research on reading with your child

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.

Electronic reading should complement traditional paper reading not replace it.

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.

Reading with different inflections and dramatic voices increases a child's engagement

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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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

Keisha Siriboe, an early childhood literacy consultant with a PhD in early childhood education, says reading aloud can help people with stress management, hope and resilience.

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.

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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 .

Life Kit: Life Skills
Life Kit: Parenting

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Why Reading Is Important for Children’s Brain Development

Early childhood is a critical period for brain development , which is important for boosting cognition and mental well-being. Good brain health at this age is directly linked to better mental heath, cognition, and educational attainment in adolescence and adulthood. It can also provide resilience in times of stress.

But, sadly, brain development can be hampered by poverty. Studies have shown that early childhood poverty is a risk factor for lower educational attainment. It is also associated with differences in brain structure, poorer cognition, behavioral problems, and mental health symptoms.

This shows just how important it is to give all children an equal chance in life. But until sufficient measures are taken to reduce inequality and improve outcomes, our new study, published in Psychological Medicine , shows one low-cost activity that may at least counteract some of the negative effects of poverty on the brain: reading for pleasure.

Wealth and brain health

Higher family income in childhood tends to be associated with higher scores on assessments of language, working memory, and the processing of social and emotional cues. Research has shown that the brain’s outer layer, called the cortex, has a larger surface area and is thicker in people with higher socioeconomic status than in poorer people.

Being wealthy has also been linked with having more grey matter (tissue in the outer layers of the brain) in the frontal and temporal regions (situated just behind the ears) of the brain. And we know that these areas support the development of cognitive skills.

The association between wealth and cognition is greatest in the most economically disadvantaged families . Among children from lower-income families, small differences in income are associated with relatively large differences in surface area. Among children from higher-income families, similar income increments are associated with smaller differences in surface area.

Importantly, the results from one study found that when mothers with low socioeconomic status were given monthly cash gifts, their children’s brain health improved . On average, they developed more changeable brains (plasticity) and better adaptation to their environment. They also found it easier to subsequently develop cognitive skills.

Our socioeconomic status will even influence our decision making . A report from the London School of Economics found that poverty seems to shift people’s focus toward meeting immediate needs and threats. They become more focused on the present with little space for future plans—and also tended to be more averse to taking risks.

It also showed that children from low-socioeconomic-background families seem to have poorer stress coping mechanisms and feel less self-confident.

But what are the reasons for these effects of poverty on the brain and academic achievement? Ultimately, more research is needed to fully understand why poverty affects the brain in this way. There are many contributing factors that will interact. These include poor nutrition and stress on the family caused by financial problems. A lack of safe spaces and good facilities to play and exercise in, as well as limited access to computers and other educational support systems, could also play a role.

Reading for pleasure

There has been much interest of late in leveling up. So what measures can we put in place to counteract the negative effects of poverty that could be applicable globally?

Our observational study shows a dramatic and positive link between a fun and simple activity—reading for pleasure in early childhood—and better cognition, mental health, and educational attainment in adolescence.

We analyzed the data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) project, a U.S. national cohort study with more than 10,000 participants across different ethnicities and and varying socioeconomic status. The dataset contained measures of young adolescents ages nine to 13 and how many years they had spent reading for pleasure during their early childhood. It also included data on their cognitive health, mental health, and brain health.

About half of the group of adolescents started reading early in childhood, whereas the others, approximately half, had never read in early childhood, or had begun reading later on.

Meet the Greater Good Toolkit for Kids

28 practices, scientifically proven to nurture kindness, compassion, and generosity in young minds

We discovered that reading for pleasure in early childhood was linked with better scores on comprehensive cognition assessments and better educational attainment in young adolescence. It was also associated with fewer mental health problems and less time spent on electronic devices.

Our results showed that reading for pleasure in early childhood can be beneficial regardless of socioeconomic status. It may also be helpful regardless of the children’s initial intelligence level. That’s because the effect didn’t depend on how many years of education the children’s parents had had—which is our best measure for very young children’s intelligence (IQ is partially heritable).

We also discovered that children who read for pleasure had larger cortical surface areas in several brain regions that are significantly related to cognition and mental health (including the frontal areas). Importantly, this was the case regardless of socioeconomic status. The result therefore suggests that reading for pleasure in early childhood may be an effective intervention to counteract the negative effects of poverty on the brain.

While our current data was obtained from families across the United States, future analyses will include investigations with data from other countries—including developing countries, when comparable data become available.

So how could reading boost cognition exactly? It is already known that language learning, including through reading and discussing books, is a key factor in healthy brain development. It is also a critical building block for other forms of cognition, including executive functions (such as memory, planning, and self-control) and social intelligence.

Because there are many different reasons why poverty may negatively affect brain development, we need a comprehensive and holistic approach to improving outcomes. While reading for pleasure is unlikely, on its own, to fully address the challenging effects of poverty on the brain, it provides a simple method for improving children’s development and attainment.

Our findings also have important implications for parents, educators, and policymakers in facilitating reading for pleasure in young children. It could, for example, help counteract some of the negative effects on young children’s cognitive development of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

About the Authors

Barbara jacquelyn sahakian.

Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Ph.D. , is a professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge.

Christelle Langley

Christelle Langley, Ph.D. , is a postdoctoral research associate in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge.

Jianfeng Feng

Jianfeng Feng, Ph.D. , is a professor of science and technology for brain-inspired intelligence/computer science at Fudan University.

Yun-Jun Sun

Yun-Jun Sun, Ph.D. , is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence at Fudan University.

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What Exactly Is the Science of Reading?

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

Teacher reading a book in front of classroom

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

Usable Knowledge

Connecting education research to practice — with timely insights for educators, families, and communities

Phase Two: The Reach

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

Teacher reading with happy young student

New literacy briefs correct common myths and misconceptions

Talk About the Text

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)

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

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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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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.”

Jessica Logan, assistant professor of quantitative research, evaluation and measurement

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.

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

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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.

Six things you should do when reading with your kids

Research Fellow in Developmental and Educational Psychology, Australian Catholic University

Disclosure statement

Dr Amelia Shay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Australian Catholic University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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There is magic in stories. We all remember hearing them as children, and we loved them. Imaginary adventures set in faraway places. Tales about how the dishwasher isn’t working. It doesn’t matter! Whether made up by parents or read from books, kids love to hear stories.

Our recent work showed reading to children positively impacts long term academic achievement more than many other activity (including playing music with them, or doing craft). We found the more frequently parents read to their children, the better their children’s NAPLAN scores in different areas.

Read more: If you can only do one thing for your children, it should be shared reading

In our most recent study, we asked parents to read a wordless storybook to their three to five-year-old children titled The Wolf and Seven Little Goats. We also tested children in many areas of their important cognitive skills, such as language proficiency, memory, self-control, and friendship skills.

Through examining the different ways parents tell stories, we have pinpointed which elements of shared reading are most beneficial for children’s cognitive development .

1. Tune in to your child

Perhaps the most important aspect of reading to children is to tune in to your child. Listen to your child’s cues. Do they like the story? Do they know the vocabulary? Are they paying attention to the pictures more, or the text?

Try to coach your child, not to instruct them. Instead of saying: “look they are going to cook some food, maybe they are hungry”, you can ask “what are they doing?” or “why do you think they’re doing that?”.

Be sensitive about whether they are listening and engaged or uninterested and disengaged. If they are disengaged, are there questions you can ask to make them more interested? Do you think they’ll like a different type of story better? The best books for your child are the ones they enjoy most.

