How and What You Read to Baby Can Impact Brain Development

Do you want to know the secret to fast-tracking your baby’s language development? Four words: Read to the baby.

You may have heard it before and might think it’s just an old wives’ tale. But, studies can now prove that reading to your babies can do wonders. They found a link between reading to babies and brain development, and the results are pretty amazing.

So, if you want to know why reading to your baby improves their language development, how you should read, and how many times you should read, keep going.

Reading to Babies and Brain Development

There have already been studies before that proved that reading to a baby from infancy can result in specialised brain responses. This means that if you read to your six-month-old, he will be able to better differentiate between faces and species, for example. 

This same study — in a way — proves that it is not just what’s on the pages, but the book reading experience itself that helps with these brain responses. 

But with such data, it’s still unclear how we should go about reading to our baby to achieve the desired effect. Not until Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine released a study published just this month, February 0f 2023.

Their study concluded that by reading at least one book per day starting from the child’s second week, you could expect your child to demonstrate improved language capabilities by 9 months. 

That tells us, parents, just how valuable reading to a baby is. But, while that’s clear, there are still so many unanswered questions. Can you read any books? Do you need to change books as your child grows older? What should be the considerations when trying to select a book to read to your child? Plus, does it matter if you read the story out loud? Why or why not?

All of these you will find out as you read through this article.

Benefits of Reading to Baby

• Faster language and cognitive development 

A study conducted in 2006 uncovered that reading to babies aloud or book sharing can help in language and cognitive development. It also increases a child’s vocabulary as well as their pre-reading skills. In addition, this activity is beneficial in conceptual development. 

That happens because when you read to your child out loud, you help them familiarise themselves with the sounds that you make. Add to that the association of such sounds with pictures. When they see such pictures again, they recall the sound that you made when you referred to them.

First is familiarity, and the second is copying the sounds that you made while reading to them out loud.

• Enhances reading and writing abilities 

The more books you read to your child, the more words they are exposed to. So, what you’re essentially doing by reading to your child is to familiarise them with as many words as possible.

Another research by the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine can confirm this as they found that the quality and quantity of shared book reading greatly benefits a child’s vocabulary. 

• Enhancement of parent-child relationship 

In today’s work culture, being present in your child’s life has become more and more difficult, with both parents always out to bring home the bacon. So, whenever you feel like you have to ensure your child’s emotional needs or longing for you is met, read them a book out loud. 

A WHO study stated that reading to babies aloud helps enhance parent-child relationships. It encourages interpersonal communication and gives parents a daily dose of cuddles with their children. 

Apart from the free snuggles, reading a book with your child is such a positive experience for your child that they can associate books with the concepts of joy and closeness. So, to them, reading a book is considered to be a form of happiness.

Reading to Baby: How Often is Often Enough

What Books You Should Pick

You now know the when, the why, the how, and the how often. Now, let’s discover the what. During their investigations, the BCDL researchers found that the type of books you read to your baby is as important as how much you read to them. 

• If you show books with faces, and objects to your infants, they will show specialised brain responses in the future. But if you show them books with no labels or generic books with just images and a word to describe them, it might not be that impactful. 
• Babies who are read to from books with individual labels (where each image is described by words), were able to distinguish between individual characters. For instance, the dog in the book is described as: “This is Harry. He can wiggle his tail and run fast.”
• The BCLD study also found that young infants were able to learn a lot more about their environment through those labelled books. It also helped in their overall development during their first year. 

Reminder to Parents

Once you realise all of the benefits of reading to your child, you will want to push yourself harder in order to ensure your child finishes a book a day. In your pursuit of achieving this, you need to remember a few things. Here are some takeaways that you might find useful”

• Differences at Different Ages

The books you should read to your six-month-old should be different from those you read to your two-year-old as their level of understanding matures with age.

• No to Generic Terms

While reading to your baby, you should opt for books that label characters and give them individual names as opposed to generic terms like “cat” or “dog.”

• Consider your Child’s Preference

Make sure to purchase books that your child likes to see, touch, and hear from. Otherwise, they won’t have something to inspire them to read.

• Get Creative

If you bought a book that has no individual labels, then create some of your own. Give the characters interesting names. 

Remember that while talking to babies is important for their development, shared book reading can open the doors for faster cognitive learning. Are you ready to learn to develop a child’s language skills? 

Updates from Kim Brua