One reason we choose to delay screen-time in our house is that there are so many other activities that our children can engage in that have no negative side effects.
We have already written a fair amount about how books trump screens and I think any caregiver would say books are better for children than screens. But, just because we love books so much and we want to highlight their role as champion in the battles with screens, here are six research studies proving that children are much better off spending time with books:
1. Increase Empathy
Reading is related to empathy and the ability to take others’ perspectives in preschool children. A 2010 study demonstrated that the more books preschoolers had read to them, the more the children were able to empathize with and understand the different perspectives in others. The children were also able to understand that others have different thoughts, feelings, and motivations than their own. This is a wonderful thing for a 3-6 year old child to have and it certainly cuts down on the temper tantrums too. Interestingly enough, researchers did not find this association with television viewing.1
2. Boost Academic Achievement
Research has demonstrated a strong link in a twenty-year longitudinal study between the number of books in the home and children’s educational achievement. Having 500 children’s books at home is related to that child achieving 3.2 years further in their educational journey.2 The same group did another study a few years later and found that in over 42 countries, the amount of books in the home is related to academic test scores. The author of the study, Mariah Evans, is quoted as saying, “Regardless of how many books the family already has, each addition to the home library helps children do better (on the standard test).”3
3. Physical Books Better than E-books
Research demonstrates that when children read books on an e-reader, they are easily distracted from the story line (by all the interactive options) and this can result in reducing their comprehension of the story.4 This research looked at reading in parent-child dyads. So, if the parent is going to be there reading to the child anyways, they are much better off picking up a physical book. A physical book also poses no risk of sleep interruption via blue light and allows fine motor practice with page turning.
As famous children’s author Julia Donaldson puts it, “The publishers showed me an ebook of Alice in Wonderland. They said, ‘Look, you can press buttons and do this and that’, and they showed me the page where Alice’s neck gets longer. There’s a button the child can press to make the neck stretch, and I thought, well, if the child’s doing that, they are not going to be listening or reading, ‘I wish my cat Dinah was here’ or whatever it says in the text – they’re just going to be fiddling with this wretched button.”
There’s also research to suggest that reading physical books is better for comprehension than reading via a screen, in part due to the distractions provided by hypermedia. See The Internet is Changing Your Brain for a review of the research which suggests comprehension and learning often suffers when reading online.
4. Reading Stimulates Deep Immersion
Even though our children’s bodies may not be moving while they are reading, don’t make the mistake of thinking reading is a passive activity. Research utilizing fMRI technology demonstrates that when reading, “readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative. Details about actions and sensations are captured from the text and integrated with personal knowledge from past experiences.” The brain regions which are activated when typically completing an activity personally are also activated when reading about that activity.5 The visual evidence from brain scans suggests readers are learning in similar ways to completing the activity themselves.
5. Reading Trumps Talking
In a now famous study, researchers analyzed communication patterns between parents and children. They observed the families with infants monthly from the time the child was 7 months until their third birthday. What they found: there was a discrepancy of 30 million words between socioeconomic groups in the study. Follow-up studies demonstrated that this difference affected children’s knowledge, skills and later academic performance.6 The research was instrumental in educating parents, particularly low-income parents, to talk to their children more as a way to increase literacy.
However, recent research suggests that encouraging parents to read to their children will have a bigger impact than talking to them. That’s because when speaking in casual conversation, parents are likely to use the same words, those that are a part of 5,000 most common English words. Books, on the other hand, naturally introduce new words in an enjoyable fashion. The researcher compared conversations between children and parents, between two adults and the words present in common children’s books. His research demonstrated that the children’s books contained more novel words than the two other categories.7 If you want to increase literacy and close the word gap, reading to your child is your best option.
6. Reading May Help Your Child Focus
Research has demonstrated a link between the amount of entertainment television watched prior to age 3 and attentional problems at school age. Each hour of television viewed led to a 10% increase in the risk for attention problems when the child enters school.8 Other research suggests that over 90% of parents and teachers believe children’s attention spans are decreasing. And, it’s not just the kids; apparently adults’ average attention spans are shorter than a goldfish, which researchers attribute to advancing technology.
Reading may help your child with this problem of decreasing attention. Stories typically have a beginning, middle and end, which encourages children to learn sequencing. Children utilize their imaginations as well as their self-discipline to sit through a book and learn what happens in the end. Daily reading allows them to practice the skills of discipline and attention regulation, like a muscle, likely making it easier for them to pay attention when they enter formal schooling.
Read More!
No matter how much you are reading with your child, read more! Inspire a love of books and learning by reading together. Visit local libraries to check books out, attend story times and participate in summer reading programs. Set up inviting reading nooks throughout your home to make books the first thing your child turns to when he or she wants to relax.
Encouraging More Reading
Recently, a friend of mine commented on how many places we had children’s books in our home. I explained the intentionality in keeping a basket of books and a blanket several places in our home. Books have some hefty competition in tablets, phones, and TVs, so books might need a little extra support. How many screens do you have in your home? I say you should have at least as many inviting reading spots as you do screens. At our house, we have 2 televisions, 2 computers, 1 iPad and 2 phones! That’s 7 screens! We also happen to have 8 little reading nooks. Some of them are elaborate (my daughter’s closet) and many of them are basic (a box of books next to the kid’s table in the kitchen). Check them out below.
Our reading nooks include: my daughter’s closet, my son’s room, the master bedroom, the playroom, the living room, next to my son’s potty, the kitchen and the car.
How is your screen-to-reading nook ratio looking? We want everyone to read more with their kids. Sign up for the Screen-Free Parenting newsletter and we will pick one lucky subscriber to win a copy of the classic book: Charlotte’s Web.
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References
- Mar, R. A., Tackett, J. L., & Moore, C. (2010). Exposure to media and theory-of-mind development in preschoolers. Cognitive Development, 25, 69-78
- Evans, M.D.R., Kelley, J., Sikora, J. and Treiman, D. J.. (2010). Family Scholarly Culture and Educational Success: Evidence From 27 Nations. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility,28(2):171-197.
- Evans, M.D.R., J. Kelley, & J. Sikora (2014). Scholarly culture and academic performance in 42 nations. Social Forces,00(0): 1-34.
- Parish‐Morris, J., Mahajan, N., Hirsh‐Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., & Collins, M. F. (2013). Once upon a time: Parent–child dialogue and storybook reading in the electronic era. Mind, Brain, And Education, 7(3), 200-211. doi:10.1111/mbe.12028
- Speer, N. K., Reynolds, J. R., Swallow, K. M, & Zacks, J. M (2009). Reading stories activates neural representations of visual and motor experiences. Psychological Science, 20(8) 989-999.
- Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (2003). The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3. American Educator, 4-9. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org//sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf
- Masaro, D. W. (2016). Two different communication genres and implications for vocabulary development and learning to read. Journal of Literacy Research, 1-23. Retrieved from: https://mambo.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/158/2016/02/FinalOnlinePub1086296X15627528.full_.pdf
- Zimmerman, F. J., & Christakis, D. A. (2007). Associations between content types of early media exposure and subsequent attentional problems. Pediatrics, 120(5), 986-992. doi:10.1542/peds.2006-3322