Read more: Research shows the importance of parents reading with children – even after children can read

2. Ask questions

Parents who ask lots of questions engage in a more fun and informative way with their children. Ask them if they know the vocabulary, if they can guess what the characters are going to do next, and why they’ve done what they’ve done.

These questions are not only helpful because they help children gain new knowledge and ways of thinking, it also helps strengthen the emotional bond between parent and child. Children like to feel they’re a part of the task, not that they’re being told how to do things.

3. Go beyond describing images or reading text

In our study, we gave parents a wordless picture book. An important difference we observed between parents was some only describe what they see. Some go beyond the picture.

For example, when the mother goat in the picture book comes home and sees the door to the house open, one parent said:

When their mother came home and was looking forward to seeing her children and hugging them and telling them a story, she suddenly saw that the door is open. She was shocked!

Another parent said:

The mother came home and saw the door is open; she went inside and looked for the children.

This parent is only describing the picture.

The first parent is imagining what is beyond the picture and text. This is a richer way to tell a story to children, and ultimately leads to better cognitive developmental outcomes for children. This is because it teaches abstract thinking, which is the basis for many of the higher order cognitive abilities such as problem solving and critical analysis.

4. Make logical links between different parts of the story

Another element that has a strong link to the development of children’s cognitive skills is the way parents build logical links between different parts of the story.

Often the events in books unfold very quickly. One minute, the wolf eats the little goats, and the next minute he is found by the mother. Some parents try to make the sequence of events more logical than others.

For example, in this picture, when the wolf is coming to knock on the door, one parent said:

The wolf, who realised the mother is not home, came and knocked on the door.

This sentence is lacking logical links. How did the wolf know the mother is not home? Why should he come and knock on the door? What did he want?

The wolf, who was sunbathing in the bush, saw that the mother is going to get some food. He thought, oh, the little goats are alone at home, and it’s a good time for me to go and trick them and maybe get a good lunch!

The parent here is clearly providing logical links between these different parts of the story.

5. Add relevant details

We also found most parents add many details to the story to make it more interesting or comprehensive. But relevant details are the most useful in terms of improving children’s learning. Relevant details are the kind of details that help make the story easier to understand.

For example, one parent said:

The little goat, who was wearing the yellow shirt and was the smallest said: ‘we shouldn’t open the door! How do we know this is our mother? She has just left.’

Here, wearing a yellow shirt is a descriptive detail, but it doesn’t add much to the story.

Another mother said:

The smallest one, who was also the cleverest and very careful, said…

This second parent is clearly adding a detail (that the smaller one is also the cleverest and careful) that makes the story more meaningful and easier to follow.

Read more: Enjoyment of reading, not mechanics of reading, can improve literacy for boys

6. Talk about mental and emotional concepts

We found parents who not only describe the events of a story but also discuss abstract concepts related to emotions, desires and thoughts tend to have children who are better cognitively skilled. These children develop a better understanding of others’ emotions, better friendship skills, and even improved memory and higher order cognitive skills that are useful in later life. These lead to academic success as well as better skills to build friendships and perform well in social relationships.

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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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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 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

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

. . . 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 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

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. 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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The benefits of reading

From babies to children in their early years and all the way through to early teens, reading brings profound and wide-ranging benefits that can have a lifelong positive impact on children’s lives.

Download the pdf

Download the pdf in Welsh (Cymraeg)

Reading supports children to overcome disadvantage.

They will experience better educational mobility and social mobility..

Reading for pleasure has the power to help mitigate socioeconomic inequalities such as low family income and educational background.

Those growing up in poverty are less likely to remain in poverty as adults.

A child growing up in poverty who is read to at age five has a significantly higher chance of economic success in their 30s than their peers who are not read to.

Throughout school, they are more likely to overcome the barriers caused by disadvantage.

Shared reading has a unique and transformative impact on school attainment. Shared reading at home exerts a stronger influence on children's academic performance than parents' supervision, control of homework or attendance of school activities.
Disadvantaged children who achieve highly at the end of primary school are twice as likely to have been read to at home in their early years, compared to their peers.
A child who is an engaged reader provides themselves with self-generated learning opportunities equivalent to several years of education.
The impact of reading for pleasure is four times more powerful on progress in vocabulary, mathematics, and spelling at age 16, than that of parental education or parental socieoconomic status.
Disadvantaged children aged 11-14 who read in their own time and take part in enriching activities at home are more likely to achieve three or more A-levels, compared to those not engaged in these activities.

Better mental wellbeing, social skills and strong relationships

They feel more secure and develop deep bonds with parents/carers..

As a bonding activity, shared reading in their early years supports the development of a child's attachment (how safe, secure and trusting they feel around their parent or carer). Attachment is essential to a child’s future happiness, social competence, and ability to form meaningful connections. The availability of the ir parent or carer during shared reading contributes to a child’s sense of safety.
Shared reading creates opportunities for joint attention and emotional closeness between a child and their parent or carer. Shared reading increases parental warmth and reduces parental stress , enabling them to provide the sensitive and nurturing interactions their children need to thrive.
Children with secure attachments are more like ly to show enthusiasm an d attention during shared reading, which motivates their parent or carer to read with them more frequently and reinforces their opportunit ies to feel safe, secure and protected.
It is the emotional aspects of shared reading ( e.g., cuddling, smiling, singing, and laughing) that boosts a child’s brain activities needed to forge secure attachment, not the parent or carer’s reading skill.

They have healthy routines and habits.

Shared reading plays a role in promoting a relaxing and reassuring bedtime routine . Language-based bedtime routines such as reading are associated with better parental emotional availability and parental attention. Routines can support a safe, stable and predictable environment that's needed to facilitate children’s healthy development.
Reading for pleasure also supports routines later in life. Children aged 11-14 who read for pleasure are more likely to adopt healthy behaviours.

They have better socio-emotional skills.

Children who read more perform better in tasks of attention and have lower levels of hyperactivity.
Reading is associated with improved interpersonal and social skills, helping children form meaningful relationships.

They have better mental wellbeing and self-esteem.

By providing escapism and relaxation, reading can act as a protective factor against the adversity some children face.
Children who regularly read for pleasure have better self-esteem and emotional regulation, with lower levels of emotional and behavioural challenges such as anxiety and aggression than those who don't.
Children who read have higher levels of mental wellbeing and happiness.

Speech and language milestones and doing better at school.

They have better brain development, attentional and cognitive ability..

Children's brains experience the most growth in their first 5 years, when their brains are most responsive to their environment. Stimulation from reading books, playing, talking, and singing with a parent or carer serves an important neurological function, enhancing cognitive, physical, social, and emotional growth.
Shared reading among children from low-income backgrounds enhances healthy brain activation in language, attention, memory, self-control, and adjustment.
Reading for pleasure has long-lasting positive benefits on brain development. Younger children who read more score better on cognitive tests.

They have better school readiness and knowledge about the world.

Children who start reading early and continue reading throughout childhood have greater general knowledge. Reading helps to kickstart and sustain a child's ongoing learning journey.
Reading en hances educational attainment. By feeding into cognitive skill development, forms of reasoning, complex concepts and imaginative richness, reading supports children to develop problem solving and intellectual capacities .

They have better speech and language development and literacy skills.

