graders do not read at a proficient level .
• In a study of nearly 100,000 U.S. school children , access to printed materials was the key variable affecting reading acquisition.
• Children’s academic successes at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the amount of talk they hear from birth through age 3. Young children who are exposed to certain early language and literacy experiences also prove to be good readers later on in life.
• Books contain many words that children are unlikely to encounter frequently in spoken language. Books for kids actually contain 50% more words that children are unlikely to encounter frequently than regular conversation, TV or radio.
• The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that children who were read to frequently are also more likely to: count to 20, or higher than those who were not (60% vs. 44%), write their own names (54% vs. 40%), read or pretend to read (77% vs. 57%)
• Higher reading exposure was 95% positively correlated with a growing region supporting semantic language processing in the brain.
• The most important aspect of parent talk is its amount. Mothers who frequently speak to their infants have their children learn almost 300 more words by age 2 than did children whose mothers rarely spoke to them. Simultaneously, children learn grammatical syntax and the social nuances around communication in their community.
• Children exposed to fewer colors, less touch, little interaction with adults, fewer sights and sounds, and less language, actually have smaller brains .
• The number of books in the home correlates significantly with higher reading scores for children.
• Students who choose what they read and have an informal environment in which to read tend to be more motivated, read more and show greater language and literacy development.
• Children who are read to at least three times a week by a family member are almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading compared to children who are read to less than 3 times a week.

On Social and Cultural Impacts of Illiteracy

• Nationally, only 35% of public school students were at or above Proficient in grade 4 reading.
• In middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1 , in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children.  
• 61% of low-income families have no books at all in their homes for their children.
• 37% of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning.
• 50% of children from low-income communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers.
• Researchers estimate that before ever entering kindergarten, cognitive scores for children of low-income families are likely to average 60 percent lower than those in the highest socioeconomic groups (a pattern that remains true throughout high school).
• 1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read.
• 80% of preschool and after-school programs serving low-income populations have no age-appropriate books for their children.
• Children from lower-income homes have limited access to books . Because of this, there are fewer home and preschool language and literacy opportunities for preschoolers from low-income families than children from economically advantaged backgrounds.
• Nationally, about half of children between birth and five years (47.8%) are read to every day by their parents or other family members.
• On average, children in economically depressed communities have 0-2 age-appropriate books in their homes .
• A child is 90% likely to remain a poor reader at the end of the fourth grade if the child is a poor reader at the end of first grade.
• Children in low-income families lack essential one-on-one reading time, whereas on average, children who grow up middle-class families have been exposed to 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading . The average child growing up in a low-income family, in contrast, has only been exposed to 25 hours of one-on-one reading.
• One in six children who are not reading proficiently in the third grade does not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers. (rate is higher in children from low-income families and rural areas)
• 68% of America’s fourth graders read at a below proficient level, and 82% of those children are from low-income families.

Considering statistics of higher rates of school dropout, unemployment, and poverty, as well as the long-term implications of the third-grade reading achievement gap, The Literacy Project was established to make a significant and lasting impact to children through the power of reading. With a comprehensive literacy intervention program, The Literacy Project strives to improve reading skill levels among struggling readers at Title 1 schools throughout Southern California.

Discover how you can help your child read better today.

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Study says reading aloud to children, more than talking, builds literacy

July 8, 2015

29 comments.

In “The Pout-Pout Fish” children’s picture book, the author weaves words like “aghast” and “grimace” into a story about a fish who thought he was destined to “spread the dreary-wearies all over the place” until…well, no need to spoil the ending.

Finding such rich language in a picture book is not unusual, and reading those stories aloud will introduce children to an extensive vocabulary, according to new research conducted by Dominic Massaro, a professor emeritus in psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He said although parents can build their children’s vocabularies by talking to them, reading to them is more effective.

Reading aloud is the best way to help children develop word mastery and grammatical understanding, which form the basis for learning how to read, said Massaro, who studies language acquisition and literacy. He found that picture books are two to three times as likely as parent-child conversations to include a word that isn’t among the 5,000 most common English words.

Picture books even include more uncommon words than conversations among adults, he said.

“We talk with a lazy tongue,” Massaro said. “We tend to point at something or use a pronoun and the context tells you what it is. We talk at a basic level.”

Liv Ames for EdSource

Books by Dr. Seuss are popular with children.

Massaro said the limited vocabulary in ordinary, informal speech means what has been dubbed “the talking cure” – encouraging parents to talk more to their children to increase their vocabularies – has its drawbacks. Reading picture books to children would not only expose them to more words, he said, but it also would have a leveling effect for families with less education and a more limited vocabulary.

“Given the fact that word mastery in adulthood is correlated with early acquisition of words, shared picture book reading offers a potentially powerful strategy to prepare children for competent literacy skills,” Massaro said in the study.

The emphasis on talking more to children to increase their vocabularies is based on research by Betty Hart and Todd Risley at the University of Kansas. They found that parents on welfare spoke about 620 words to their children in an average hour compared with 2,150 words an hour spoken by parents with professional jobs. By age 3, the children with professional parents had heard 30 million more words than the children whose parents were on welfare. Hart and Risley concluded that the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies grew and the higher the children’s I.Q. test scores were at age 3 and later. Since their research was published, there has been a push to encourage low-income parents to talk more to their children as a way to improve literacy.

“Reading takes you beyond the easy way to communicate,” said Dominic Massaro, psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It takes you to another world and challenges you.”

But more picture book reading would be beneficial to children from every social class, Massaro said. What limits the tongue of even well-educated adults are “certain rules of discourse,” such as responding quickly, he said. That reduces word choices to those acquired early and used more frequently. In conversation, people also repeat words that have been recently spoken, further restricting the variety of words used.

Writing, on the other hand, is more formal, Massaro said, even in children’s books.

“Reading takes you beyond the easy way to communicate,” he said. “It takes you to another world and challenges you.”

Reading picture books to babies and toddlers is important, he said, because the earlier children acquire language, the more likely they are to master it.

Massaro said encouraging older children to sound out words and explaining what a word means if it isn’t clear in the context of the story will help build children’s vocabularies. Allowing children to pick the books they are interested in and turn the pages themselves keeps them active and engaged in learning, he said.

Reading to children also teaches them to listen, and “good listeners are going to be good readers,” Massaro said.

Massaro said that 95 percent of the time when adults are reading to children, the children are looking at the pictures, partly because picture books tend to have small or fancy fonts that are hard to read. If picture book publishers would use larger and simpler fonts, then children would be more likely to also focus on the words, helping them to become independent readers, he said.

In the study, Massaro compared the words in 112 popular picture books to adult-to-child conversations and adult-to-adult conversations. The picture books, which were recommended by librarians and chosen by him, included such favorites as “Goodnight Moon” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

Most of the books Massaro used were fiction, but children’s picture books can also be nonfiction and discuss topics such as earthquakes or ocean life that would likely include a larger number of uncommon words, he said, giving them an even greater advantage over conversation.

