research on reading to babies

• Neuroscience

The Magic of Reading Aloud to Babies

New research shows even infants benefit from books and reading..

Posted May 5, 2017 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

You’re never too young for books. Reading to babies as young as six months of age leads to stronger vocabularies and better early literacy skills four years later, just as the children are getting ready to go to school.

That’s the finding being presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting on May 8. How often and how vividly kids and adults engage in books together through the toddler years also mattered, predicting early reading and writing skills.

“Even though children may not be talking yet, that doesn’t mean they’re not learning,” says developmental psychologist Carolyn Cates , a research assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at NYU Langone Medical Center and lead author of the study.

The early language acquisition stakes are high. Previous work has already shown that children’s literacy skills when they start school correlate to later reading success. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics , one in three children starts kindergarten without the necessary foundational literacy. Reading rates by third grade are the best predictor of high school graduation, but alarmingly, two-thirds of children in the United States, and 80 percent of those below the poverty line fail to develop reading proficiency by third grade.

In the new study (as yet unpublished), Cates and her colleagues wanted to know: “How early is book reading important?” The researchers followed more than 260 parent and child pairs from birth to school entry. When the children were 6, 14 and 24 months old, parents reported on how often they read together and how many books they had in the house—measures of the quantity of shared book reading. They also reported on the quality of that reading—whether they talked about the book, pointed to pictures, discussed the emotions and characters in the story and so on.

After adjusting for socioeconomic differences and other confounding variables, the researchers found that the quantity and quality of book reading in early infancy predicted the size of a child’s vocabulary and early reading skills (quality was most important). Both quantity and quality of book reading in the toddler years predicted early literacy skills like name writing, beginning sound awareness, and early reading skills.

These findings fit neatly with what we know about early language development. Reading aloud is a form of conversation and conversing with children matters.

In 1995, a landmark study by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley found that, in the first three years of life, some children heard 30 million more words than others, an advantage that translated by third grade into bigger vocabularies, better reading skills, and higher test scores.

More recently, Dr. Dana Suskind , a pediatric surgeon and founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative at the University of Chicago, wrote a wonderful book updating this research. (Read more about her book here .)

As I have reported before , we now know that early language exposure significantly affects the way language networks are built in the brain. Psychologist Anne Fernald of Stanford University has shown that “a child’s mental processing speed ... is shaped through rich engagement with language.”

Speedier processing allows babies and toddlers who recognize familiar words to pay closer attention to the next word in the sentence. Those kids get more out of each verbal experience, boosting vocabulary, and strengthening working memory , reasoning, and conceptual abilities.

Reading to young children is an easy and obvious way to expose them to language. It expands their vocabularies—you don’t have to go to the zoo, for instance, to talk about camels and elephants.

And reading gives parents something to talk about. Those who feel shy or silly talking about the everyday world to a nonverbal child can pick up a book and instantly launch into lively language.

Furthermore, the rhythm, repetition, and rhyme of children’s books help lay down the neural networks kids need for reading. (Read more about the neurobiology of Dr. Seuss here .)

Nonetheless, a national survey found that only 60 percent of parents in middle-class families read to children every day. In poorer families, the number was only 34 percent. And many adults assume that children under one are too young for reading. Of the families in Cates’ study, when the babies were six months old, fewer than 20 percent were reading more than five days a week, and more than 50 percent were reading, at most, three days a week.

Cates hopes that her study will strengthen support for parent training programs like the one at NYU Langone run by Dr. Alan Mendelsohn , or Reach Out and Read , which provides books to families during doctor visits. But more broadly speaking, her work reminds us that reading aloud, early and often, really does have the power to transform young minds and young lives.

Cates, Carolyn Brockmeyer, Adriana Weisleder, and Alan L. Mendelsohn. "Mitigating the effects of family poverty on early child development through parenting interventions in primary care." Academic pediatrics 16.3 (2016): S112-S120. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27044688

High, Pamela C., and Perri Klass. "Literacy promotion: an essential component of primary care pediatric practice." Pediatrics 134.2 (2014): 404-409. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/2/404.long

Hart, Betty, and Todd R. Risley. Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Paul H Brookes Publishing, 1995. http://Hart, Betty, and Todd R. Risley. Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Paul H Brookes Publishing, 1995.

Lydia Denworth is a science journalist and author of Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond.

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Reading with children starting in infancy gives lasting literacy boost :

SAN FRANCISCO – New research at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting shows that reading books with a child beginning in early infancy can boost vocabulary and reading skills four years later, before the start of elementary school.

The abstract, “Early Reading Matters: Long-term Impacts of Shared Bookreading with Infants and Toddlers on Language and Literacy Outcomes,” will be presented on Monday, May 8, at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco.

“These findings are exciting because they suggest that reading to young children, beginning even in early infancy, has a lasting effect on language, literacy and early reading skills,” said Carolyn Cates, PhD, lead author and research assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. “What they’re learning when you read with them as infants,” she said, “still has an effect four years later when they’re about to begin elementary school.”