Shared reading provides unparalleled opportunities for a child’s verbal interactions with their parent or carer. Among the many key childhood activities such as playing with toys, arts and crafts or sharing mealtimes, shared reading has particular value in creating these opportunities.
Shared reading offers children exposure to rich and novel vocabulary in meaningful contexts.
Shared reading facilitates children’s word learning. Because the focus is entirely on the story, children do not have to extract new words from the stream of ongoing activities like they would in a free-play setting.
There are several benefits of shared reading for a child's language and literacy outcomes in the early years, which support school readiness. These include vocabulary size, oral language skills, print awareness, word identification and comprehension skills.
The impact of shared reading on literacy is unique. Among home learning activities such as parental help with reading and writing, playing music or learning the alphabet, only shared reading has a positive influence on literacy assessment at the end of Reception.
The impact of shared reading on literacy is long lasting. Children who are read to frequently at age five are over half a school year ahead in reading performance at age 15, compared to those who are read to infrequently or not read to at all.

They make more progress across the curriculum.

Reading for pleasure unlocks academic success across the curriculum. A child who is read to at age 1-2 scores higher in reading, spelling, grammar, and numeracy skills at age 8-11.
Reading for pleasure at the ages of 10 and 16 has a substantial effect on a child’s cognitive scores in vocabulary, spelling, and mathematics at age 16.

Developing imagination, creativity and empathy.

They have more empathy..

Empathy refers to the ability to value, feel, understand and respect other people’s experiences. Shared reading nurtures theory of mind abilities and empathic skills.
Stories can offer children a realistic and authentic 'mirror' of their own lives and experiences and a 'window' to view the experiences of others. When children are emotionally involved in a story, they feel connected to and see their lives as part of the wider human experience. This can be transformative when it comes to developing their empathy.
Children who read books that offer opportunities to empathise with the characters have increased levels of empathy, especially towards stigmatised groups.

They are more imaginative and creative.

Engagement with stories nurtures the disposition a nd skillset that are fundamental to a child’s creativity throughout childhood. Stories with imaginative and magical elements enable children’s minds to transcend their immediate context, freeing them from a fixed way of thinking.
By constantly formulating and reformulating their expectations of what might happen in a story, young readers practice mental flexibility, an openness to new situations and interpretations and problem-solving.
A story can also prompt dramatisation , allowing children to use their imagination to visualise , verbalise or act it out.
Children who are read to at age three make greater progress in creative development at the end of Reception than those who are not.

For a full list of evidence and references, download the pdf.

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Our research and evaluation helps us to continually learn about how to inspire children to read for pleasure. Explore research and reports across early years, primary, secondary and wider reading for pleasure. Find out what impact our programmes have on children and families.

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Reading to children is so powerful, so simple and yet so misunderstood

02 Jan 2020

There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. Giving a child time and full attention when reading them a story tells them they matter. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary, feeds imagination and even improves their sleeping patterns. Yet fewer than half of 0–2-year-olds are read to every day or nearly every day by their parents.

So, why don’t more parents do it?

The position of reading as a staple of entertainment and relaxation is challenged by hectic family lives, lack of time and some parents’ perception that reading to their child is a chore. It can also often take a backseat to screen time. And there is too much emphasis placed on reading as a skill and not as a pleasure. This emphasis permeates even the very early years, because reading is often seen as a skill to learn later at school. Current data illustrates this very well: 45% of 0–2s are read to daily or nearly every day. This increases to 58% of 3–4s, in part to get them ‘school ready’, and by 5–7 years, parents reading daily to their children drops back to 44% as the notion takes hold that reading is a subject to learn at school. By this age, parental involvement can often be simply ensuring reading homework is done.

Our work with Nielsen on consumer data shows that time spent on a screen, even at very young ages, is increasing rapidly. In 2014, 88% of children 0–2 spent up to one hour a day on screen but by 2019, spending up to one hour a day had dropped to 48% of 0–2s. Meanwhile, those 0–2s spending 1–3 hours a day on screen grew from 11% in 2014 to 42% in 2019. When used appropriately with a parent, technology can provide an important route in to reading. Our challenge is engaging parents with this, because data shows that 0–2s use a tablet ‘most often’ to visit YouTube (26%).

Regularly reading to a child for the love of it provides a connection between parent and child from the very early days and helps build strong family ties. Lines from favourite stories enter the family lexicon. Families who enjoy reading together have more opportunities for discussion, developing empathy and attachment. Reading to their infant is one of the greatest gifts parents can give. By starting the journey of building a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, parents are giving their child the opportunity to be the best they can be: children who read for pleasure do better in a wide range of subjects at school and it also positively impacts children’s wellbeing.

However, many parents don’t seem to understand this.

Parents are aware of how important reading is as a skill in relation to children's literacy and academic performance, but what about reading for pleasure? Parents as a wide cohort, have typically not been explicitly told about the importance of reading aloud to their child, the benefits of relaxation, time together, the importance of building a routine and love of reading.

Many early years settings provide parents with information about the importance of reading with their child and advice for enabling shared reading at home, while many reading charities do sterling work with targeted groups of people. But the numbers show it’s not only families from disadvantaged backgrounds who need help: 55% of all 0–2s are not read to daily!

Another key thing to consider, to ensure reading with children is an enjoyable and productive experience, is the environment in which families share stories. A quiet and relaxed environment works best, with few distractions.

To really understand the power of reading with their child, parents need to experience it. Research projects I’ve conducted at Egmont have been able to change parents’ and children’s minds about reading, simply by encouraging families to adopt intervention tactics and ensure they regularly read together. One of the powerful outcomes of these interventions is parents’ realisation that sharing a story is a deep joy for them as much as for the child. If we can overturn the notion that storytime is yet another chore in a busy day we can help families build reading routines.

Reading is a great habit. Like all habits, it needs repetition and regularity to establish itself. Because it needs quiet time, and our lives today are very short of this, parents need to create it for their children. This means consciously making time and keeping interruptions to a minimum.

The earlier parents can start, the better as it allows the maximum time for their child to grow up with reading and for the love to take root, grow and become part of their life. And what an enriched life that will be.

Alison David spoke at the National Literacy Trust’s Talk To Your Baby conference in 2020.

For more information about who will be speaking at the 2024 event and to book your tickets, please visit: literacytrust.org.uk/TTYB

This blog was first published on Teach Early Years

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The Hechinger Report

Covering Innovation & Inequality in Education

What parents need to know about the research on how kids learn to read

Reading Matters

The Hechinger Report has been covering reading for over a decade, as debates about how to teach it have intensified. Check in with us for the latest in reading research.

If children can’t master phonics, they are more likely to struggle to read. That’s why researchers say explicit, systematic instruction in phonics is important: Teachers must lead students step by step through a specific sequence of letters and sounds . Kids who learn how to decode words can then apply that skill to more challenging words and ultimately read with fluency. Some kids may not need much help with phonics, especially as they get older , but experts say phonics instruction can be essential for young children and struggling readers “We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs,” said Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York, who recently led the transformation of his schools’ reading program to a research-based, structured approach. “But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.”

How should your child’s school teach reading?

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on reading instruction, said phonics are important in kindergarten through second grade and phonemic awareness should be explicitly taught in kindergarten and first grade. This view has been underscored by experts in recent years as the debate over reading instruction has intensified. But teaching kids how to read should include more than phonics, said Shanahan. They should also be exposed to oral reading, reading comprehension and writing.

The wars over how to teach reading are back. Here’s the four things you need to know.

