By Emily Shwake

Although you may be tempted to let little nieces and nephews fall asleep after a long day of fun with Auntie, think twice before skipping their regular bedtime stories. New research from John Hutton, MD, National Research Service Award Fellow at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, shows that Dr. Seuss may be doing even more for the kids in your life than you originally thought. Hutton’s team is the first to find scientific evidence that children benefit from “reading exposure,” or the amount of time they spend listening to their parents or Savvy Aunties read to them before learning how to read in school.

After studying 19 children ages 3-5 (considered a crucial period of mental development) using an fMRI, children, whose parents and caregivers read to them, demonstrated strong links to "narrative comprehension and reading readiness." The study also demonstrates that imagination is vital to bridging the gap between books with pictures and books without. When young children are read to, they are later able to visualize the images when they graduate to books without images. This enables children to “see” what’s going on as they read.

Dr. Hutton explained at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies that he hopes his research would "guide further research on shared reading and the developing brain to help improve interventions and identify children at risk for difficulties as early as possible, increasing the chances that they will be successful in the wonderful world of books."

Not sure where to begin? B.J. Novak's "The Book With No Pictures" is a great start!



Photo: oksun70
Published: May 6, 2015