WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF READING ALOUD TO CHILDREN? Two recent studies, as reported in an August New York Times “Well Blog” post by Perri Klass, MD, took on this question. The findings of those studies shed light on early literacy, child imagination, and the brain.
DOCTORS RECOMMEND READING ALOUD
Last year, Klass, along with her colleague Dr. Pamela C. High, co-wrote an American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement recommending that doctors promote early literacy within patients’ families.
As Klass writes in her August 2015 blogpost, “Bedtime Stories for Young Brains,” pediatricians taking care of infants and toddlers “should routinely be advising parents about how important it is to read to even very young children.”
But why? Two new studies take a look at what happens when, as Klass puts it, “you put a small child on your lap and open a picture book.”
BRAIN ACTIVITY
One recent study reported in the medical journal, Pediatrics, “used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity in 3- to 5-year-old children as they listened to age-appropriate stories,” Klass reports. Findings suggested differences in brain activity levels that correlated to the amount of reading parents did with the children.
“Children whose parents reported more reading at home and more books in the home,” Klass writes, “showed significantly greater activation of brain areas in a region of the left hemisphere called the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex.”
VARIED VOCABULARY
Another study, published in the August edition of Psychological Science, suggests children whose parents read books aloud to them are exposed to wider, more varied vocabulary set.
“In comparing the language in books to the language used by parents talking to their children,” Klass writes, “the researchers found that the picture books contained more ‘unique word types.’”
In other words, “reading picture books with young children may mean that they hear more words,” Klass explains, “while at the same time, their brains practice creating the images associated with those words — and with the more complex sentences and rhymes that make up even simple stories.”
Read the entire New York Times piece by Perri Klass, MD to learn more about the studies and the benefits of reading aloud to children.