
Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Behavior and Attention - sea6ear
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/well/family/reading-aloud-to-young-children-has-benefits-for-behavior-and-attention.html
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truculation
Fine, as long as you accept that the main purpose of reading a story aloud is
to relax and _enjoy the story together_ rather than to develop skills. Just as
the main purpose of lego and similar toys is not to develop 'hand-eye
coordination' but rather to build cool stuff. (Whatever claims are advertised
on the packaging.)

This isn't a trivial point. If you read stories with the intention of
fostering skill development you will neither inculcate skills nor get the most
out of those stories.

 _> parenting coach_

Ha. The idea that there exist professional parents who explictly know what
they are doing (with footnotes and sources) is a major conceit in our present
culture.

~~~
rxhernandez
The conceit exists with people who assume they are experts at something
despite having very limited experience with the subject and zero attempts at
research. Are you saying you or anyone else is equipped to be a decent parent
just because you were a child and maybe had a parent? Or is it just because
you are a decent person that you think you are equipped?

I know plenty of decent people who think it's okay to spank a child when we
know full well that it results in kids thinking that violence is a solution to
their problems. It took me years to unlearn yelling at people as a solution to
my problems. It took me years to not fight every little semblance of stupidity
I see. It took me decades to recover from depression induced by a father who
still thinks to this day that he was doing the right thing by yelling at me
for my every little wrong as a child.

This same ridiculous logic that spawned this frivolous criticism is the same
logic that results in people saying "we've gotten along just fine for y years
without x; you are being ridiculous for wanting or saying you need x." Feel
free to substitute in electricity, clean water, doctors, internet, cars and
child labor laws for x. And yes life finds a way despite a lack of technology
or understanding but that doesn't mean we can't seriously improve our lives or
the lives of our children by using either. If you took a second to look at
current child development research you would see how out of your depth you
are.

~~~
truculation
_> Are you saying you or anyone else is equipped to be a decent parent just
because you were a child and maybe had a parent?_

Yes. I think that, as things stand, good parenting is largely a matter of
being lucky enough to have oneself received good parenting, i.e. it's mainly a
matter of tradition. This doesn't imply that one shouldn't attempt
improvements here and there, some guided by science. My beef is principally
with the idea that there's a scientific method to produce better people.
Conceiving of people as _products_ rather than as ends-in-themselves.

~~~
pjc50
> good parenting is largely a matter of being lucky enough to have oneself
> received good parenting, i.e. it's mainly a matter of tradition

a) Tradition is extremely variable across both time and space, even within the
West

b) we have largely moved away from some of the nastier edges of "traditional"
parenting, with good reason

c) there has to be a huge number of people who feel they _don 't_ want to
replicate the upbringing they had and instead want help, who deserve decent
resources

d) given that parenting resources exist, it's better to have and use
scientifically tested ones than ones that replicate the prejudices of the
loudest voices

~~~
truculation
_> we have largely moved away from some of the nastier edges of "traditional"
parenting, with good reason_

Corporal punishment, you mean. Yes. However we've regressed in at least one
way: many toddlers are now in daycare for 30+ hours per week.

 _> given that parenting resources exist, it's better to have and use
scientifically tested ones than ones that replicate the prejudices of the
loudest voices_

Well, my original comment was more about how we _use_ resources. But it seems
doubtful whether we can scientifically test for how good such resources are,
except in terms of narrow criteria like safety. We can't yet look into
children's imaginations and measure how fired up they are; we can only try to
find out what our children enjoy and help them to do more of it.

Consider the Harry Potter books. They may have done more for literacy than
_everything else combined_ since they arrived. Yet the first manuscript was
rejected by many publishers, including some who no doubt had access to
purportedly scientific advice.

Far better to look at what other families are doing, reading and playing with.
And to read reviews online.

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weavie
I probably get as much out of reading to my daughter as she does. I absolutely
love some of the stories. I will be very sad when she gets to an age when she
no longer wants me to read to her. Mind you, a friend of mine was still
reading to his daughter when she was 18, so hopefully I have a few years to go
still!

Any recommendations for childrens stories that are a must read?

~~~
msluyter
The Elephant & Piggie series, by Mo Willems.

IMHO, the best kids book we've encountered. Some of the nice features:

a) well drawn and sharply delineated characters. (One of my pet peeves about
some kids books is difficult to distinguish images that tend to get lost in a
sea of bright colors.)

b) the text is _large_ and changes size according to the emotions of the
characters.

c) phrases are repeated -- great for language acquisition -- but not in a way
that's irritating or vacuous.

d) funny stories; real emotions that toddlers can grok.

e) good construction -- high quality printing, thick pages, etc...