Wiley Blevins, an author and expert on phonics, said a good test parents can use to determine whether a child is receiving research-based reading instruction is to ask their child’s teacher how reading is taught. “They should be able to tell you something more than ‘by reading lots of books’ and ‘developing a love of reading.’ ” Blevins said. Along with time dedicated to teaching phonics, Blevins said children should participate in read-alouds with their teacher to build vocabulary and content knowledge. “These read-alouds must involve interactive conversations to engage students in thinking about the content and using the vocabulary,” he said. “Too often, when time is limited, the daily read-alouds are the first thing left out of the reading time. We undervalue its impact on reading growth and must change that.”

Rasmussen’s school uses a structured approach: Children receive lessons in phonemic awareness, phonics, pre-writing and writing, vocabulary and repeated readings. Research shows this type of “ systematic and intensive ” approach in several aspects of literacy can turn children who struggle to read into average or above-average readers.

What should schools avoid when teaching reading?

Educators and experts say kids should be encouraged to sound out words, instead of guessing. “We really want to make sure that no kid is guessing,” Rasmussen said. “You really want … your own kid sounding out words and blending words from the earliest level on.” That means children are not told to guess an unfamiliar word by looking at a picture in the book, for example. As children encounter more challenging texts in later grades, avoiding reliance on visual cues also supports fluent reading. “When they get to ninth grade and they have to read “Of Mice and Men,” there are no picture cues,” Rasmussen said.

Related: Teacher Voice: We need phonics, along with other supports, for reading

Blevins and Shanahan caution against organizing books by different reading levels and keeping students at one level until they read with enough fluency to move up to the next level. Although many people may think keeping students at one level will help prevent them from getting frustrated and discouraged by difficult texts, research shows that students actually learn more when they are challenged by reading materials.

Blevins said reliance on “leveled books” can contribute to “a bad habit in readers.” Because students can’t sound out many of the words, they rely on memorizing repeated words and sentence patterns, or on using picture clues to guess words. Rasmussen said making kids stick with one reading level — and, especially, consistently giving some kids texts that are below grade level, rather than giving them supports to bring them to grade level — can also lead to larger gaps in reading ability.

How do I know if a reading curriculum is effective?

Some reading curricula cover more aspects of literacy than others. While almost all programs have some research-based components, the structure of a program can make a big difference, said Rasmussen. Watching children read is the best way to tell if they are receiving proper instruction — explicit, systematic instruction in phonics to establish a foundation for reading, coupled with the use of grade-level texts, offered to all kids.

Parents who are curious about what’s included in the curriculum in their child’s classroom can find sources online, like a chart included in an article by Readingrockets.org which summarizes the various aspects of literacy, including phonics, writing and comprehension strategies, in some of the most popular reading curricula.

Blevins also suggested some questions parents can ask their child’s teacher:

What is your phonics scope and sequence?

“If research-based, the curriculum must have a clearly defined phonics scope and sequence that serves as the spine of the instruction.” Blevins said.

Do you have decodable readers (short books with words composed of the letters and sounds students are learning) to practice phonics?

“If no decodable or phonics readers are used, students are unlikely to get the amount of practice and application to get to mastery so they can then transfer these skills to all reading and writing experiences,” Blevins said. “If teachers say they are using leveled books, ask how many words can students sound out based on the phonics skills (teachers) have taught … Can these words be fully sounded out based on the phonics skills you taught or are children only using pieces of the word? They should be fully sounding out the words — not using just the first or first and last letters and guessing at the rest.”

What are you doing to build students’ vocabulary and background knowledge? How frequent is this instruction? How much time is spent each day doing this?

“It should be a lot,” Blevins said, “and much of it happens during read-alouds, especially informational texts, and science and social studies lessons.”

Is the research used to support your reading curriculum just about the actual materials, or does it draw from a larger body of research on how children learn to read? How does it connect to the science of reading?

Teachers should be able to answer these questions, said Blevins.

What should I do if my child isn’t progressing in reading?

When a child isn’t progressing, Blevins said, the key is to find out why. “ Is it a learning challenge or is your child a curriculum casualty? This is a tough one.” Blevins suggested that parents of kindergarteners and first graders ask their child’s school to test the child’s phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency.

Parents of older children should ask for a test of vocabulary. “These tests will locate some underlying issues as to why your child is struggling reading and understanding what they read,” Blevins said. “Once underlying issues are found, they can be systematically addressed.”

“We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs. But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.” Anders Rasmussen, principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, New York

Rasmussen recommended parents work with their school if they are concerned about their children’s progress. By sitting and reading with their children, parents can see the kind of literacy instruction the kids are receiving. If children are trying to guess based on pictures, parents can talk to teachers about increasing phonics instruction.

“Teachers aren’t there doing necessarily bad things or disadvantaging kids purposefully or willfully,” Rasmussen said. “You have many great reading teachers using some effective strategies and some ineffective strategies.”

What can parents do at home to help their children learn to read?

Parents want to help their kids learn how to read but don’t want to push them to the point where they hate reading. “Parents at home can fall into the trap of thinking this is about drilling their kid,” said Cindy Jiban, a former educator and current principal academic lead at NWEA, a research-based non-profit focused on assessments and professional learning opportunities. “This is unfortunate,” Jiban said. “It sets up a parent-child interaction that makes it, ‘Ugh, there’s this thing that’s not fun.’” Instead, Jiban advises making decoding playful. Here are some ideas:

Challenge kids to find everything in the house that starts with a specific sound.
Stretch out one word in a sentence. Ask your child to “pass the salt” but say the individual sounds in the word “salt” instead of the word itself.
Ask your child to figure out what every family member’s name would be if it started with a “b” sound.
Sing that annoying “Banana fana fo fanna song.” Jiban said that kind of playful activity can actually help a kid think about the sounds that correspond with letters even if they’re not looking at a letter right in front of them.
Read your child’s favorite book over and over again. For books that children know well, Jiban suggests that children use their finger to follow along as each word is read. Parents can do the same, or come up with another strategy to help kids follow which words they’re reading on a page.

Giving a child diverse experiences that seem to have nothing to do with reading can also help a child’s reading ability. By having a variety of experiences, Rasmussen said, children will be able to apply their own knowledge to better comprehend texts about various topics.

This story about teaching children to read was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .

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The first sentence of Anders Rasmussen’s highlighted quote is so true. The second sentence is absolutely false. “We don’t know how much phonics each kid needs. But we know no kid is hurt by getting too much of it.” There are several examples from research studies and evidence from many years of practice indicating that too much phonics or over emphasis on phonics in K-2 can create readers (Grades 3-8) who become “word callers,” who fail to think (comprehend) as they are reading and tend to fall behind in reading after second grade.

Phonics and phonemic awareness instruction is important for the challenges of helping all children reach grade level expectations in reading. However, rather than continuing to highlight the reading “wars” and the different “camps,” we should focus on what is most essential, research-proven instructional practices for meeting the wide variety of children who are learning to read. Some children bring more and others less to the learning table. As teachers we want to find out first what children already know and target instruction to fill in gaps while keeping the main reason readers read at the forefront – to understand and enjoy stories, to gain information, and to converse and/ or write about it.

Like many other good things in life, phonics instruction can indeed be harmful when overdone and as a single solution. When we lump all kids together we unintentionally assume learning to read is exactly the same for all and mask the wide variety of children who are learning how to read, especially English language learners and other children with various difficulties who struggle to learn.

This is a good article. What I’d like to see is information about what parents/families can and should be doing during a child’s early years. You should be in touch with Joan Kelley, a former elementary teacher, and researcher for over a decade at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group. She is the founder and CEO of Abound Parenting, an app for parents that empowers parents to use everyday moments to raise strong readers – without ever putting a screen in front of a child.

