Reading Together at Home Improves Child Development — And Something More…
A team of Australian researchers has published in Frontiers in Language Sciences one of the most comprehensive reviews to date on a simple yet powerful habit: home-based shared book reading. But… what exactly is shared reading?Shared reading — also known as home-based shared book reading — is when an adult (often parents, uncles, aunts…) reads a book with a child and talks about what’s happening in the story. It’s not just about reading aloud, but about interaction: asking questions, commenting on the illustrations, connecting the story to personal experiences… Many families make it part of their bedtime routine.This systematic review analyzed 46 studies with data from over 56,000 children under 4 years old. It measured various aspects of what’s called the home literacy environment, which includes, for example, the frequency of shared reading, the age at which it began, and the number of children’s books in the home — and…