Mothers and their babies were recruited from the newborn nursery of an urban public hospital, with more than 250 pairs monitored between ages of 6 months and 4 and a half years (54 months) for how well they could understand words, and for early literacy and reading skills. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The findings were compared with the quantity of shared book-reading, such as the number of books in the home and days per week spent reading together. Quality of shared book-reading was gauged by asking whether parents had conversations with their child about the book while reading, whether they talked about or labeled the pictures and the emotions of the characters in the book and whether the stories were age-appropriate.

Adjusting for socioeconomic differences, the researchers found that reading quality and quantity of shared book-reading in early infancy and toddlerhood predicted child vocabulary up to four years later, prior to school entry. Book-reading quality during early infancy, in particular, predicted early reading skills while book-reading quantity and quality during toddler years appeared strongly tied to later emergent literacy skills, such as name-writing at age 4.

The results highlight the importance of parenting programs used in pediatric primary care that promote shared book-reading soon after birth, Dr. Cates said, such as Read Out and Read and the Video Interaction Project..

Dr. Cates will present the abstract, “Early Reading Matters: Long-term Impacts of Shared Bookreading with Infants and Toddlers on Language and Literacy Outcomes,” at 8:15 a.m. The abstract is available at https://registration.pas-meeting.org/2017/reports/rptPAS17_Abstracts.asp .

The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting brings together thousands of individuals united by a common mission: to improve child health and well-being worldwide. This international gathering includes pediatric researchers, leaders in academic pediatrics, experts in child health, and practitioners. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four organizations leading the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: Academic Pediatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Pediatric Society, and Society for Pediatric Research. For more information, visit the PAS Meeting online at www.pas-meeting.org, follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting and #pasm17, or like us on Facebook. For additional AAP News coverage, visit http://www.aappublications.org/collection/pas-meeting-updates .

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New Research

Brain Studies Suggest What Books to Read to Your Baby—and When

Psychologists looked at infant brains to find that both timing and content can impact mental development

Lisa S. Scott, The Conversation

Parents often  receive books at pediatric checkups  via  programs like Reach Out and Read  and hear from a variety of health professionals and educators that reading to their kids is critical for supporting development.

The pro-reading message is getting through to parents, who recognize that it’s an important habit. A summary report by Child Trends, for instance, suggests  55 percent of three- to five-year-old children  were read to every day in 2007. According to the U.S. Department of Education,  83 percent of three- to five-year-old children  were read to three or more times per week by a family member in 2012.

What this ever-present advice to read with infants doesn’t necessarily make clear, though, is that what’s on the pages may be just as important as the book-reading experience itself. Are all books created equal when it comes to early shared-book reading? Does it matter what you pick to read? And are the best books for babies different than the best books for toddlers?

In order to guide parents on how to create a high-quality book-reading experience for their infants,  my psychology research lab  has conducted a series of baby learning studies. One of our goals is to better understand the extent to which shared book reading is important for brain and behavioral development.

Researchers see clear  benefits of shared book reading  for child development. Shared book reading with young children is  good for language and cognitive development , increasing vocabulary and pre-reading skills and honing conceptual development.

Shared book reading also likely enhances the  quality of the parent-infant relationship  by encouraging reciprocal interactions – the back-and-forth dance between parents and infants. Certainly not least of all, it gives infants and parents a consistent daily time to cuddle.

Recent research has found that  both the quality and quantity  of shared book reading in infancy predicted later childhood vocabulary, reading skills and name writing ability. In other words, the more books parents read, and the more time they’d spent reading, the greater the developmental benefits in their 4-year-old children.

This important finding is one of the first to measure the benefit of shared book reading starting early in infancy. But there’s still more to figure out about whether some books might naturally lead to higher-quality interactions and increased learning.

In our investigations, my colleagues and I followed infants across the second six months of life. We’ve found that when parents showed babies  books with faces  or  objects  that were individually named, they learn more, generalize what they learn to new situations and  show more specialized brain responses . This is in contrast to books with no labels or books with the same generic label under each image in the book. Early learning in infancy was also associated with benefits  four years later in childhood .

Our most recent addition to this series of studies was  funded by the National Science Foundation  and just  published in the journal Child Development . Here’s what we did.

First, we brought six-month-old infants into our lab, where we could see how much attention they paid to story characters they’d never seen before. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure their brain responses. Infants wear a cap-like net of 128 sensors that let us record the electricity naturally emitted from the scalp as the brain works. We measured these neural responses while infants looked at and paid attention to pictures on a computer screen. These brain measurements can tell us about what infants know and whether they can tell the difference between the characters we show them.

We also tracked the infants’ gaze using eye-tracking technology to see what parts of the characters they focused on and how long they paid attention.

The data we collected at this first visit to our lab served as a baseline. We wanted to compare their initial measurements with future measurements we’d take, after we sent them home with storybooks featuring these same characters.

We divided up our volunteers into three groups. One group of parents read their infants storybooks that contained six individually named characters that they’d never seen before. Another group were given the same storybooks but instead of individually naming the characters, a generic and made-up label was used to refer to all the characters (such as “Hitchel”). Finally, we had a third comparison group of infants whose parents didn’t read them anything special for the study.