To analyze the conversations, Massaro used two databases of words. One database involved 64 conversations with 32 mothers. The mothers had one conversation with their baby, age 2 to 5 months, while interacting with toys, and another “casual conversation” with an adult experimenter. The second database consisted of more than 2.5 million words spoken by parents, caregivers and experimenters in the presence of children with a mean age of 36 months.

In his comparison, Massaro identified the number of uncommon words, and he determined that the picture books he analyzed contained more of them than the language used in conversation.

Massaro’s study has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Literacy Research .

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ROKIPEDIA 4 years ago 4 years ago

To be honest your article is informative and very helpful. After i saw your site and i read it and it help me a lot. Thanks for share your kind information. You may like this post on https://rokipedia.net/how-to-improve-vocabulary-for-adults/

Margaret McKeown 5 years ago 5 years ago

The issue should never be talking to vs reading to children, but interacting with children around language. Talk in a way that signals you expect a response; read as if in a conversation – comment, ask questions, talk about words in the book.

A well-known finding in the literacy field: interacting with children around books is more beneficial than simply reading aloud. See for example, Dickinson & Smith 1994; Teale & Martinez 1996; Beck & McKeown 2001)

Charris 5 years ago 5 years ago

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326630284_The_impact_of_a_writing_programme_on_reading_acquisition_of_at-risk_first_grade_children here is a fantastic study for those looking for ways to help children gain better reading skills, especially if they are behind their peers. Thank you for this article. While I knew reading was important, I figured the quantity of words was important, not thinking about the quality. This has motivated me to set a 10 book minimum for my children with lots of uncommon words.

writingpaper 6 years ago 6 years ago

Reading aloud is the best investment in the future of the child. The basis of literacy and interest in reading is laid in early childhood. Until the child learns to read independently, the influence of parents on his literacy is the most important. The number of home books, daily stories and regular visits to the library has a great influence on the development of the child's reading habits. My colleague conducted studies … Read More

Reading aloud is the best investment in the future of the child. The basis of literacy and interest in reading is laid in early childhood. Until the child learns to read independently, the influence of parents on his literacy is the most important. The number of home books, daily stories and regular visits to the library has a great influence on the development of the child’s reading habits. My colleague conducted studies show that at the age of three children from families where they read books, heard more than 20 million words than children from families where books are not read. If by the time of admission to school a child knows the letters well and has a certain lexicon, the level of his literary literacy remains high in the future. Reading aloud is a more important factor in a child’s success in the future than the socioeconomic status of his parents.

Gigi 7 years ago 7 years ago

Excellent article. Picture books are made for adults to read to children. That less frequent vocabulary found in picture book stories are the very words children probably do not know and will gloss over if the child is reading alone. The adult reading the story aloud to the child helps with unfamiliar vocabulary. This help provides the word knowledge children need to acquire to evetually add the word to his or her lexicon.

Cid and Mo 9 years ago 9 years ago

We totally agree! When children listen to stories they not only hear a wide vocabulary but they are also exposed to complex sentence structures that are different from the ones used in conversations. Also, most importantly, children who hear stories will learn to enjoy books and are more likely to read for pleasure themselves! Success! Cid and Mo

Tracey Needham 9 years ago 9 years ago

This is such an important study. Parents in a lower social class often do not know what to talk to their children about which can also hinder the ability of the child to learn new vocabulary, however reading picture books gives a starting point for conversations. The story and pictures can promote discussion and further understanding. This study gives further evidence to the importance of reading to young babies and toddlers; each … Read More

This is such an important study. Parents in a lower social class often do not know what to talk to their children about which can also hinder the ability of the child to learn new vocabulary, however reading picture books gives a starting point for conversations. The story and pictures can promote discussion and further understanding. This study gives further evidence to the importance of reading to young babies and toddlers; each new study is just adding further weight to the argument.

Anne 9 years ago 9 years ago

Let's not put down alphabet books with realistic pictures of apples, balls, and so on. I recall reading such a book with my child who was not yet walking. I read what was written and added my own about the "crunch" when you bit into an apple and more. There was a large "A" and "a" on the page. My child then pointed to the letters and clearly wanted … Read More

Let’s not put down alphabet books with realistic pictures of apples, balls, and so on. I recall reading such a book with my child who was not yet walking. I read what was written and added my own about the “crunch” when you bit into an apple and more. There was a large “A” and “a” on the page. My child then pointed to the letters and clearly wanted to know more about them as if why aren’t you talking about these. Phonics began that day… No one taught my son to read though sometimes he emphasized the wrong syllable in foreign names from the newspaper. I am blessed.

Concerned Parent Reporter 9 years ago 9 years ago

I believe the money paid,to do,the study was money waisted. Of course all people soak,up info. Better when road to for thousands and thousands of common sense reasons. 1. Some do not speakmenglishmwell and itmismtoughmtomstumble and stumble over words one can't pronouncemandmthis creates a lack of flow,ofmcomprehensionmet. 2. In our electronicmtextmworld, many are in a hurry and rush reading, skimming,mane comprehension is,lessened as compared to those who rest while being read to. 3. there is a … Read More

I believe the money paid,to do,the study was money waisted.

Of course all people soak,up info. Better when road to for thousands and thousands of common sense reasons.

1. Some do not speakmenglishmwell and itmismtoughmtomstumble and stumble over words one can’t pronouncemandmthis creates a lack of flow,ofmcomprehensionmet.

2. In our electronicmtextmworld, many are in a hurry and rush reading, skimming,mane comprehension is,lessened as compared to those who rest while being read to.

3. there is a magesty,of,theatre in hearing someone read ,in person, that is a God effect and captivates people to understand in more depth , not unlike eye contact.

stupid study, and notmworthmthemarticle

AutismMom 9 years ago 9 years ago

When my daughter was two years old, she was diagnosed with a developmental disability and was not talking and not understanding us. I would check out loads of children's picture books from the library to read to her. The pictures weren't enough for her to understand, so we would take stuffed animals and act out what was happening on each page. . We would read and act out about 13 books every evening before bed--plus … Read More

When my daughter was two years old, she was diagnosed with a developmental disability and was not talking and not understanding us. I would check out loads of children’s picture books from the library to read to her. The pictures weren’t enough for her to understand, so we would take stuffed animals and act out what was happening on each page. . We would read and act out about 13 books every evening before bed–plus some books during the day. (She also had other interventions to help her learn to talk). The repetition of familiar books was very helpful. We would always do the same book twice in a row before moving on to another book. Fred and Ted (Big Dog, Little Dog) books were the best. She got to the point where she not only understood them and could act them out, she could flip the language (Book says: Ted liked beets” she could take her stuffed animal and have it pretend to say, “I like beets.” Years later, she is communicating on grade level and is about a year ahead of her age group in reading. The repetition, pictures, and predictability of children’s books make them ideal for helping kids learn–not just literacy but also about the world and how to communicate verbally.

