Kind stories for children — listen together

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends reading aloud to children every day, starting in infancy. Shared reading strengthens the bond with parents, stimulates language circuitry in the brain and builds the foundation for language, cognitive and social-emotional development.

A child read to daily hears about 296,000 words from books by the age of five. A child who is not read to hears roughly 4,700. Researchers called this gap "the million word gap".

An MRI study of children aged 3–5 found that the more reading happens at home, the stronger the activation of brain areas supporting mental imagery and narrative comprehension while listening to a story — controlling for household income.

A mother's voice activates markedly more regions in a child's brain than an unfamiliar woman's voice — including emotion and reward centres. The stronger the connectivity between these regions, the better the child's social communication skills.

A British cohort study following over three thousand teenagers born in 1970 found that those who read for pleasure every day understood 26% more words at sixteen than those who never read. Teenagers from homes with books knew 42% more words.

A Leiden University meta-analysis covering 99 studies and nearly 7,700 participants — from preschoolers to university students — found that the more a person reads, the better they comprehend; and the better they comprehend, the more they go on to read. The researchers called it an upward spiral.

A meta-analysis of 21 studies from ten countries, covering almost 2,300 children aged two to ten, examined how shared storybook reading affects social skills. A significant effect was confirmed for prosocial behaviour — willingness to help, share and consider others.

A study drawing on international data from 31 countries followed adults who had grown up surrounded by books as teenagers. In adulthood they scored higher in literacy, numeracy and technology-based problem solving. A book-rich home in childhood proved to be linked to skills a person uses for life.