After three months passed, the families returned to our lab so we could again measure the infants’ attention to our storybook characters. It turned out that only those who received books with individually labeled characters showed enhanced attention compared to their earlier visit. And the brain activity of babies who learned individual labels also showed that they could distinguish between different individual characters. We didn’t see these effects for infants in the comparison group or for infants who received books with generic labels.

These findings suggest that very young infants are able to use labels to learn about the world around them and that shared book reading is an effective tool for supporting development in the first year of life.

So what do our results from the lab mean for parents who want to maximize the benefits of storytime?

Not all books are created equal. The books that parents should read to six- and nine-month-olds will likely be different than those they read to two-year-olds, which will likely be different than those appropriate for four-year-olds who are getting ready to read on their own. In other words, to reap the benefits of shared book reading during infancy, we need to be reading our little ones the right books at the right time.

For infants, finding books that name different characters may lead to higher-quality shared book reading experiences and result in the learning and brain development benefits we find in our studies. All infants are unique, so parents should try to find books that interest their baby.

My own daughter loved the “ Pat the Bunny ” books, as well as stories about animals, like “ Dear Zoo .” If names weren’t in the book, we simply made them up.

It’s possible that books that include named characters simply increase the amount of parent talking. We know that  talking to babies  is important for their development. So parents of infants: Add shared book reading to your daily routines and name the characters in the books you read. Talk to your babies early and often to guide them through their amazing new world – and let storytime help.

Lisa S. Scott, Associate Professor in Psychology, University of Florida

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Rocking and Rolling. Reading with Babies Matters!

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During her lunch break, Sasha visits the infant room to nurse her 5-month-old daughter, Emma. She notices Anat, Emma’s caregiver, reading the photo book Sasha made when she first enrolled Emma in the center. Emma is sitting in Anat’s lap along with another infant, and she is paying close attention to the pictures of her family. Anat says to Emma, “Here is your mommy in the book, and look—here is your mommy at the door ready to feed you!” Emma looks up and smiles when she sees Sasha. Anat realized early on that if she reads to Emma, it makes waiting for her mom to come by a little easier. Now, Anat is starting to read to the infants throughout the day, as she is finding that they enjoy the illustrations and the way she gives each character a unique voice.

In the child care center in the opening vignette, each family is asked to make a book of photos featuring the most important people in their child’s life. These photo books, along with board books, are found in a basket located in a cozy reading corner, where there are a few pillows for teachers to sit on and read to the children throughout the day. Even though the children in this room are under a year old, the teachers know how important it is to share books, stories, and songs with them. As a result, they have intentionally incorporated reading into their daily routines with the children.

For years, researchers have shown that reading to infants is good for their language and cognitive development and is important for building children’s vocabulary and prereading skills. A recent study demonstrated that both the quality and the quantity of shared reading in infancy are predictive of children’s vocabulary, reading skills, and name-writing ability at age 4 (AAP 2017). But many adults wonder what is considered quality shared reading. A key factor is being conversational while reading aloud, including talking about and labeling pictures and characters’ emotions (AAP 2017).

Many educators want to engage the littlest learners in books, but infant and toddler settings are very busy places—especially infant rooms when all of the children are under 12 months old. So much time is spent performing the routine care of feeding, diapering, and sleeping that reading can get lost if teachers are not intentional about incorporating it into the day.

Here are some tips that can make reading easier for you and more beneficial for the infants and toddlers in your care.

• Make books readily accessible to both you and mobile babies by placing several baskets or trays of books on the floor in different locations around the room.
• Make books part of daily routines, such as when lulling a baby to sleep or feeding a baby.
• Invite families to make homemade books featuring familiar family members, including pets. (This also makes for a great family engagement activity to do at your center so that you can involve families that may not be able to afford their own craft supplies.)
• Read aloud in a casual, conversational manner, pausing to point to the illustrations and label the objects and characters.
• Read to children in their home language, if you are fluent in it.
• Ask questions, even of preverbal children. Wait for children to respond in their own ways (facial expressions, body movements, sounds) before you start talking again.
• Talk to children about the story—for example, “See the baby pat the bunny?”
• Use an animated voice when reading to babies. This is a good way to show that you’re interested and you enjoy reading! If you’re engaged, babies will be too.
• Find books that provide sensory experiences, like  Pat the Bunny , by Dorothy Kunhardt, and the Baby Touch and Feel series from DK.
• Help children learn to turn the pages of a book. Starting at about 9 months old, babies can pick up small objects with the pointer finger and thumb, which aids them in beginning to grip and turn pages.
• Read for as long as the child is interested. It’s fine to not finish the book.