Multisensory learning happens when sight, sound, and touch are used to learn new information. Children learn best when they can use all their senses. When children can see a concept as it is explained, hear about it, and then do it with hands-on activities, it is easier for them to learn and retain the new information. So yes, it’s a must for you, as a parent, to read to your kid out loud. Other thing is to develop concentration and increases patience, which is very helpful not only in this matter. I can recommend chess as a great tool for this. There are planty activities, you can do with chess, alone.

I would like to child how to read and write

Reading is a primary learning skill for kids. Reading enables the children to learn about the world around them. Thanks for sharing a very informative article that help to parents how they help the child to learn read.

Not a fan of the the inconsistent use of research-supporter statements in this article! What we know from research is that too heavy of a focus on phonics – when a student’s own data shows they already have those phonics skills mastered- is harmful to students- it doesn’t match what we know about good instruction in general- that it should be matched to student needs. What a poor practice to promote! Also- the newest wave of reading wars has brought decodeables to the forefront as the answer to all teachers woes. But research has in fact not shown that these types of books actually provide those kind of results. In phonics studies comparing the growth of students – some using decodeables and some not – there was no significant difference to show that they help students actually be better readers. Let’s stop spreading practices as “best practices” when they have no research to support them. That’s how we got to this place in reading instruction to begin with! Lastly, exposing young children to texts that are on grade level when they are behind grade level- sounds in theory like a good plan so we don’t “hold them back.” However, if you’re promoting exclusively sounding out of words rather than guessing- how do you propose a teacher would actually support a reader who doesn’t have the decoding skills to read a on-grade level text! If the goal is to always look at the patterns of letters inside a word to decode – and we know that these below-level readers can’t decode the patterns in grade level texts- how would they ever read the text itself? In strategies like choral reading, paired reading, or echo reading – students are given access to ways of reading on-level texts, however they certainly aren’t decoding anything!

After Kindergarten my son could not read at all! his teacher said he would never be able to keep up or catch up in 1st grade & wanted to hold him back… then we found Children Learning Reading Program. When he started 1st grade, he is reading and the teacher is ABSOLUTELY AMAZED and RAVES about his progress.

Thank you for sharing this! Reading is very important. I actually enrolled my kids under the Early Reading for Beginners enrichment program of an International School in the Philippines ( http://www.georgia.edu.ph ) to enhance their Reading Comprehension. In their class, as young as 3 yrs old, the child should already know how to ready 3 to 4-letter words. I am actually very happy with my children’s progress in reading and hope other parents here should also appreciate the importance of Reading. Thank you for sharing this article and more power to your blog!

I’ve been using this app that I found in the Apple app store, Reading.com: Raising Readers, and it has helped my son so much! We only do it 15 minutes a day, which is all I really have time for. It guides me as a parent at the beginning of the lesson on how to instruct him through the activity, so it is super simple. He was really having trouble blending and sounding out words, but he’s got it now!

This has been very informative. It can definitely be a challenge teaching kids how to read. I also think that including some educational videos can be helpful. You mentioned testing the kids for vocabulary. What kind of tests do you recommend?

Hopefully this extraordinary article will help raise awareness about how important it is to use the right teaching methodologies for learning to read. In general, parents tend to assume that children will have it at school. It makes sense, right? Why wouldn’t that be the case?

Unfortunately, it’s not. Why? Long story short: there’s still a war when it comes to reading instruction, and our children pay the price.

While it is true that some kids will learn to read regardless of the reading methodology used to teach them, many of them will struggle if they are not trained on phonics and phonemic awareness.

Unfortunately, these struggles so many children face are left untreated for a long time, and labelled as “normal.” Parents are reassured: “Some children need more time than others. S/he’ll catch up.”

In the meantime, nothing is done, no help is given. These children try to get by avoiding to read at all costs, and by guessing, memorizing words and resorting to all sorts of tricks when they absolutely have to read. Unfortunately, they also feel really stupid inside them because they know very well that they are not really reading, they are pretending.

Then, finally, when reading intervention is suggested… Careful again with the methodologies used!

When someone tells you children will learn to read by reading lots of books and by fostering a passion for reading… Distrust! It sounds great, but it is likely to hide lots of mumbo jumbo.

While sharing your enthusiasm for reading is an honourable thing to do, the first step is teaching the sounds, and then the code. Sharing enthusiasm is great, as long as we don’t forget the rest!

This path may be more boring, more more-time consuming for teachers and way more structured in the beginning… It may even seem that some children don’t even need this sort of instruction (some children just seem wired for the sounds.) However, so many DO need it! It will be the cornerstone of their reading success, a solid foundation for lifelong literacy. Doing things right from the beginning pays off in the long run. Unfortunately, students who don’t read well by the 3rd grade are 4 times likelier to be high school dropouts. Besides, they are also way more likely to feel frustrated, distracted, socially isolated and even present aggressive behaviors…

Laura, from the https://learningreadinghub.com/ project

The question is “what is reading ?”and reading is the decoding of sounds in the form of letters that together operate to convey an idea or object for a reader. If a reader cannot master this they will not read. When a reader has mastered phonemic awareness this allows them to achieve decoding of words, then it is time to read by understanding how those words when strung together convey ideas that readers think about and respond to. Unfortunately, our culture has become so enamored of the nonsensical back and forth that if we can just exercise some alignment and expression with our camp then we believe we’ve achieved something; almost never student mastery of reading though. It’s not about the camp we’re in or how much or how little phonics are necessary but what the practice we call reading is, and requires. Mastery of phonemic awareness is required to read and to read well and frequently enough that one is willing to engage texts to develop the facility to recognize anomalies in decoding load such as words violating phonemic rules you’ve learned and those following the rules of other languages (which one would be able to read having mastered phonemes- though not always with the appropriate accent or pronunciation). Thus, it is evident the question here is not phonetic focus or no but to what degree does phonetic focus undergird and serve as the foundation for what we know as reading- vs. to what degree do some people support the open falsehood that reading is the guessing of so many words that one comes to know the sounds of all the words they’ve guessed in the span of (hmmm how long does it take to guess enough words to read?) 3-5 years. Can we stop? All beginning readers need to master phonetic awareness to develop the capacity to become readers that eventually discuss and engage text. Phonetic mastery is the foundation; and when developing readers have it, we may move forward to greater reading task such as sentences, paragraphs, passages, and full length texts of all kinds considering how each part builds toward the next. Guessing is NOT a part of the task of reading and has no place in an instructional framework for readers- it is clearly- easier and more fun for those less interested in supporting learners in facing the basic vicissitudes of the learning process but just because some people don’t want to do it does not make it an appropriate topic for debate. Guessing is not reading and reading is not guessing- recognizing letters as sounds is not a natural process and must be systematically taught to young learners if we want them to understand and apply its processes successfully.

I have been asked to teach English for one hour a week to two Japanese 8-year-old boys who have had almost no instruction in reading so far. I have found the information in the Hechinger Report to be very useful for me to learn the basics of how to help them start learning to read and I would appreciate any further suggestions anyone can give me.

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‘this disorder has almost killed me’: his addiction to ultraprocessed food began as a child.

Jeffrey Odwazny has battled an addiction to ultraprocessed foods for most of his life.

Chicago native Jeffrey Odwazny says he has been addicted to ultraprocessed food since he was a child.

“I was driven to eat and eat and eat, and while I would overeat healthy food, what really got me were the candies, the cakes, the pies, the ice cream,” said the 54-year-old former warehouse supervisor.

