Reading to Your Child Has a Lasting Impact

It’s no surprise that reading to your young child has a lasting impact on their vocabulary and literacy skills, but new research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco, CA shows that even babies benefit from being read to. 

Pediatric development researchers examined the quality and quantity of books shared with children ages 6 months to 4.5 years and found that high quality books inproved their language abilities later in life, according to Popular Science. Researchers found that even just having books in the home had an impact on children’s reading comprehension. “Families who own 100 books have kids with reading capabilities 1.5 grades ahead of their peers…owning 500 books puts you about 2.2 years ahead, though past that and you get diminishing returns,” Sara Chodosh reported, implying “it’s some combination of providing plenty of reading material and being the kind of family that owns and reads books.”

Encouraging strong reading habits in a child can have even more of a lasting impact. Having a child that is interested in reading on their own is even more beneficial – “independent readers perfom better on tests across the board and have more concrete knowledge than their non-book loving peers” – and additional studies show employers want their employees to “have solid reading and writing skills” meaning that being able to read proficiently helps land a well-paying job.