Think about it

• How do you feel about reading? Is it something you enjoy and feel confident doing?
• What role did books play in your family when you were a child? Were you read to often?
• To make photo books similar to the one described in the opening vignette, ask families to share pictures of people who are most important, including family members, fictive kin, pets, and close family friends. Because many people store their photos on a smartphone, ask families to text or email photos to you so you can print them out. Alternatively, you can take photos of families at drop-off and pickup times.
• Make a cozy and inviting reading corner using pillows and other comfy cushions, as well as lots of books—and use your reading corner regularly! This sends the message to babies that the reading corner is a comfortable place where they can cuddle up, enjoy each other’s company, and read books.
• Try to read to each child every day.

Reading to babies is an intimate, shared experience that boosts development and learning. Making time for story sharing in busy infant settings is essential for children’s vocabulary development and later reading ability. Being intentional about embedding literacy experiences in babies’ everyday routines creates joyful, loving moments in the short-term and builds critical skills in the long-term.

Connecting to Language and Literacy Standards

National organizations’ standards describe optimal classroom environments and effective teaching practices with respect to language and literacy. NAEYC-accredited programs align with best practices that address the kinds of books stocked in early childhood environments. For example, they require that each infant and toddler classroom have two or more picture books, wordless books, and rhyming books available. It is also important to have books that show a variety of cultures and languages so that children see diverse families, including their own families and home languages, in the stories they read.

Zero to Three’s Critical Competencies for Infant–Toddler Educators  states that teachers engage in the following language- and literacy-enriching book-reading behaviors:

L&L-3a —Frequently engage children in book exploration, storytelling, and reading activities.

L&L-3b —Point to pictures while labeling them, using facial expression, varied vocal tone, and gestures to communicate the meaning of words; reinforce the meaning of words by connecting them to real-life experiences at home and school.

L&L-3c —Promote positive attitudes toward books by making them available for children to explore independently, modeling shared and independent reading activities, rereading favorites, and modeling appropriate care for books.

L&L-3f —Promote many types of books, including picture story books, participation books, patterned concept books, predictable books, wordless books, folktales and fables, poetry, nursery rhymes, and informational books. (Dean, LeMoine, & Mayoral 2016, 64–65)

Rocking & Rolling is written by infant and toddler specialists and contributed by ZERO TO THREE, a nonprofit organization working to promote the health and development of infants and toddlers by translating research and knowledge into a range of practical tools and resources for use by the adults who influence the lives of young children. The column can be found online at NAEYC.org/resources/pubs/yc/columns .

AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics). 2017. “Reading with Children Starting in Infancy Gives Lasting Literacy Boost.”  AAP News & Journals Gateway . www.aappublications.org/news/2017/05/04/PASLiteracy050417 .

Dean, A., S. LeMoine, & M. Mayoral. 2016.  Critical Competencies for Infant–Toddler Educators . Washington, DC: ZERO to THREE.

Photograph: 1 © Julia Luckenbill

Linda Gillespie , MS, is a senior training, technical assistance, and engagement specialist at ZERO to THREE. She is coauthor of Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: Parent/Provider Partnerships in Child Care and currently supports the work of the HealthySteps Program. [email protected]

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The Novel Idea of Reading to Infants: How an Annual Reading Program Helps NICU Babies and Caregivers

December 16, 2022 | Elizabeth Valente Family-Centered Care , Newborn .

At Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford , neonatologists with the Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services work closely with parents, the hospital’s obstetric team, and specialized pediatric services to provide high-quality care for newborns with critical, surgical, or special medical needs. But the team recognizes that nurturing newborns goes beyond meeting their medical needs: They need to be supported to thrive when they go home with their families.

So it’s no surprise that since 2017, the team has developed a harmonious reading program that can positively impact the developmental growth of newborns in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), along with strengthening the bonds between babies and parents.

Neonatologist Melissa Scala, MD , a clinical associate professor of pediatrics and the medical director of NICU Developmental Care, answers questions about the benefits of reading to preterm babies in the NICU, as well as the positive effects on parents and on their care teams.

Why is it important for parents/caregivers to bond with their newborn right away?

• Research has shown us how parent-infant bonding really is important because it can shape babies’ intelligence as they grow older. During bonding, oxytocin, a.k.a. the “love hormone,” is released in parents’ and infants’ brains. It strengthens the ties built between infants and parents through early contact and interaction.
• For parents of NICU infants, the bonding process is disrupted. Many of the normal activities that parents do with their newborns, like holding, talking, cooing, or reading with the baby, may be impossible due to separation, infant illness, or parental stress.

What are the benefits of parent bedside care that the reading program provides for preterm infants in the NICU?

• It makes parents feel more comfortable and allows them to have an avenue for that parent-infant bonding.
• Even infants too small or sick to hold may benefit from hearing their parents’ voices. Often parents don’t know what to say to their babies in the NICU, so reading provides some text to get them going. The program also establishes patterns of parents reading to their infants that we hope will continue after discharge.
• Reading improves infant health and neurodevelopmental outcomes. The womb is not a quiet place. It’s actually fairly loud; the fetus hears the maternal heartbeat and body noises, and also hears Mom’s voice. In this way, babies are born preferring their mother’s language to other languages and their mother’s voice to other female voices.
• While for a long time we tried to be as quiet as possible in the NICU, we now know that quiet, soft voice exposure through talking, reading, or singing is good for babies. Research has shown better cardiorespiratory strength and growth in infants exposed to parents’ voices in the NICU. Being deprived of voice exposure leads to abnormal brain development and poorer language outcomes at 18–24 months. Stanford Medicine research has shown promising early results linking improved brain maturity with NICU voice exposure. If we wait until babies are at home to expose them to language, we will miss out on important benefits for infants and parents.
• We do ask care teams to talk to babies when they interact with them. Parents can’t be at the bedside all the time, and we want infants to get the language stimulation they need.