Parent 9 years ago 9 years ago

What a wonderful post. I sure wish that some non profit would do some valuable study on what you presented here to see if the act of reading that way did propel an autistic child forward more or not. A study is in order. . . . I ask you consider writing to some non profit that focuses on autism and ask if you can help shape a study to test out what you were doing … Read More

What a wonderful post. I sure wish that some non profit would do some valuable study on what you presented here to see if the act of reading that way did propel an autistic child forward more or not. A study is in order. . . . I ask you consider writing to some non profit that focuses on autism and ask if you can help shape a study to test out what you were doing with your child and to educate others if it works or not in a validated study. . . . Please consider that.

. . . Parent

Susan Frey 9 years ago 9 years ago

Thanks for your comment. I forwarded it to Professor Massaro, who is more in touch with the research community. I simply report on studies that I see. I don’t conduct them. It sounds like a terrific idea.

Dom Massaro 9 years ago 9 years ago

Thanks much for sharing your success story with your child. I would suggest contacting Autism Speaks ( https://www.autismspeaks.org/ ) about your experiences.

Parent News Opinion 9 years ago 9 years ago

How about facial ting more with parent, and , ask parent if someone from autism speaks can call her.

Parents often work two jobs and large non profits and others need to better reach out to facilitate in stronger ways.

I meant to write

how about facilitating more with parent

Eileen 9 years ago 9 years ago

While I see NO downside to reading aloud to/from any age group, I also want to state that the right type of verbal discussion can be as valuable or more valuable depending upon the topic. I cannot begin to explain all that I learned listening to adult conversations at the dinner table. Controversial current event topics began to make sense. I certainly learned my parents' preferences regarding the world order. Civics … Read More

While I see NO downside to reading aloud to/from any age group, I also want to state that the right type of verbal discussion can be as valuable or more valuable depending upon the topic. I cannot begin to explain all that I learned listening to adult conversations at the dinner table. Controversial current event topics began to make sense. I certainly learned my parents’ preferences regarding the world order. Civics was stressed beyond most measures of exposure in school. What has happened to the informed conversation? Obviously, the listener/learner will hear many biased opinions, however, the defense of those opinions can be a very valuable learning experience too.

Frances O'Neill Zimmerman 9 years ago 9 years ago

Studies are always interesting, but do we really want to set up a dichotomy between talking to kids vs. reading aloud to them? First off, I have to say how important it is to limit screens-time if you want to enhance a kid's love of reading. Obviously, both talking and reading aloud are important for both a child's sense of well-being and becoming literate. One aspect of reading aloud to young children that is sometimes … Read More

Studies are always interesting, but do we really want to set up a dichotomy between talking to kids vs. reading aloud to them? First off, I have to say how important it is to limit screens-time if you want to enhance a kid’s love of reading.

Obviously, both talking and reading aloud are important for both a child’s sense of well-being and becoming literate. One aspect of reading aloud to young children that is sometimes overlooked is taking time to encourage the youngster’s comments on the story or the illustrations — what feelings does the story elicit, predictions about what might happen, counting numbers, naming animals, identifying colors, appreciating the illustrations and wondering how they were made.

Also, there’s no age limit to the mutual pleasure of reading aloud or being read to. I know teenagers who will accept a grandparent’s offer to read aloud at bedtime and I know adults who do read-alouds on road-trips. Reading aloud is a human interaction and people remember the sound of a reader’s voice –a teacher, parent, grandparent, older brother, a friend, forever. One of life’s joys is discussing literature with someone who’s read what you’ve read, or who tells you about a book that’s unknown to you — and that someone can be a little kid or another adult.

Bill Jenkins 9 years ago 9 years ago

Our brains are designed to pay attention to the novel and gloss over the familiar. This goes all the way back to basic survival awareness where the unexpected and new are either threats or opportunities, but it can be harnessed for learning and complex cognitive processing. Combining that with the power of storytelling and its ability to touch our thoughts and emotions at the same time and you have a powerful teaching tool. … Read More

Our brains are designed to pay attention to the novel and gloss over the familiar. This goes all the way back to basic survival awareness where the unexpected and new are either threats or opportunities, but it can be harnessed for learning and complex cognitive processing. Combining that with the power of storytelling and its ability to touch our thoughts and emotions at the same time and you have a powerful teaching tool. Being exposed to novel words in a familiar and stimulating context is important to a child’s brain development and learning ability. Conditioning them that not everything is familiar will serve to keep them on their toes and alert for new stimuli, terms, and concepts. Their internal reward is the feeling of accomplishment and approval that comes with learning something new — aspiring and achieving. Stimulation is vital to the health of our brains, especially children’s brains. Attaching the learning moment to an emotion (preferably a positive one such as joy, excitement, or delight) solidifies the memory as significant and aids in placing it in long-term storage. Let’s not squander a mind that is open to the world by boring it into a stupor.

Mdw 9 years ago 9 years ago

At what age do the benefits of reading aloud begin to taper off? I’m still reading aloud to my 8 year old, does it continue thru the tween years? Any studies done on that?

There is no reason to stop reading to your child if you both are enjoying it. More importantly, the finding that the earlier you learn a word the better you master it holds well into adulthood. A particularly positive influence would occur if your shared reading stretches your child’s vocabulary beyond what he or she would normally read alone.

Dom Massaro

Shannon 9 years ago 9 years ago

I loved reading this article. I am a veteran teacher, starting my 27th year, and have been reading aloud to students (no matter what grade level I taught…6th graders seemed to love it more than most other grade levels ironically) . How can I convey this to my parents or colleagues how vital this is for our children?

Gary Ravani 9 years ago 9 years ago

Mdw: I'm not familiar with studies indicating increased reading comprehension (measured) via being read to aloud for older students. I will say, from experience, that students through 9th grade seem to appreciate it. Certainly junior high kids do, caught as they are in that "tweener" stage. Reading aloud, if done well, can allow a teacher to provide access to more sophisticated reading materials than student's current reading fluency levels might otherwise allow. Though a reading disability … Read More

I’m not familiar with studies indicating increased reading comprehension (measured) via being read to aloud for older students. I will say, from experience, that students through 9th grade seem to appreciate it. Certainly junior high kids do, caught as they are in that “tweener” stage. Reading aloud, if done well, can allow a teacher to provide access to more sophisticated reading materials than student’s current reading fluency levels might otherwise allow. Though a reading disability or lack of experience with English might not allow students to tackle more difficult text materials, they can frequently work with more sophisticated ideas. Which, in the long run, typically adds to comprehension levels as it develops increased context. Other similar strategies, readers’ theater, choral reading, and “jig-sawing” can also work well in the classroom.

Don 9 years ago 9 years ago

I guess it depends because at some point you may be reading to your child in lieu of your child reading alone. If your child wants you to read past the age when s/he should be reading alone then it is becoming a crutch.

FloydThursby1941 9 years ago 9 years ago

I think reading with your kids makes it fun and teachers them it’s important. They associate fun time with parents and approval with being able to read. 60% of Asians teach their kids to read before Kindergarten vs. 16% of whites, the main cause of the gap between these two groups in California. Reading is always better than talking.