“I really gravitated towards the sugary ultraprocessed foods — it was like a physical drive, I had to have it,” he said. “My parents would find hefty bags full of candy wrappers hidden in my closet. I would steal things from stores as a kid and later as an adult.”

Some 12% of the nearly 73 million children and adolescents in the United States today struggle with a similar food addiction , according to research. To be diagnosed, children must meet Yale Food Addiction Scale criteria as stringent as any for alcohol use disorder or other addictions.

“Kids are losing control and eating to the point where they feel physically ill,” said Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who conducted the research and developed the Yale addiction scale.

“They have intense cravings and may be sneaking, stealing or hiding ultraprocessed foods,” Gearhardt said. “They may stop going out with friends or doing other activities they used to enjoy in order to stay at home and eat, or they feel too sluggish from overeating to participate in other activities.”

Her research also shows about 14% of adults are clinically addicted to food, predominantly ultraprocessed foods with higher levels of sugar, salt, fat and additives.

For comparison, 10.5% of Americans age 12 or older were diagnosed with alcohol use disorder in 2022, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health .

While many people addicted to food will say that their symptoms began to worsen significantly in adolescence, some recall a childhood focused on ultraprocessed food .

“By age 2 or 3, children are likely eating more ultraprocessed foods in any given day than a fruit or vegetable, especially if they’re poor and don’t have enough money in their family to have enough quality food to eat,” Gearhardt said. “Ultraprocessed foods are cheap and literally everywhere, so this is also a social justice issue.”

An addiction to ultraprocessed foods can highjack a young brain’s reward circuitry, putting the primitive “reptilian brain,” or amygdala, in charge — thus bypassing the prefrontal cortex where rational decision-making occurs, said Los Angeles registered dietitian nutritionist David Wiss, who specializes in treating food addiction.

“Ultraprocessed food addiction also teaches the young brain what to expect from food, like how much sugar reward one should get from eating a snack,” said Wiss, which makes healthier options less appealing.

“It’s almost virtually impossible for a child, or even a 14- or 15-year-old, to be able to override all of this biology for very long,” he added.

The Institute of Food Technologists, an association of food professionals and technologists, does not agree with the research on ultraprocessed food addiction.

“While there is growing concern that some foods may be addictive for certain sub-populations including children, there is currently no scientific consensus to support that concern,” said IFT’s chief science and technology officer, Bryan Hitchcock, in an email.

Food addiction is also not recognized by the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases and is a subject of debate in the scientific community, according to the International Food and Beverage Alliance, an industry association.

“Some believe markers of food addiction indicate eating disorders rather than substance use disorders,” said IFBA’s secretary-general, Rocco Renaldi, in an email.

‘This disorder has almost killed me’

Traumatic experiences in early childhood helped to trigger and nurture his addiction to ultraprocessed foods, Odwazny said.

“One of my earliest memories is being in a high chair with ashtrays going over my head and plates smashing into the walls,” Odwazny said. “Instead of saying, ‘I’m sorry’ or showing love, my family would feed me.”

At first, he said his parents thought his overeating was funny and began calling him names such as “the creeper” when he would escape from his crib in the night to raid the refrigerator. As he grew, however, Odwazny’s parents began to put locks on the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. He was often ashamed of his eating.

“There was a lot of name-calling. I was nicknamed everything from butterball to fat ass and worse,” he said. “You know the dads of some kids would call, ‘Hey, buddy or pal,’ but my dad used to call me ‘the Orca.’”

Despite his preoccupation with food, Odwazny was careful not to overeat in front of strangers as he grew up. Instead, when faced at a party with trigger foods such as chocolate-covered peanut butter cups, he would leave to buy that specific food.

Odwazny's addiction to food, and later alcohol, took a toll on his body.

“I would go to one store until I bought it all out, and then I would have to travel to another store,” he said. “I would buy two or three family-size bags, and I would eat so much in one sitting that I would be in a fog. Sugary food is a drug for me.”

The disorder took over his life. Before one meal of highly processed food was over, he was thinking about where to find the next. By 2016, his food addiction was at its worst.

“I would steal food or eat things that were burnt or spoiled,” he said. “I’ve often gotten sick and had to go to the hospital. In fact, this disorder has almost killed me several times.”

The food-addicted brain

Eating higher amounts of ultraprocessed food raises the risk of obesity and the development of chronic conditions including cancer , cardiovascular disease , obesity , type 2 diabetes and depression .

Still, many people find it hard to stop eating overly processed convenience foods such as hot dogs, French fries, crackers, frozen pizza, sausages, sodas, doughnuts, candy and ice cream.

Ultraprocessed foods often contain flavors, different textures and “additives whose function is to make the final product palatable or more appealing,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations .

BBQ Hotdog with Spring Salad at a Picnic

Related article Adding just a few ultraprocessed foods to a healthy diet raised risk of cognitive decline and stroke, study says

Such foods are designed to maximize levels of the feel-good hormone dopamine in the brain, experts say. Added fats increase calories and improve the “mouthfeel” that makes food pleasing. Texture plays a role as well.

“Foods that melt in the mouth and are smooth or creamy, or alternatively, foods with crunch, can create an immediate neurochemical reward,” Wiss said. “A lot of food science goes into this and lot of research and development by manufacturers.”

Copious amounts of salt improve flavor. Sugar is so powerful that it’s used as a replacement for pain medication for minor surgeries in babies: “For circumcisions or shots, they’ll give babies a dose of sugar because it releases opioids in the brain and dulls pain,” Gearhardt said.

In fact, animal studies suggest sugar levels in ultraprocessed foods may be as addictive to the brain as alcohol or tobacco, she said.

“These are really invasive studies, with wires in the brain,” Gearhardt said. “Sugar creates the same amount of dopamine release that mimics what you see with nicotine and ethanol — around 150% to 200% above baseline.

“Cocaine is much more addictive, between 1,000% and 2,000% above baseline,” she said. “But animals still often choose a sweet taste over cocaine.”

The makers of ultraprocessed food strive to meet this dopamine “ bliss point ” via secret, proprietary mixtures of sugar, fat, salt and flavor additives that experts say trigger the basest of our animal instincts — the need for survival.

The ultraprocessed foods kids eat now may have lasting impacts, study suggests.

Related article Experts find cardiometabolic risk signs in kids young as 3. Here is the food they say is linked

“If there is a really high value meal in front of you, something rich and fatty that has a lot of calories in it, the brain is set up to say, ‘Go ahead and eat it,’ even if you are full because our ancestors had no guarantee they would find food the next day,” said appetite specialist Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

The brain is also wired to remember and crave the pleasurable flavor of a food and its lifesaving calories in a process similar to Pavlovian, or classical conditioning, said DiFeliceantonio, who is also associate director of the Center for Health Behaviors Research at Virginia Tech.

“It’s what we all learned in Psychology 101, right? Light comes on; food drops; dog salivates,” she said.

Food processing plays a role

How ultraprocessed foods are made may also contribute to addiction, experts say. Due to manufacturing methods that break down cell structures within foods — in essence predigesting the food — many ultraprocessed foods pass rapidly through the human gastrointestinal tract.

That’s confusing to a digestive system designed to slowly break down whole foods that have been torn and chewed, and to a brain that’s used to getting a slow trickle of reward.

With ultraprocessed foods, the brain receives surges of delight almost as quickly as the food is eaten, DiFeliceantonio said.