Does language or tone play a factor when reading to a newborn?

• In general, babies prefer “motherese”—this refers to the soft singsong quality of how most people instinctively talk to babies. Since babies can hear from around 24 weeks’ gestation, we have a lot of NICU time for language exposure for our smallest infants. We try to use a quiet “library” voice to protect fragile hearing and reduce stress.

Why is the NICU Reading Program celebrated in December? How are the books chosen?

• The December reading event was inspired by the kangaroo care education we do in May, which celebrates the power of human touch for infants. I felt we needed to emphasize the importance of voice exposure, and that is how the NICU Reading Program developed. I have since heard that there are read-a-thons at other NICUs trying to do the same thing. For our care team, this event is an important time to reeducate staff and celebrate what they do in the care of NICU babies. This year, the book we chose is On the Night You Were Born, by Nancy Tillman.
• Along with our care team and staff, we are fortunate to work alongside the Family Advisory Council when it comes to choosing a book every year. And as we are focused on equitable family support at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and because nearly one-third of families we serve are Spanish speaking, we make sure to have books in Spanish and in English. This is important because parents who speak a language other than English may feel less empowered or think they will receive less support in their parent role in the NICU. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen, so that all families can equally engage with their babies and gain the benefits that we know come with that care.
• The gift of a book is also in keeping with the season when we reflect on the needs of others, maybe trying to make a positive change in the world, a light in the seasonal darkness.  

With services like this, it’s no holiday surprise that Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and the neonatology service are ranked in the top 10 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report .

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Reading with children starting in infancy gives lasting literacy boost

Shared book-reading that begins soon after birth may translate into higher language and vocabulary skills before elementary school.

New research at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting shows that reading books with a child beginning in early infancy can boost vocabulary and reading skills four years later, before the start of elementary school.

The abstract, "Early Reading Matters: Long-term Impacts of Shared Bookreading with Infants and Toddlers on Language and Literacy Outcomes," will be presented on Monday, May 8, at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco.

"These findings are exciting because they suggest that reading to young children, beginning even in early infancy, has a lasting effect on language, literacy and early reading skills," said Carolyn Cates, PhD, lead author and research assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. "What they're learning when you read with them as infants," she said, "still has an effect four years later when they're about to begin elementary school."

Mothers and their babies were recruited from the newborn nursery of an urban public hospital, with more than 250 pairs monitored between ages of 6 months and 4 and a half years (54 months) for how well they could understand words, and for early literacy and reading skills. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The findings were compared with the quantity of shared book-reading, such as the number of books in the home and days per week spent reading together. Quality of shared book-reading was gauged by asking whether parents had conversations with their child about the book while reading, whether they talked about or labeled the pictures and the emotions of the characters in the book and whether the stories were age-appropriate.

Adjusting for socioeconomic differences, the researchers found that reading quality and quantity of shared book-reading in early infancy and toddlerhood predicted child vocabulary up to four years later, prior to school entry. Book-reading quality during early infancy, in particular, predicted early reading skills while book-reading quantity and quality during toddler years appeared strongly tied to later emergent literacy skills, such as name-writing at age 4.

The results highlight the importance of parenting programs used in pediatric primary care that promote shared book-reading soon after birth, Dr. Cates said, such as Read Out and Read and the Video Interaction Project..

Dr. Cates will present the abstract, "Early Reading Matters: Long-term Impacts of Shared Bookreading with Infants and Toddlers on Language and Literacy Outcomes," at 8:15 a.m.

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• March 1, 2019

Read Early and Often

You probably know that it’s important to read to children. You also may have heard that starting earlier is better. But maybe you feel a little silly reading aloud to an infant. Or you can’t figure out how to keep your 6-month-old from eating the corners of the book, or get your toddler to sit still and listen. We’ve all been there. So why read to babies? Although it seems babies are too young to enjoy being read to, they’re learning something new at every stage.

Why read to babies.

Reading together when babies are as young as 4 months old increases the chances that parents continue reading to babies as they get older. Beginning early is important because the roots of language are developing in a baby’s brain even before he can talk! The more words a baby hears over time, the more words he learns.

Reading: Ages and Stages

Here are some general guidelines for what types of books are a good fit from birth to 3, along with some can’t-miss parent tips for book-sharing in the early years. Letting a child love books in the ways he knows how at each age fosters literacy skills  from birth to 3, and beyond!

Finally, remember that telling the child a story can happen any time. Give it a try during mealtimes, diaper changes, driving to child care, and right before bed when you “tell the story” of the child’s day. Each of these moments creates an opportunity to build a deeper connection with the child and to build her language and literacy skills, too!