Luis Carbajal 9 years ago 9 years ago

You are absolutely right Floyd. Reading to children is as much a pleasurable bonding experience as it is a learning experience. If a child or any human being for that matter, associates an activity with pleasure, he will be more likely to continue doing it.

Children enjoy being with their parents and doing something that is intimate. Reading is one of those activities.

Karen Mitcham 9 years ago 9 years ago

Great article So true!

Jamie Hogan 9 years ago 9 years ago

As both a mom and illustrator of picture books this Is concrete validation of not only the word wealth but also visual literacy benefits of a child and a story in your lap. Amen!

There's some very conflicting ideas in this article concerning reading more and talking more. Massaro says, "....encouraging parents to talk more to their children to increase their vocabularies – has its drawbacks." Frey goes on in the next paragraph too cite Hart and Risley who "concluded that the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies grew and the higher the children’s I.Q. test scores were at age 3..." Is the author … Read More

There’s some very conflicting ideas in this article concerning reading more and talking more. Massaro says, “….encouraging parents to talk more to their children to increase their vocabularies – has its drawbacks.” Frey goes on in the next paragraph too cite Hart and Risley who “concluded that the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies grew and the higher the children’s I.Q. test scores were at age 3…” Is the author conflating reading and talking (conversation)? Then there’s some explicit advice given by Massaro for everyone to read more, which is fine except for the fact that it is couched in the notion that doing so, ” would not only expose them to more words, he said, but it also would have a leveling effect for families with less education and a more limited vocabulary.” This totally omits what is being read and what is being discussed as factors. Which brings me to the next point.

The theory espoused here is that Moby Dick is better than The Old Man and the Sea – that reading is more like the first and talking is more like the second. I can imagine these researchers with their abacuses counting the words and separating them into big and small. There’s no discussion of storyline, character development, motif, meaning, etc. It’s all about some quantitative word uptake. Here’s a excerpt of a Carol Burris article about Common Core and the opt out movement:

“Here is a sample from the Grade 6 Reading test that was given in Virginia last year to measure the state’s Standards of Learning (SOL):

“Julia raced down the hallway, sliding the last few feet to her next class. The bell had already rung, so she slipped through the door and quickly sat down, hoping the teacher would not notice.

Mr. Malone turned from the piano and said, “Julia, I’m happy you could join us.” He continued teaching, explaining the new music they were preparing to learn. Julia relaxed, thinking Mr. Malone would let another tardy slide by. Unfortunately, she realized at the end of class that she was incorrect.”

That is certainly a reasonable passage to expect sixth-graders to read. You can find the complete passage and other released items from the Virginia tests here.

Contrast the above with a paragraph from a passage on the sixth-grade New York Common Core test given this spring.

The artist focuses on the ephemerality of his subject. “It’s there for a brief moment and the clouds fall apart,” he says. Since clouds are something that people tend to have strong connections to, there are a lot of preconceived notions and emotions tied to them. For him though, his work presents “a transitory moment of presence in a distinct location.” End

In the first passage there’s a tangible meaning and interaction relative to the child doing the reading. The second passage is abstract and evocative, and clearly beyond the average 6th grade mentality. But, gee whiz, its got a lot of big words. Well , no need to go off topic and trash Common Core. It does a pretty good job of trashing itself or as Burris noted – “I will let readers draw their own conclusions.”

“You are stretching them in vocabulary and grammar at an early age,” Massaro said. “You are preparing them to be expert language users, and indirectly you are going to facilitate their learning to read.”

Massaro wants to teach his 36 month old toddler grammar. I read to my kids so they would love a good story and develop an appreciation for writing and the aspirations of humanity. (drum roll)

The stuff of this article comes straight out of the Common Core slice and dice playbook which is not surprising given the big money donated by Gates to Ed Source.

As its main author, David Coleman said about writing in school, “They ( society/employers) don’t give a sh*t what you think or what you feel.” Maybe his mother talked too much and read too little.

Dana 6 years ago 6 years ago

Reading aloud is the best investment in the future of the child

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What Exactly Is the Science of Reading?

• Posted June 25, 2024
• By Elizabeth M. Ross
• Language and Literacy Development

Last summer Nonie Lesaux , a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who leads a research program that seeks to improve literacy outcomes for children and youth, was approached with a problem. The New York State Education Department (NYSED) needed to help the 600-plus school districts that the state agency serves better understand what scientific research had to say about how children learn strong reading and writing skills. Their query came at a time when powerful public advocacy for bringing the science of reading to classrooms, which had been steadily gaining momentum, had reached a fever pitch.

Over roughly the past decade, 38 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or introduced policies that aim to bring literacy instruction in line with decades of interdisciplinary research on the science of reading. In New York, in fact, Governor Kathy Hochul introduced a plan earlier this year to have schools in the state adopt science-based methods to improve reading instruction by September 2025.

When they approached her last summer, administrators at NYSED told Lesaux that many school district leaders and educators across the state felt “angst, confusion, and worry about the science of reading.” They weren’t sure what the term meant exactly — they had lots of questions, and they needed clarity and resources, she says, to help them “cut through a lot of noise,” including some misconceptions. 

So Lesaux produced a series of seven briefs to help the educators better understand the research, as well as the work that is needed. The briefs explore key ideas and myths about the science of reading, and leadership strategies for those in New York’s preK–12 systems who are working to improve literacy and provide professional learning supports.

Lesaux recently discussed the briefs, as well as how they have been received.

You worked with NYSED on a series of literacy briefs back in 2017. How did you build on that previous work with this new set of briefs?

Literacy is still the multifaceted, complex construct that it always has been, and the demands on the learner and the citizen today, in this global knowledge-based economy, are significant. You have to develop literacy skills to a level that is much higher than might have been necessary even 25 years ago, for entry into the workforce and for a good wage and income and lifestyle — that hasn't changed. … There is some overlap [in the briefs] because the knowledge base didn't change much. I think what changed, which was super important for the field, is the public became much clearer that there are effective and ineffective ways to teach early word reading.

In your first brief, you say that the science of reading reflects more than 50 years of research across multiple disciplines about how children successfully learn to read and write. If there is so much research and evidence, why has there been so much confusion about effective literacy instruction?

I think what has created some of the confusion is that there are a couple curricula and approaches that took hold at large scale — this kind of “leveled reader” approach, “balanced literacy” —  and the field took that up and the research was not there. In fact, it's deleterious for some kids because it's not the right approach. It's true that phonics instruction should be very explicit and direct, and that is not the same as teaching language and comprehension. And we need the language and comprehension teaching, but we can't confuse the two. And I think for far too long there was sort of this text-based approach to teaching phonics that wasn't actually the explicit direct instruction that a very significant number of children both need and respond so well to. But I think the danger is that we then swing the pendulum and pit the two ideas against each other, ideologically, and create this thing called “the reading wars,” when in fact we know we need a strong plan for phonics, and we need a strong plan for language and comprehension. It sounds so basic, and yet the politics and some of the ideologies of what it feels like to educate in developmentally appropriate ways got in the way of all of this. You know, rote explicit phonics instruction only needs to be about 20 minutes a day, but if you overdo it and it becomes synonymous with your reading instruction, you don't have a very engaging academic environment. When you do it really well and in the short burst that every first and second grader needs, it becomes very reinforcing and exciting because kids see their growth.