“The majority of usable calories, boosted by intense flavors from whatever additives are in there, are quickly dumped into the upper intestine, sending signals to the brain all at once,” she said. “It’s happening really rapidly, and it’s happening really strongly.”

The result, experts say, is a brain that fails to recognize ultraprocessed calories as filling. That, along with the rush of dopamine, may be a reason the brain has trouble saying, “Halt!” to ultraprocessed foods.

“These foods appear to leave our brain in a state of perpetual vulnerability to rewarding substances and never feeling nourished or satiated,” Gearhardt said.

Related article Here are the ultraprocessed foods you most need to avoid, according to a 30-year study

Nutrition is another issue. Ultraprocessed foods are often missing critical nutrients the body needs, which are especially important during childhood when the brain and body are growing.

“What is left after all the high heat and manipulation needed to create the ultraprocessed foods are the macronutrients — the calories, the carbohydrates, the fats and sometimes a little protein,” Wiss said.

“Micronutrients are typically destroyed, which include the vitamins, minerals and antioxidant compounds that are known to confer health benefits,” he said. “Children who eat a lot of ultraprocessed foods could well be malnourished.”

According to the International Food and Beverage Alliance, however, there is no clear, objective, reliable or scientifically validated definition for “ultraprocessed” food.

“It is a catch-all, non-scientific concept that doesn’t adequately account for nutritional differences in products: the scientific evidence to date, and agreed upon by many authorities internationally, is that it is ultimately the nutritional composition of foods, and of an individual’s diet, that matters,” said the IFBA’s Renaldi.

‘Our disease wants us to be separate’

Overcoming his addiction to food — and later alcohol — has been a difficult journey for Odwazny. In an attempt to control his eating, he underwent two bariatric surgeries that typically have a high success rate.

“Each time I would pray, ‘Please be it, please make this the answer.’ But I would ultimately start binging on ultraprocessed foods,” Odwazny said.

“Those surgeries were operating on the wrong part of my body, my stomach, but my eating disorder is right here,” he said, tapping his head.

Miserable and so overweight he could no longer do his job, Odwazny went on short-term disability and checked into rehab for a binge-eating disorder. That treatment plan didn’t work, so he tried another, then another.

Finally, he found a program that combined traditional treatment for binge-eating disorder with one for food addiction. Listening to other patients and staff speak about their own issues with food was life-changing, Odwazny said.

“Our disease wants us to be separate,” he said. “Our disease wants us to be not part of something else, because we want to isolate and think that we’re the only ones. But when I heard the staff and some of the doctors talk about their own addictions, I knew the people that were treating me finally understood.”

A program that incorporates interventions for food addiction with treatment for restrictive eating disorders is relatively new and somewhat controversial, said food addiction specialist Dr. Kimberly Dennis, who is cofounder, CEO and chief medical officer at SunCloud Health in Chicago, where Odwazny is in treatment.

“Treatment for a restrictive eating disorder, like binge eating or bulimia, focuses on helping the person overcome any aversion to food,” said Dennis, who is also a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine.

“As soon as a person says, ‘I can’t safely eat that candy,” the eating disorder therapist says, ‘That’s just the eating disorder talking, all foods are fine, and nothing is off-limits.’”

With the help of his wife, Kimmy, Jeffrey Odwazny is in recovery and training to be a counselor so he can help others.

Such treatment is a gold standard for someone who is avoiding food and malnourished, said Dennis, who is in recovery for food addiction and binge-eating disorder. “So a doughnut for breakfast, cupcake with lunch, and cookies as an afternoon snack would be a really good challenge for that person.”

However, if that person also has a food addiction, the approach may cause them to quit treatment, she said. “Their experience with eating that cupcake would be more like, ‘I feel really triggered and worried that if I did this at home, I would be through the whole box of cupcakes by now.’”

Today, Odwazny is in recovery and is studying to become a certified alcohol and drug counselor in the Chicago area. He credits much of his success to his wife, Kimmy, whom he met during the Covid-19 pandemic while attending support groups at SunCloud.

“My wife is also in the program, so we both know our food plans. My wife and I have our meals together — there’s no sneaking, there’s no hiding. I don’t binge, but there are also certain foods that I don’t eat,” he said.

“Before I was in recovery, I never could imagine I would have such a beautiful wife that loves me, because no one loved me. Today I’m free.”

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For Pride Month, 6 facts about bisexual Americans

A person with rainbow-colored decorations celebrates at the annual LA Pride Parade in Hollywood, California, in 2023. (David McNew/Getty Images)

In June every year, Americans celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month , marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 – a series of encounters between police and LGBTQ+ protesters in New York City.

Pew Research Center previously has explored topics including the experiences and views of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans and transgender and nonbinary Americans . The Center has also studied public attitudes about same-sex marriage in the United States . This analysis highlights key facts about the largest group among those who identify as LGBTQ+: bisexual Americans.

Pew Research Center published this analysis to provide an overview of findings about bisexual Americans. This overview is based on data from Center surveys and analyses conducted from 2019 to 2023, including a 2019 analysis of 2017 survey data from Stanford University and a 2023 analysis of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lawmakers in Congress. More information about the Center studies cited in the analysis, including the questions asked and their methodologies, can be found at the links in the text.

This main data source for this analysis is a Center survey of 11,945 U.S. adults conducted from Aug. 7 to 27, 2023. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here is the methodology used for this analysis .

A bar chart showing that women, younger adults more likely to describe themselves as bisexual.

Overall, 4% of U.S. adults say they identify as bisexual, according to an August 2023 survey by the Center. A similar share (3%) say they identify as gay or lesbian.

Among adults who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, meanwhile, bisexual Americans are the largest group, accounting for 60% of the total. (This survey did not ask respondents if they were transgender, so transgender adults are not included in this group. Other Center research has estimated the share of Americans who are transgender or nonbinary .)

The challenges of measuring LGBTQ+ identity

Survey researchers face several challenges in measuring LGBTQ+ identity . One is that there is no consensus about how best to measure sexual orientation. Some researchers rely on respondents self-identifying as LGBTQ+ (the technique used in surveys from Pew Research Center and Gallup), while others base their estimates on reports of sexual behavior or sexual attraction, which usually results in higher estimates. Other challenges include the stigmatization of identifying as LGBTQ+ in some cultures and respondents being unfamiliar with the terms used in surveys.

Women are more likely than men to say they identify as bisexual. Among women in the U.S., 5% identify as bisexual, compared with 2% of men. In turn, men are more likely than women to identify as gay or lesbian (4% vs. 2%), according to the same August 2023 survey. (There was not a large enough sample size to look at those who do not describe themselves as either a man or a woman.)

Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as bisexual. Some 11% of U.S. adults under 30 identify as bisexual, the August 2023 survey finds. This is far more than the 5% of adults ages 30 to 49 and the 1% of adults ages 50 and older who say the same.

Gender differences in bisexual identification persist even among the youngest adults. Among adults under 30, 16% of women and 5% of men identify as bisexual.

Roughly a third of bisexual adults (36%) are parents of children of any age. This is about half as many as the share of straight Americans who are parents (63%). Among gay or lesbian Americans, 22% are parents, according to the August 2023 survey. (This may reflect the fact that most bisexual adults who are married or living with a partner have a partner of the opposite gender.)

Bisexual people are less likely than gay or lesbian Americans to be “out” to the important people in their lives. In a 2019 Center analysis of data from a 2017 Stanford University survey, we found that only 19% of those who identify as bisexual say all or most of the important people in their lives are aware of their sexual orientation.