Learn more about using stories to nurture identity.

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Read It Again! Benefits of Reading to Young Children

In this brief, learn why story time is key to children’s development. Explore how home visitors can help families set aside more time to read books with their children. Find the most up-to-date information to answer three prompts: “What does research say?”; “What does it look like?”; and “Try this!” Also, find Connecting at Home, an accompanying resource that offers easy-to-try tips for families to help children experience book reading at home.

Download the PDF

Research Notes

Story time is important for brain development, even for babies who do not talk yet. When you read with children, they are connecting the words you say to the pictures on the page and to the things in their world. All of those connections are brain connections!

The Take Home

• Even before they can talk, children need to hear language to support brain development.
• Reading and telling stories with children is a great way to expose them to a rich variety of words.
• With language, both quantity and quality matter.

What Does Research Say?

• Infants pick up on language earlier than we realize. In fact, research shows that babies’ brains prepare to speak months before they say their first words. In order to complete this important brain preparation, children need to hear language.
• Books provide a great opportunity for back-and-forth interactions with older children. This supports word learning and preliteracy skills.
• The quantity of words that children hear is important for language development, but so is the quality of language that they hear. Quality of language can refer to word diversity and to the speech signal.
• It is important to use new and different words for children to expand their vocabulary. Books often include words that adults would not otherwise use, like names of plants or animals.
• Research shows that babies prefer infant-directed speech, or "parentese." The slow, exaggerated sing-song voice grabs babies’ attention and helps them identify individual sounds.

What Does It Look Like?

• Although some infants will listen to books, other infants want to turn pages and chew on corners. That’s okay! Any interaction that infants have with books is good. As they get older, the interactions will become more focused and intentional.
• Toddlers may like to hold the book and turn the pages. They may also like to help tell the story. Pause during stories that they have heard many times and let them fill in the missing words. Or ask them to tell you the whole story.
• Dialogic reading is a type of interactive reading. When adults ask children questions, explain new vocabulary, and relate the story to a child’s life, they are engaged in dialogic reading. This helps young children develop important preliteracy skills, like story understanding and critical thinking.
• You can use the words and pictures in the books you read to introduce new words and ideas to children. “This is a giraffe. Giraffes have spots and long necks. They like to eat leaves. Can a giraffe be a pet? No!” These interactions are important for growing children’s vocabulary.
• Make reading several times a day part of your routine. Children thrive in predictable environments. Daily reading time creates the consistency and sense of stability that children need. Reading the same books over and over also allows children to predict elements of the story and learn through repetition.
• Reflect on how you use books with children. How might you encourage parents to use books for more than stories?
• Reading is not the only way to use books to engage with children. Use the pictures in a book to tell your own story. Or encourage children to be the storyteller!
• Enjoy story time! Reading is a great time to interact with children. As you read together, make funny sounds or sing songs that go along with the story. During home visits, encourage parents to do the same. Adjust your interactions to match children’s age, ability, and interests. This is how children learn best.
• Reading to babies and young children in "parentese" makes it easier for them to learn a variety of new words. "Parentese" is linked to greater language growth in later childhood.
• Connect families to the local library or other ways to access books in your community. Bring books on home visits and model dialogic reading for families.
• Selecting and Using Culturally Appropriate Children's Books in Languages Other Than English
• Tips for Parents: Choosing Books for Infants and Toddlers
• Supporting Children's Early Brain Development
• Babbling Babies: Early Language Development

Connecting at Home

Reading with your child helps build language and thinking skills. Even before children can talk, story time helps build babies’ brains.

Enjoy Story Time Together

Make funny sounds or sing songs as you read or tell stories. Reading is a great time for back-and-forth interactions with your child. This is how children learn best.

Reading Daily

Pick a regular time to read to your child, like every morning or at bedtime. Routines help children thrive. They may even like to hear the same books over and over again.

Books Introduce New Words

Choose books in your home language that focus on different topics, like animals, noises, or shapes. This is a great way to expose children to a variety of words. Reading books with new words helps build your child’s vocabulary.

Create a Dialogue

Talk to your child about the pictures in the book. “See the duck? The duck is yellow! What else in this picture is yellow?” Storytelling can go beyond the words on the page. This helps children build language and thinking skills.

« Go to Connecting Research to Practice

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National Centers: Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

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• v.12(2); 2019 May

Intention to Read to Newborns Following a Brief Reading Promotion Intervention among Low-Income Pregnant Women

Introduction.

Reading to children can increase word knowledge and success in school. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends beginning reading at birth. However, children from low-income families are exposed to less words, including reading exposure, than children from high-income families.

Pregnant women attending a community prenatal education program targeted at high-risk and low-income populations were recruited into this study. Participants completed a pre-survey, engaged with a brief educational intervention, then completed a matched post-survey. Surveys assessed perceived benefits, intended behaviors, and self-efficacy regarding reading to their child.