In one of your briefs, you set out to debunk common myths about the science of reading and you point out that learning to read and reading to learn should not be two distinct stages. You say effective teaching aims to teach all skills simultaneously from the earliest years?

Yeah, we need to stop pitting the two and we need to do both really well…. [and be] honest about the fact that there are lots of kids who don't have a vulnerability in the phonics area and don’t need more than the standard foundational instruction in this area, but who have very underdeveloped vocabulary and comprehension skills, you know, à la achievement opportunity gaps, and need a lot of content building knowledge. So, if we turn around and only do structured rote phonics programs, ad nauseum, they’re no better off for the long run.

What you mentioned about building up students’ background knowledge, to assist with reading comprehension, makes me think about the work of HGSE’s Jimmy Kim , correct?

Definitely. Jimmy’s portfolio of research has shed light on the effective strategies and the complexity of building up knowledge and comprehension skills. The same is true for Meredith Rowe's vocabulary work . There are others at HGSE, like Nadine Gaab with her [dyslexia] screening work , whose research is equally important. We’re all in the same fight together, contributing in specific ways for the same outcomes, but we're all looking at different pieces.

Regardless of which pieces we’re each focused on, some of the feedback that I get repeatedly [from school districts] is that it's so helpful that we step back and look at the policy and practice landscape and look at what the research really tells us about where we are, and then craft guidance in the form of resources and tools.

Additional resources

• American Public Radio's Sold a Story podcast

Separating Fact from Fiction About the Science of Reading

• The Science of Reading Literacy Briefs, NYSED
• Harvard Ed. magazine explores the next phase of the Reach Every Reader initiative
• Professor Catherine Snow puts the "literacy crisis" in context on the Harvard EdCast

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Phase Two: The Reach

Reach Every Reader on its impact and the project’s next phase

New literacy briefs correct common myths and misconceptions 

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10 Research-Based Benefits of Reading Aloud to Children

By Med Kharbach, PhD | Last Update: May 9, 2024

The pivotal role of reading aloud in early literacy development cannot be overstated. Historical research, such as the work of Durkin (1966), has long established the foundational importance of this practice. Durkin’s examination of children who began reading before formal schooling underscored a common thread: early readers not only benefited from the rich exposure to language and stories but also from an environment that encouraged the exploration of letters and sounds (Meyer et al., 1994). This early research hints at the profound impact of reading aloud on literacy and cognitive development.

Given the importance of reading aloud, I have delved into contemporary research literature and synthesized some of the main benefits that underscore its importance in a child’s developmental journey. These benefits span from vocabulary expansion and syntactic skill development to fostering emotional bonds and stimulating imagination.

However, it’s also critical to recognize the limitations of reading aloud, including the necessity of adult involvement and the selection of appropriate materials. For those interested in a deeper understanding of the nuances and impacts of reading aloud, I encourage exploring the references cited.

This comprehensive overview aims to offer educators, parents, and caregivers a grounded perspective on the multifaceted benefits of reading aloud, as well as thoughtful considerations on its limitations.

Related: 3 Key Read Aloud Strategies for Young Learners

Benefits of Reading Aloud to Children

The following are 10 benefits based on research, highlighting the significant impact of reading aloud on children’s development across various dimensions:

1. Expands Vocabulary

Reading aloud to children significantly expands their vocabulary, as research by Beck et al. (2002) and De Temple & Snow (2003) supports. Massaro’s study further illuminates this by examining the vocabulary in children’s picture books, revealing that children are three times more likely to encounter new words during a read-aloud session than in regular conversation.

This exposure to a broader lexicon not only enriches children’s language but also enhances their understanding of the world around them, providing a solid foundation for future reading comprehension and academic success.

Children listening to a reading aloud of a picture book are roughly three times more likely to experience a new word type that is not among the most frequent words in the child’s language. (Massaro, 2017, p. 64)

2. Enhances Listening Comprehension

Reading aloud to children plays a crucial role in enhancing their listening comprehension skills, a foundational aspect of literacy development recognized by Morrow & Gambrell (2002) and Stanovich et al. (1998). Trelease (1989) emphasizes the sequence in language acquisition, stating that listening comprehension precedes reading comprehension, and a child’s ability to understand spoken words is a precursor to reading and using those words.

He further explains that the vocabulary children hear when being read to serves as a reservoir, enriching their reading vocabulary. This relationship underscores the importance of reading aloud in building a robust vocabulary that supports reading development.

Listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension. If a child has never heard the word, he or she will never say the word. And if you have neither heard it nor said it, it is highly unlikely you’ll be able to read and write it. The listening vocabulary is that reservoir of words that feeds the reading vocabulary pool” (Trelease, 1989, pp.204-205)

3. Develops Syntactic Skills

Reading aloud to children significantly contributes to the development of their syntactic skills, as highlighted by Lane & Wright (2007) and foundational work by Chomsky (1972). Through exposure to diverse sentence structures and grammatical patterns in read-aloud sessions, children learn to understand and use complex language constructs, enhancing their ability to form sentences and grasp the rules of language. This auditory experience with language provides a practical context for syntactic development, laying the groundwork for more advanced reading and writing skills.

My conclusion is that the language and content of prototypical picture books are more extensive in vocabulary, grammar, and content and therefore more cognitively challenging than their counterparts in prototypically spoken language. One readily apparent implication is that we should spend more time reading these books to our children. (Massaro, 2017, p. 70)

4. Bolsters Word Recognition

Reading aloud to children has been shown to significantly bolster their word recognition abilities, as Stahl (2003) points out. This practice exposes children to a wide range of vocabulary in different contexts, allowing them to become familiar with the appearance and sound of words.

Over time, this repeated exposure helps children to quickly and accurately identify words, a skill that is crucial for fluent reading and comprehension. This benefit is one of the many reasons why reading aloud is considered a key component of early literacy development.

5. Fosters Social Bonding and Emotional Growth

Reading aloud to children not only supports their cognitive and literacy development but also fosters social bonding and emotional growth, as Trelease (1989) highlights. This shared activity strengthens the connection between the child and the reader, creating a nurturing environment that promotes emotional security and empathy.

Through stories, children learn about different emotions and situations, enhancing their emotional intelligence and social understanding. This intimate experience of reading together contributes to a child’s sense of wellbeing and strengthens familial and educational bonds.

6. Inspires Literacy Desire

Trelease (1989) eloquently captures the inspirational power of reading aloud to children. He suggests that witnessing an adept reader navigate through stories with ease and expression instills in children a deep-seated desire to emulate such prowess. This experience, rich in awe and admiration, plants the seeds of aspiration towards literacy.

It’s through observing the magic of storytelling that children develop a yearning to unlock the wonders of words and books for themselves, highlighting the profound influence of reading aloud on a child’s motivational landscape towards reading and learning.