A bar chart showing that, in a 2017 survey, bisexual adults were far less likely than gay and lesbian adults to be ‘out’ to the important people in their lives.

By comparison, three-quarters of gay or lesbian adults said the same. In fact, 26% of bisexual adults said they are not “out” to any of the important people in their lives, compared with a much smaller share of gay or lesbian adults (4%). Previous Center research has also found that bisexual adults have different experiences from gay and lesbian adults during or after coming out.

While bisexual adults make up the largest share of LGBTQ+ Americans , very few are represented in the U.S. Congress . Only one member of the current 118th Congress is openly bisexual: independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who’s leaving the Senate this year . Twelve lawmakers are openly gay or lesbian, bringing the total number of lesbian, gay or bisexual members of Congress to 13. They accounted for about 2% of the 534 voting lawmakers as of Jan. 3, 2023. There are no members of Congress who are openly transgender or nonbinary.

Gender & LGBTQ
LGBTQ Attitudes & Experiences

Emily Tomasik is a research assistant focusing on news and information research at Pew Research Center .

Same-Sex Marriage Around the World

Cultural issues and the 2024 election, majority of u.s. catholics express favorable view of pope francis, who are you the art and science of measuring identity, across asia, views of same-sex marriage vary widely, most popular.

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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What does reading research say? Read 20 Minutes a Day!
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.
Why Is It Important to Read to Your Child?
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.
The benefits of reading aloud to your kids : NPR
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 ...
Why Reading Aloud to Kids Helps Them Thrive
6. 7. 8. Reading aloud to kids has clear cognitive benefits but it also strengthens children's social, emotional, and character development.
Raising Strong Readers
Children become "writers" before they learn to write. Children's scribbles, pictures, and attempts at writing alphabet letters are all important beginnings to strong literacy skills. How to help: When reading together, encourage your child to talk. Have her "pretend read" the parts she has memorized.
Why Reading Is Important for Children's Brain…
Children living in poverty show poorer brain development. But reading for pleasure may help counteract this. Early childhood is a critical period for brain development, which is important for boosting cognition and mental well-being. Good brain health at this age is directly linked to better mental heath, cognition, and educational attainment ...
Reading with Your Child
Reading with Your Child. Start young and stay with it. It's part of life. One more time. Remember when you were very young. Advertise the joy of reading! There is no more important activity for preparing your child to succeed as a reader than reading aloud together. Fill your story times with a variety of books.
What Exactly Is the Science of Reading?
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 ...
Reading with Your Child
Reading aloud is one of the most important things parents can do with their children. Make your read alouds interactive and fun — a conversation between you, your child, and the story (the words and the illustrations). ... research-based information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can ...
Reading with children starting in infancy gives lasting literacy boost
SAN FRANCISCO - New research at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting shows that reading books with a child beginning in early infancy can boost vocabulary and reading skills four years later, before the start of elementary school. The abstract, "Early Reading Matters: Long-term Impacts of Shared Bookreading with Infants and ...
Reading Research
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.
Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention
Reading aloud and playing imaginative games may offer special social and emotional opportunities, Dr. Mendelsohn said. "We think when parents read with their children more, when they play with ...
The importance of reading to kids daily
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 ...
Six things you should do when reading with your kids
Through examining the different ways parents tell stories, we have pinpointed which elements of shared reading are most beneficial for children's cognitive development. 1. Tune in to your child ...
Read It Again! Benefits of Reading to Young Children
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 ...
Study says reading aloud to children, more than talking, builds
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.
(PDF) Reading aloud to children: The evidence
Reading aloud to young children, particularly in an engaging manner, promotes emergent literacy and language development and supports the relationship between child and parent. In addition it can ...
The benefits of reading
A child who is read to at age 1-2 scores higher in reading, spelling, grammar, and numeracy skills at age 8-11. Reading for pleasure at the ages of 10 and 16 has a substantial effect on a child's cognitive scores in vocabulary, spelling, and mathematics at age 16.
Learning to Read, Reading to Learn
Learning to Read, Reading to Learn. From decades of research about how young children can best learn to read, we know that there are core skills and cognitive processes that need to be taught. In this basic overview, you'll find concrete strategies to help children build a solid foundation for reading.
PDF Reading to Young Children: A Head-Start in Life
Reading to children at age 4-5 every day has a significant positive effect on their reading skills and cognitive skills (i.e., language and literacy, numeracy and cognition) later in life. o Reading to children 3-5 days per week (compared to 2 or less) has the same effect on the child's reading skills at age 4-5 as being six months older.
Reading to children is so powerful, so simple and yet so misunderstood
02 Jan 2020. There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. Giving a child time and full attention when reading them a story tells them they matter. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary, feeds ...
When do kids start reading? Here's what experts say.
The researchers found that good reading quality — meaning, having conversations with the child about the book while reading, talking about or labeling the pictures and the emotions of the ...
Why it's important to read aloud with your kids, and how to make it
The research also showed that more parents of 3- to 5-year-olds are reading aloud frequently, with 62 percent of these parents reading aloud five to seven days a week, compared with 55 percent in ...
Teaching children to read isn't easy. How do kids actually learn to read?
Research shows young children need explicit, systematic phonics instruction to learn how to read fluently. Credit: Terrell Clark for The Hechinger Report. Teaching kids to read isn't easy; educators often feel strongly about what they think is the "right" way to teach this essential skill. Though teachers' approaches may differ, the ...
Reflective parenting could help your teenager manage their big ...
Elsewhere, child psychologist Dr Becky has shared the one question to ask your teen to improve your relationship, and we've put together a list of 125 funny jokes for teens that might even get a ...
Is it safe to play a white noise machine all night?
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.
Ancient bone could reveal how Neanderthals cared for a child with Down
New research suggests a fossilized ear bone reveals the oldest known case of Down syndrome: a Neanderthal child who lived more than 146,000 years ago. CNN values your feedback 1.
His addiction to ultraprocessed foods began as a child
About 12% of children are clinically addicted to food, predominantly ultraprocessed food, according to research. Here is what their lives are like.
For Pride Month, 6 facts about bisexual Americans
Pew Research Center published this analysis to provide an overview of findings about bisexual Americans. This overview is based on data from Center surveys and analyses conducted from 2019 to 2023, including a 2019 analysis of 2017 survey data from Stanford University and a 2023 analysis of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lawmakers in Congress.
Pediatric Respiratory Syncytial Virus Hospitalizations, 2017-2023
Key Points. Question Were there changes in the epidemiologic characteristics of pediatric respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Ontario, Canada, following the COVID-19 pandemic?. Findings In this cohort study of 700 000 children younger than 5 years per study year, the 2021-2022 RSV season peaked slightly earlier than expected, but overall admission rates were comparable with prepandemic ...

Read With a Child 20 Minutes Every Day™

Why Reading?

Reading Research

Reading From Birth

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Engaging Reading

Paper vs. Electronic

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What You'll Learn

Language development

Empathy and emotional awareness

The parent-child bond

What to read

Any and all languages

E-books vs. print

Making it work for you

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Why Reading Is Important for Children’s Brain Development

Wealth and brain health

Reading for pleasure

Meet the Greater Good Toolkit for Kids

About the Authors

Christelle Langley

Jianfeng Feng

Yun-Jun Sun

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The importance of reading to kids daily

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Six things you should do when reading with your kids

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1. Tune in to your child

2. Ask questions

3. Go beyond describing images or reading text

4. Make logical links between different parts of the story

5. Add relevant details

6. Talk about mental and emotional concepts

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