Of 61 eligible participants, 54 (89%) completed the study. Participants reported being Black (33%), White (30%), Hispanic (28%), and other race (9%). Average gestational age at enrollment was 27 weeks (range 13 to 38 weeks). The average age of respondents was 26 years (SD = 7.2); 46% reported being pregnant for the first time. Following the intervention, no change in knowledge regarding benefits of reading was observed, however, baseline knowledge was high (58% – 94%). At post-test, significantly more women reported it was important to start reading to their child at birth (83% vs 56%; p < 0.001) and that they planned to start reading to their child at birth (70% vs 50%; p = 0.001).

Conclusions

A brief educational intervention showed promise in increasing pregnant women’s intentions to read to their children and should be considered in conjunction with other reading promotion programs. Follow-up to assess actual reading behavior is needed.

INTRODUCTION

Early delays in language development and reading comprehension decrease academic performance, especially among low-income populations. 1 , 2 Age at onset of home reading routines is an important predictor of language skills 3 and a home environment deficient in reading negatively impacts school readiness and brain development of young children. 4 Further, low literacy and early academic difficulties are linked to school dropout, increased risk for stress and illness in adulthood, negative lifestyle behaviors, low self-esteem, higher unemployment rates, and poverty. 5 – 7 The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that pediatric providers encourage parents to read to their children beginning in infancy. 1 , 8

By age three, children from high-income families were estimated to hear nearly 30 million more words than those from low-income families. 9 , 10 In Kansas, students who were eligible for free or reduced lunch, an indicator of low-income, were less likely to have reading assessment scores at or above basic level, proficient level, and advance level than non-eligible students (54% vs 84%, 20% vs 54%, and 3% vs 16%, respectively). 11 To address the gap, a brief educational intervention was developed to promote reading to infants among women attending a free prenatal educational program, called Baby Talk. Operating in six primary care clinics serving high risk mothers, the Baby Talk program is designed to promote maternal and infant health through education, on topics such as safe infant sleep, physical activity during pregnancy, stress management, smoking cessation, breastfeeding, and nutrition. 12 Program attendees are predominantly from marginalized populations, including low-income and minority communities. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the success of a brief intervention by measuring changes in perceived benefits, intended behaviors, and self-efficacy of Baby Talk participants as related to reading to their children.

Participants

Eligible participants were pregnant women attending a Baby Talk session on infant care between January 1 and April 30, 2017. Surveys were only offered in English as Baby Talk was only offered in English at that time.

Pre- and post-intervention surveys were designed specifically for this study as no existing instruments were identified. The surveys measured five items related to participants’ perceived benefits, intention, and confidence in reading to their children. Surveys were reviewed for readability and content validity by an expert panel, including pediatric providers and researchers.

To assess perceptions of the benefits of reading to children, respondents selected from a list, including two false benefits. Open-ended questions were used to assess the age at which respondents thought it was important to start reading to their children and the age at which respondents intended to start reading to their children. Responses of ‘while pregnant,’ ‘in the womb,’ ‘now’, and ‘newborn’ were coded as zero months of age. The number of days per week (0, 1 – 2, 3 – 4, 5 – 6, 7) that respondents planned to read to their children was assessed.

During a Baby Talk session on infant care, women were recruited into the study and verbal consent was obtained. Pre-surveys were distributed and collected upon completion. An intervention, based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), was implemented by the session facilitator. In line with HBM, the intervention addressed beliefs, perceived benefits, barriers, and self-efficacy. 13 The five-minute educational intervention included a description of school readiness, a 90-second clip from the video ‘30 Million Word Gap’, 14 , 15 discussion about the benefits of reading to children, strategies for establishing reading routines, and a brief reading demonstration using a board book as a prop. Information on programs such as Reach Out and Read 15 and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library ( https://imaginationlibrary.com/usa/ ) also was provided. After the brief intervention, a matched post-survey was administered and collected upon completion. Individual participants completed all study materials during a single, two-hour Baby Talk class and received an infant board book for participation.

This study was approved by the Human Subjects Committee at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita.

Survey responses were entered into REDCap™ and results were analyzed using SPSS version 23 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY). Categorical variables were reported in frequencies and proportions; continuous variables were reported in means and standard deviations (SD); and pre-post analysis was conducted using McNemar’s test on paired surveys.

Sixty-one expectant mothers were approached across six Baby Talk sessions, one did not meet inclusion criteria having already delivered her infant, and six declined to participate resulting in an 89% (n = 54) participation rate. The average age of participants was 26 years (SD = 7, range 15 to 50). Participants reported being Black (33%; n = 18), White (30%; n = 16), Hispanic (28%; n = 15), and other race (9%; n = 5). Forty-six percent (n = 25) reported having no other children living in the home and 7% (n = 4) reported having five or more children living in the home. The average gestational age of participants at enrollment was 27 weeks (range 13 to 38 weeks).

When asked to select all benefits associated with reading prior to the intervention, almost all participants acknowledged school readiness benefits and increased vocabulary ( Table 1 ). There was no difference in perceived benefits between the pre-and post-survey.

Perceived benefits of reading to children.

