Reading, It’s Good for Bonding AND Brains
Dr. Alison Schonwald is a Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. She’s also a member of the Board of Raising A Reader MA, and the proud mom of a toddler.
Guest post by Dr. Alison Schonwald, Medical Director, Development Behavioral Outreach, Boston Children’s Hospital and Board of Directors, Raising A Reader MA
Right now, you are reading this without thinking about how you are doing it, or about how you first learned to read. Actually, you probably first learned how to talk. You recognized when someone else said the words first, and then started to say them yourself. You heard a word many times, and then learned that word attached to specific things: you heard “Mama” over and “over, then you said “Mama and got a response. Then you learned that words attached to actions, you would say “Up” and get lifted. Soon, you learned that you could put words together (“More milk!”) to get what you needed, express your feelings, and share your thoughts (“Look! Doggy!”) You heard the words from others, and then used them yourself. You labeled things in real life, and labeled pictures of them in books.
As you got a little older, you learned to label letters, then learned what sounds they made. You traced them and then drew the letters yourself. When you looked at words, you first processed the whole word- you might have recognized your name from the list on the preschool wall well before you could read or spell. You used your eyes to recognize the symbols of individual letters and chains of letters making words. Aha! When you recognized the words by sight, it turned out you knew some of the words already! Your system was primed by the language you already knew. As you recognized more and more words, you were converting the visual symbols into the meaningful language already in your head. By kindergarten, you were probably linking the letters to the sounds of the words and combining those sounds, so you could make ”c” “a” “t” into “cat.” But you knew what a cat was, you had been read Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat a million times, labeled cats during walks in the neighborhood, knew that cats said “Meow.” Your language system allowed your reading to develop in a meaningful way. You had the words in your head already.
This evolution of your language reflects neural pathways developing in your young brain.
Reading is about words, but it’s also about numbers. Studies tell us a sobering story about how many children don’t have those early opportunities necessary for reading readiness, and who those children tend to be.
- When the highest educational level in the household is greater than high school, 55% of children are being read to every day, seven days a week. That number drops to 39% for families with a high school diploma and 31% to families with less than a high school education.
- While 59% of children from families with incomes of 400% the federal poverty line (FPL) or greater were read to every day, only 36% children from families with incomes less than 100% FPL were reported to be read to daily.
- Children read to three times a week or more are 1.6 times more likely to be at the top of their kindergarten class in reading and 2.3 times more likely to be at the top of their class in communication skills.
In our early years, brain cells proliferate, but the pathways and connections we don’t use can gradually be lost in what is termed a “pruning process.” When we read to young children at this crucial time in brain development, we are giving them (a) the foundation of a love for books, (b) the building blocks of language, and (c) the exposure to words and pictures and stories coming together. It is becoming hard-wired in their brains. And when children aren’t read to consistently at a young age? They miss an important opportunity for robust pathways and connections to develop.
According to the Commission on Reading report Becoming a Nation of Readers (1985), the ”single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” Ultimately, literacy levels link to high school graduation rates, likelihood and level of employment, and even physical health. Reading to young children primes them for school success, and breaking the cycle of low literacy is a critical opportunity to narrow the social gaps, to impact lifelong achievement for everyone.
Reflect and take action
- Have a conversation with someone about your earliest book or language memories. Consider how your earliest experiences with reading and talking impacted your own language development.
- Based on what you know or believe, do you think being read or talked to would have a different impact on brain development than hearing words? For example, is there a potential difference between having a parent chatter with an infant while on a walk outdoors, versus having an infant hear his or her parent talk on a cell phone while on a walk outdoors? Why or why not?
- Give a rhyming book to a parent of an infant, along with a copy of this bog post, and invite her/him to read with the newest member of the family.
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