In watching and hearing the competent reader aloud, the child sooner or later yearns to imitate, looks to the day when he or she will be able to work such magic with words and books. And thus are planted the seeds of desire that can only spring from awareness. (Trelease, 1989, p. 205)

7. Improves Phonological Awareness

Griffin (1992) highlights the significant role of reading aloud in enhancing phonological awareness and pronunciation skills in learners. By engaging with texts read aloud, learners are exposed to auditory experiences with the target language, encountering words that they might not typically hear in everyday spoken language. This exposure broadens their auditory vocabulary and aids in the accurate pronunciation of words seen in printed texts, thus supporting their overall language acquisition process.

Reading aloud expands learners’ auditory with the target language by exposing them to words that they would not ordinarily hear in spoken form. (Griffin, 1992, p. 784)

8. Multifaceted Language Development

Meyer et al., (1994) underscores the multifaceted impact of storybook reading on children’s language development. This activity not only enriches vocabulary and comprehension but also introduces children to complex syntactic structures and the specialized language register used in academic settings.

Furthermore, reading aloud serves as a practical method for children to learn about print concepts, supporting early literacy skills foundational for academic success. This comprehensive approach to language learning through storybook reading highlights its critical role in educational development.

It seems clear that storybook reading affects children’s language ability in vocabulary knowledge, ability to comprehend, and use of more complex syntactic structures and their ability to understand the literacy register typical of school books. Reading to children has also been proposed as a means for children to learn about print (e.g., Goodman & Goodman, 1979). (Meyer et al., 1994, p. 74)

9. Navigates Decontextualized Language

Beck & McKeown (2001) emphasize the significance of reading aloud and discussing texts with children as a strategy to navigate decontextualized language. This approach aids in understanding language that is not tied to immediate, physical contexts, enhancing cognitive and linguistic skills necessary for academic success and literacy. Through this interactive method, children learn to interpret and use language in diverse situations, fostering deeper comprehension and engagement with texts.

Enhancing young children’s comprehension and language capabilities is essential for promoting literacy growth. Reading aloud and discussing what is read is an important avenue for helping children deal with decontexualized language. (Beck & McKeown, 2001, p. 18)

10. Encourages Imagination and Creativity

Reading aloud to children is a gateway to uncharted realms of imagination and creativity. Through the vivid narratives and diverse characters encountered in stories, children are transported to worlds far beyond their immediate surroundings. This journey not only entertains but also stimulates mental imagery, encouraging them to visualize the events, settings, and characters described.

As they listen, their minds actively construct these scenarios, fostering a space where imagination flourishes. This creative exercise is crucial, not just for its immediate enjoyment, but for nurturing the ability to think innovatively and solve problems creatively. Engaging with stories in this way lays the foundation for a lifelong appreciation of literature and the arts, and equips children with the imaginative and creative skills necessary for navigating the complexities of the world with a sense of wonder and possibility.

Suggestions abound in countless documents that parents and teachers alike should read to their children because it will help them learn to read. As stated in Becoming A Nation of Readers, “As they listen to stories, and discuss them, children will learn to make inferences about plots and characters” (Anderson et al.,1985, p. 30). (cited in Meyer et al., 1994, p. 69)

Reading Aloud Limitations

While reading aloud offers a multitude of benefits for children’s literacy and emotional development, it’s important to consider certain limitations. Massaro’s (2017) research brings to light a crucial distinction in literacy development—the difference between enhancing language and cognitive skills versus developing the mechanics of reading, such as letter recognition and text navigation.

Although reading aloud significantly enriches a child’s language abilities and cognitive development, it does not directly contribute to mastering the mechanics of reading. This gap is evident in studies like the one conducted by Evans & Saint-Aubin (2005), which found that during read-aloud sessions, children spent the majority of their time looking at pictures rather than the words, highlighting a missed opportunity for practicing word recognition and text navigation skills.

This underscores the importance of complementing read-aloud activities with targeted exercises that focus on these essential reading mechanics, ensuring a well-rounded approach to literacy development. As Meyer et al., (1994) contended

There seems to be no magic in just reading to children. Instead, the magic comes as you engage them with print, and it is this engagement with print that helps children become readers. (p. 83)

Another limitation is the dependence on adult participation . As we all know, reading aloud requires consistent adult involvement. For children in environments where adults may not have the time, resources, or ability to read regularly, this can limit access to the benefits of read-aloud experiences.

Along similar lines, reading aloud is only as effective as the selection of texts being read (Trelease, 1989). Choosing texts that are too complex or not interesting to the child can hinder engagement and the associated benefits.

There is also the passivity risk: While reading aloud is interactive, there’s a risk that it might encourage passivity in children if not paired with active discussion and questioning. This can limit children’s opportunities to engage critically with the text and develop their own interpretative skills.

Additionally, cultural and language representation can pose problems i n reading aloud activities. The availability of books that accurately reflect the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of all children is limited. This can affect children’s ability to see themselves in stories and fully engage with the reading material.

Addressing these limitations requires a mindful approach to reading aloud, including diverse and engaging material selection, encouraging active participation, and supplementing read-aloud sessions with activities that develop reading mechanics and critical thinking skills.

Concluding thoughts

In conclusion, reading aloud to children is an important element in early literacy and developmental support, offering a spectrum of benefits that extend far beyond the mere acquisition of reading skills. From enhancing vocabulary and listening comprehension to nurturing emotional bonds and sparking imaginative growth, the act of sharing stories aloud lays a robust foundation for lifelong learning and curiosity.

Despite its limitations, which call for a balanced and thoughtful approach, the practice of reading aloud is an invaluable investment in a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional well-being. As we move forward, it remains imperative for parents, educators, and caregivers to embrace and advocate for the continued place of reading aloud in the lives of young learners. By doing so, we not only enrich individual lives but also contribute to the cultivation of a more literate, empathetic, and imaginative society.