~~~
kasey_junk
Completely unrelated & not meant to replace the books, which I adore.

Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus, ios app is awesome. Exactly what I want in
a kids app.

~~~
randomwhatever
my kid loved this book, and I read it maybe 40 times, but the whole style +
text, I still enjoyed it )

there is also one called (I think, not English native) 'it is not a box'
really nice and kids love it

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tlogan
Why is this an article at all?

I also believe that playing video games with your kids has benefits. Also
throwing a ball. Even kicking the ball with kids (btw, do not do that with
baseball ball - lesson learned). Or just walking and talking about shit
(sometimes literally).

I'm just sarcastic here (and angry on myself): I did many mistakes of not
being around for my first kid but I'm trying to fix up with second and third.
Please do listen to the old guy: spent time with your kids. Period.

~~~
kerbalspacepro
I think that this is an article, because if children are read to they will be
more literate, and then when they grow up their comments on the Internet will
make more sense.

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sixhobbits
Studies which divide people into two groups and do
"$THING_WITH_LIKELY_POSITIVE_EFFECT" on one group and _nothing_ on the other
group are not very interesting or convincing IMO.

Normally, unless done really badly, initiatives like the one described here
will have a significant positive effect.

More interesting studies follow the pattern of comparing different potential
initiatives, or even better, comparing a surprising initiative with an obvious
one. E.g. some studies have indicated that giving school children chess
coaching improves their maths scores more than extra maths lessons.

That said, I'm hugely grateful to my parents for being very involved in
reading aloud and telling stories while I was young. I'm convinced without the
results of this study that there was a huge positive effect.

~~~
andrei_says_
Would be nice to have a study on giving agenda-free positive undivided
attention as a baseline and then variations with different activities.

~~~
taneq
Agreed. Kids need unstructured time too!

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baxtr
It’s sad that nowadays every second needs to be productive. The main benefit
is to have a nice, focused time (device-free) with your kid.

~~~
Zigurd
Reading aloud is entertainment. It makes going to bed palatable and if you can
master the pronunciation of the patois in the Joel Chandler Harris Br'er
Rabbit books, little kids find dad talking that way totally hilarious.

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lowken10
I just want to share my story. My son always seemed to be behind his
classmates. He's a bright, articulate, has an excellent spoken vocabulary, and
a has wonderful sense of humor. He just always seemed to struggle in school
through the early elementary years.

My son especially struggled with reading. In an effort to help him with
reading, I spent huge amounts of time forcing him to read different books. I
used Anki to help him memorize difficult words.

I did help him, but by the fourth grade he was still behind his classmates

Everything changed one day when I decided to back off and instead read to him
(and my daughter) every night for pleasure. I stopped asking to read part of
the book. I tried different books and quickly my son and daughter started to
enjoy the nighttime ritual of being read to.

About half way through Roald Dahl's book the BFG, something clicked in my
fourth grade son. He started reading the BFG on his own. Then he started to
read during school downtime. When I'm driving him somewhere he is often now
reading books in the backseat instead of playing games on his iPad.

My point is reading fun books to your children can help them fall in love with
reading and thus make them want to read.

If I could give any advice to new parents is to read to your children every
night (maybe take weekends off :-) ) and try and just have fun reading
interesting stories to them.

Hopefully my son has found a lifelong love of reading, which will serve him
well.

~~~
randomwhatever
Don't take weekends off )

Really. Read to them every night in bed! It is an amazing bonding experience.
Read fun books for both of you. I don't think you will have anything that you
will regret less in your life!

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SystemOut
There have been multiple and ongoing studies that show reading to your child
helps develop multiple parts of the brain, including auditory processing
capabilities that are essential to early reading development. The diversity of
words matter, even the positive nature as opposed to negative tone of words
matters.

[https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-
more...](https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more-words-
to-your-preschooler-daily/) is one article that discusses some options but the
original study can be found here:

[http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarly...](http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf)

There have been follow on studies discussed here

[https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/22/key-to-
vocabul...](https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/22/key-to-vocabulary-
gap-is-quality-of.html)

That show it also has to do with the diversity of words, and even their tone
(the positive vs negative) that is a key driver towards how well they engage
and grow.

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tboyd47
Just anecdotally, reading is the most powerfully positive shared experience I
have with my kids, and we do everything together. We paint pictures, play
outside, eat dinner, watch movies, play video games together, etc. But reading
is different; when I read to them, they're quiet, they're well-behaved. They
are really paying attention.

It's not the activity they _enjoy_ the most, and it's not proactively
educational (at least not in the sense that I'm forcing numbers and letters
down their throat), but it just seems to turn them into a different sort of
kid for a few moments.

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MrTortoise
Tldr