• Anderson, R. C, Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., & Wilkinson, I. A. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers. Washington, DC: The National Institute of Education
• Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2001). Text Talk: Capturing the Benefits of Read-Aloud Experiences for Young Children. The Reading Teacher, 55(1), 10–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205005
• Beck, I.L, McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002). Bringing words to life. Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York: Guilford.
• Chomsky, C. (1972). Stages in language development and reading exposure. Harvard Educational Review , 42, 1-33.
• De Temple, J., & Snow, CE. (2003). Learning words from books. In A. van Kleeck, S.A. Stahl, & E.B. Bauer (Eds.), On reading books to children: Parents and teachers (pp.16-36). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
• Durkin, D. (1966). Children who read early. New York: Teachers College Press
• Evans, M. A., & Saint-Aubin, J. (2005). What children are looking at during shared storybook reading: Evidence from eye movement monitoring. Psychonomic Science , 116, 913–920.
• Griffin, S. M. (1992). Reading Aloud. An Educator Comments. TESOL Quarterly, 26(4), 784–787. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586890
• Lane, H. B., & Wright, T. L. (2007). Maximizing the Effectiveness of Reading Aloud.  The Reading Teacher ,  60 (7), 668–675.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204520
• Massaro, D. W. (2017). Reading aloud to children: Benefits and implications for acquiring literacy before schooling begins. The American Journal of Psychology , 130(1), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.130.1.0063
• Meyer, L. A., Wardrop, J. L., Stahl, S. A., & Linn, R. L. (1994). Effects of Reading Storybooks Aloud to Children. The Journal of Educational Research, 88(2), 69–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27541958
• Morrow, L. M., & Gambrell, L. B. (2002). Literature-based instruction in the early years. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 348-360). New York: Guilford.
• Stahl, S.A. (2003). What do we expect storybook reading to do? How storybook reading impacts word recognition. In A. van Kleeck, S.A. Stahl, & E.B. Bauer (Eds.), On reading books to children: Parents
• Stanovich, K.E., Cunningham, A.E., & West, R.F. (1998). Literacy experiences and the shaping of cognition. In S.G. Paris & H.M. Wellman (Eds.), Global prospects for education: Development, culture, and schooling (pp. 253-288). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Trelease, J. (1989). Jim Trelease Speaks on Reading Aloud to Children. The Reading Teacher, 43(3), 200–206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20200338

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Meet Med Kharbach, PhD

Dr. Med Kharbach is an influential voice in the global educational technology landscape, with an extensive background in educational studies and a decade-long experience as a K-12 teacher. Holding a Ph.D. from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada, he brings a unique perspective to the educational world by integrating his profound academic knowledge with his hands-on teaching experience. Dr. Kharbach's academic pursuits encompass curriculum studies, discourse analysis, language learning/teaching, language and identity, emerging literacies, educational technology, and research methodologies. His work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences and published in various esteemed academic journals.

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Why Children Should Read 20 Minutes a Day and How This Impacts Your Kids’ Development – At Any Age

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Are children and teens really reading less than they used to? It appears so. Studies show that less than 20% of teens in the United States read for pleasure.

Yet they spend more and more time on social media or gaming, with the average eighth-grader spending four hours a day gaming, texting, and online browsing.

Of course, it’s hard to get your child or teen to curl up with a good book for hours — there’s just so many other fun things to do. But you might be pleased to hear that the benefits of reading just 20 minutes a day have been proven by research.

And that’s something we can all commit to, right?

The importance of reading 20 minutes a day

There are several powerful benefits of reading 20 minutes a day:

Early reading skills can affect children’s academic success

Reading 20 minutes a day exposes kids to a vast quantity of words (1.8 million in each school year, actually!). And this exposure makes children more likely to score in the 90th percentile on standardized tests.

If you compare this to children who read just 5 minutes per day — and are therefore more likely to score in the 50th percentile — it’s easy to see how reading time translates to academic success.

Meanwhile, a separate study involving almost 10 million students showed only those reading at least 15 minutes a day achieved accelerated reading gains . And those reading less were at risk of falling behind their peers.

If you’ve been unsure of the benefits of reading 20 minutes a day, these statistics should help clear any confusion up!

Reading often helps to improve writing skills

Following on from our previous point, if there’s vocabulary benefits associated with reading 20 minutes a day, then writing benefits are there for the taking, too.

Essentially, the more words your kid reads, the wider their vocabulary is likely to be. And a wide vocabulary makes a kid’s writing more interesting and impressive.

They’ll discover new ways to convey meaning, articulate their thoughts, persuade people , use figurative language , and engage readers’ emotions. This can help them become stronger writers, whether working on a short story age 10, an essay age 13, or a college application letter age 17.

Children who rarely read are less likely to expand their linguistic know-how in the same way. And that could hold their writing back significantly.

Reading stimulates and enhances children’s imaginations

Recent research shows that the imagination may be more powerful than believed previously — scientists now believe that creative imaging can ‘rewrite’ certain memories to be less traumatic, and can even enhance certain physical connections within the body.

For example, imagining playing a piano could “ boost neuronal connections in regions related to the fingers ”. So developing a strong imagination could help people to exercise greater control over their thoughts, memories, and more.

What’s this got to do with your kid, you ask?

Well, reading daily can help to strengthen a child’s imagination, introducing them to concepts, cultures, and possibilities beyond their own life experience. They can learn about the world, stimulate their curiosity, and give them a better understanding of other people’s lives.

And with the imagination being such a powerful force, there’s a lot to gain from that!

Fiction stimulates creativity in children

So from imagination to creativity — two related, but still quite different strengths for kids who read 20 minutes a day.

Getting lost in a fictional world helps kids to expand their own creativity, as they’ll experience situations, worlds, characters, thoughts, and feeling that they may not have come across in their own lives just yet.

What’s more, by reading they’ll realize that people can make a living from writing books, magazines, and newspapers. This may inspire them to explore their own creativity and inform their career choices in the future.

A good book encourages children to relax at bedtime

Kids, no matter their age, have a lot going on. They’re constantly learning, and changes like the transition from middle school to high school can be stressful for some.

The good news is, either reading with your child — or allowing them to read independently at bedtime — can help them to relax and wind down from their day.

Research by the UK National Literacy Trust (NLT) found that 90% of children feel “happiest” when reading and writing, as opposed to playing games or watching favorite cartoons. That might sound a little unbelievable if your kid is more often glued to their screen, than with their nose in a book, but maybe a little nudge in the right direction is all they need!

Regularly reading helps kids develop empathy

Studies show that reading can help children to develop empathy , by challenging them to consider how other people (the characters) may think or feel.

You can give them a casual boost at school or home, too. Parents and teachers can help support this empathy development by asking:

• “Why do you think Harry Potter did what he did on this page?”
• “What could you say to make the BFG feel better about himself?”
• “How would you feel if you were far from home, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz ?”

Learning to approach situations and consider the feelings of others could help children of all ages to be more compassionate in life.

So why read for 20 minutes a day? Now you know

Young children, pre-teens, and teens can all reap a number of benefits from reading 20 minutes a day — whether that’s helping them learn about the world around them, increasing their academic performance, discovering their own untapped creative potential, or just hanging out and enjoying a great book!

So what are you waiting for? Why not head down to the library or bookstore together, pick out a few new titles, and get to work on setting a new, family habit — together .

Chances are, you’ve got a lot to gain from reading a little more too!

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Are white noise machines bad? Here’s what the latest science says.

We conducted a review of the medical literature on white noise machines for young children. All the devices generated alarmingly loud sounds.

I’ve been using a white noise machine since my son was born. It helps him sleep. Is that bad? Could it affect his hearing?

Many American households turn to white noise machines to help their children get to and stay asleep. White noise is made up of different frequencies, creating a background sound that can muffle potential disturbances. The devices are easy to use, often in the form of a stand-alone machine or a smartphone app. The positives of this seemingly low-risk intervention are obvious: better sleep.

But just how low risk is it? To find out, we conducted a review of the available literature on white noise machines for young children. The results, recently published in the journal Sleep Medicine, showed that all tested devices generated alarmingly loud sounds.

There is no uniform standard for noise exposure from consumer products like white noise machines. For occupational noise, however, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends limiting exposure to less than 85 decibels over eight hours and 82 decibels over 16 hours. That’s roughly equivalent to noise from a lawn mower over eight hours or standing near busy traffic for 16 hours.

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A toddler might sleep for 10 to 12 hours a night, but infants may sleep up to 16 hours over the whole day . In our review, we found that across 24 white noise machines and six phone apps, all could produce sound that violated the NIOSH guideline for an eight-hour work shift. Some white noise machines can reach volumes of 91 decibels — around the same level as a Metrorail train roaring through a station at top speed.

Most parents probably aren’t setting the machines at the loudest setting. But this finding means that during a typical night’s sleep, a white noise machine at maximum volume exposes children to noise that can cause permanent hearing loss.

Changing the type of sound to music, static, rumble or tones does not make the sound safer, but lowering the volume does. In general, you should keep your white noise machine at the lowest volume that helps your child sleep. Our recommendation is to keep the volume at 60 decibels or less.

Can white noise machines damage hearing?

White noise exposure near its maximum volume is harmful in multiple ways. Loud, extended noise exposure causes mechanical stress to inner ear sensory hair cells, inflammatory damage to their supporting structures and damage to the nerve ending to the hair cells. This causes breakage of the tiny hairlike receptor proteins on their surface, cell death and loss of supporting cells.

Our research builds on this to show that white noise exposure in young children is even more of a concern due to its potential impact on physiological and social development. Animal models with noise exposure between 60 and 80 decibels have shown stunted vocal development and delayed development of neurons in the auditory processing centers of the brain.

Similarly, studies of children near high ambient noise like high traffic, train or plane noise have been linked to negative effects on sleep duration , sleep disturbances, cognitive development, behavioral issues, reading proficiency and even changes on brain imaging of regions related to language development.

What is a safe level for a white noise machine?

White noise within reasonable limits may help children — and parents — sleep without causing harm. We found studies showing that white noise applied at 60 decibels or less — about the volume of a quiet conversation — showed a decrease in nighttime arousals, increased sleep time and increase sleep efficiency (time spent asleep while in bed).

To check whether your white noise machine is at a safe volume, you can purchase a decibel meter online or download an app on your smartphone. NIOSH created a free app calibrated specifically for iPhones, called the NIOSH Sound Level Meter (SLM) app.

Place the white noise machine at the volume you usually use it and place your decibel meter where your child sleeps. The sound intensity should be well below 82 decibels.

Lt. Col. Isaac Erbele is the associate program director for otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Capt. Russell De Jong is a resident surgeon in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Brooke Army Medical Center, Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, the Defense Department or any agencies under the U.S. government.

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• Research into trans medicine has been manipulated

Court documents offer a window into how this happens

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I N APRIL HILARY CASS , a British paediatrician, published her review of gender-identity services for children and young people, commissioned by NHS England. It cast doubt on the evidence base for youth gender medicine. This prompted the World Professional Association for Transgender Health ( WPATH ), the leading professional organisation for the doctors and practitioners who provide services to trans people, to release a blistering rejoinder. WPATH said that its own guidelines were sturdier, in part because they were “based on far more systematic reviews”.

Systematic reviews should evaluate the evidence for a given medical question in a careful, rigorous manner. Such efforts are particularly important at the moment, given the feverish state of the American debate on youth gender medicine, which is soon to culminate in a Supreme Court case challenging a ban in Tennessee. The case turns, in part, on questions of evidence and expert authority.

Court documents recently released as part of the discovery process in a case involving youth gender medicine in Alabama reveal that WPATH ’s claim was built on shaky foundations. The documents show that the organisation’s leaders interfered with the production of systematic reviews that it had commissioned from the Johns Hopkins University Evidence-Based Practice Centre ( EPC ) in 2018.

From early on in the contract negotiations, WPATH expressed a desire to control the results of the Hopkins team’s work. In December 2017, for example, Donna Kelly, an executive director at WPATH , told Karen Robinson, the EPC ’s director, that the WPATH board felt the EPC researchers “cannot publish their findings independently”. A couple of weeks later, Ms Kelly emphasised that, “the [ WPATH ] board wants it to be clear that the data cannot be used without WPATH approval”.

Ms Robinson saw this as an attempt to exert undue influence over what was supposed to be an independent process. John Ioannidis of Stanford University, who co-authored guidelines for systematic reviews, says that if sponsors interfere or are allowed to veto results, this can lead to either biased summaries or suppression of unfavourable evidence. Ms Robinson sought to avoid such an outcome. “In general, my understanding is that the university will not sign off on a contract that allows a sponsor to stop an academic publication,” she wrote to Ms Kelly.

Months later, with the issue still apparently unresolved, Ms Robinson adopted a sterner tone. She noted in an email in March 2018 that, “Hopkins as an academic institution, and I as a faculty member therein, will not sign something that limits academic freedom in this manner,” nor “language that goes against current standards in systematic reviews and in guideline development”.

Not to reason XY

Eventually WPATH relented, and in May 2018 Ms Robinson signed a contract granting WPATH power to review and offer feedback on her team’s work, but not to meddle in any substantive way. After wpath leaders saw two manuscripts submitted for review in July 2020, however, the parties’ disagreements flared up again. In August the WPATH executive committee wrote to Ms Robinson that WPATH had “many concerns” about these papers, and that it was implementing a new policy in which WPATH would have authority to influence the EPC team’s output—including the power to nip papers in the bud on the basis of their conclusions.

Ms Robinson protested that the new policy did not reflect the contract she had signed and violated basic principles of unfettered scientific inquiry she had emphasised repeatedly in her dealings with WPATH . The Hopkins team published only one paper after WPATH implemented its new policy: a 2021 meta-analysis on the effects of hormone therapy on transgender people. Among the recently released court documents is a WPATH checklist confirming that an individual from WPATH was involved “in the design, drafting of the article and final approval of [that] article”. (The article itself explicitly claims the opposite.) Now, more than six years after signing the agreement, the EPC team does not appear to have published anything else, despite having provided WPATH with the material for six systematic reviews, according to the documents.

No one at WPATH or Johns Hopkins has responded to multiple inquiries, so there are still gaps in this timeline. But an email in October 2020 from WPATH figures, including its incoming president at the time, Walter Bouman, to the working group on guidelines, made clear what sort of science WPATH did (and did not) want published. Research must be “thoroughly scrutinised and reviewed to ensure that publication does not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care in the broadest sense,” it stated. Mr Bouman and one other coauthor of that email have been named to a World Health Organisation advisory board tasked with developing best practices for transgender medicine.

Another document recently unsealed shows that Rachel Levine, a transwoman who is assistant secretary for health, succeeded in pressing wpath to remove minimum ages for the treatment of children from its 2022 standards of care. Dr Levine’s office has not commented. Questions remain unanswered, but none of this helps WPATH ’s claim to be an organisation that bases its recommendations on science. ■

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