Following the intervention, significantly more women reported it was important to start reading to their children at birth (83% vs 56%; p < 0.001) and they planned to start reading to their child at birth (70% vs 50%; p = 0.001). One mother reported she intended to start reading to her children at age three years on both pre- and post-intervention surveys. Compared to response on the pre-intervention survey, after the brief education, mothers reported they intended to read to their children more days per week (p < 0.001; Table 2 ).

Number of days parent plans to read to children.

On the post-survey, 91% reported being ‘more likely’ to read to their children and 87% of women reported being ‘more confident’ in their ability to read to their children. A single respondent reported feeling ‘less confident’ in her ability to read to her infant.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a brief intervention related to reading to infants by measuring changes in perceived benefits, intended behaviors, and self-efficacy. Results suggested a short intervention during a prenatal educational session can promote reading to infants as indicated by increased confidence and intent among low-income pregnant women. Following the intervention, significantly more Baby Talk participants reported they believed it was important to start reading at or prior to birth and voiced intention to start reading at that time. These results were consistent with other studies demonstrating improvements in parental attitudes toward the importance of reading to their young children following a reading promotion intervention. 8 , 16 Our brief intervention significantly impacted pregnant women’s beliefs, intentions, and confidence regarding reading to their children prenatally, thus presenting an even earlier attempt at intervening and promoting reading and storytelling with infants.

Reading to children stimulates optimal patterns of cortical development during critical and sensitive periods of early child development. 8 Learning that takes place throughout prenatal and early postnatal neurodevelopment has a long-term effect on neural circuits and brain function. 4 Children with higher levels of home reading exposure showed greater neural activation within the left-sided parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex, a region enabling mental imagery and narrative comprehension. Further, reading with children in the years before entering kindergarten is associated with increased school readiness and interest in reading as well as better health literacy and lower health risks. 8

Pregnant women in this study were knowledgeable of the benefits of reading to children, even at baseline. This may explain why a difference in perceived benefits was not observed. However, in spite of understanding the benefits, less than half of participants at baseline reported plans to read to their children from birth. This is important because the vast majority of a child’s early language experiences (e.g., spoken language) takes place either in the home or in a child care setting. 5 , 6 , 8 In addition, even post-intervention, the majority of women were not moved to read to their child every day. This result might be attributed to limitations of the intervention and/or issues faced by many families (e.g., busy schedules, competition from electronic media, and toys for children’s attention). 8 However, results of the current study are consistent with the low rates of parent-child reading reported by the 2000 National Survey of Early Childhood Health (NSECH). 1

Limitations of the present study included an insufficient sample size to test associations between maternal characteristics and planned behaviors meaningfully, a short data collection period, and a lack of follow-up to determine if maternal planned behavior reflected actual behavior. All participants were English speaking and findings may not apply to those with a primary language other than English. Additionally, while financial status of all participants could not be verified, the broader data from the Baby Talk program reveals that the majority of participants are low-income.

Results from the present study suggested a short intervention during a prenatal educational session to promote reading to infants increased knowledge, intent, and confidence among low-income pregnant women. Given that socioeconomic status is correlated positively with reading comprehension and academic performance, 1 , 2 these results suggested reading interventions in a low-income prenatal population are warranted and beneficial. Further research is needed to conclude whether increased knowledge, intent, and confidence among low-income pregnant women translates to a change in actual behavior. However, reading interventions should be part of a larger continuum of education, including established models for reading promotion, such as Reach Out and Read. 15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to recognize Sudy Yang, M.D. for her contributions in data collection and interpretation.

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Reading to Children

• Article Four-Year-Old Outcomes of a Universal Infant-Toddler Shared Reading Intervention : The Let's Read Trial Sharon Goldfeld, PhD; Jon Quach, PhD; Ruth Nicholls, PhD; Sheena Reilly, PhD; Obioha C. Ukoumunne, PhD; Melissa Wake, MD Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

One of the most important ways you can help your child learn is by reading to him or her. Children who are read to more often and earlier in life do better in school both academically and socially. Reading to your child can start from the time he or she is a baby and continue throughout childhood. Reading to your child helps to develop many skills, including recognizing letters, remembering stories, and learning words. Pediatricians generally recommend reading to your baby very early in life, before 18 months of age. Ideally, reading should take place at least 3 times a week.

Reading aloud to your child

Reading aloud to your child is important in many ways:

It helps children develop the mental processes of motivation, curiosity, and memory.

It helps children develop early language skills.

It provides a time for one-to-one attention and affection, which encourages children to have positive feelings about reading.

It can help children cope during times of stress or tragedy.

Parents may wonder what the benefits are to reading to very young children who may not be able to sit still for a long book or who may not completely understand the story just yet. It is okay if your child is fidgety or does not understand every book when you start reading; the development of these reading skills takes time. That is why reading early and making it a part of your family life creates a set of shared experiences that are beneficial in both the short and the long term. More research is being done to understand all of the benefits that reading provides for children; this issue of Archives includes a study about a reading program.

Tips for make reading a routine part of your family

Talk about the pictures in the books. Your child does not need to understand the whole story to enjoy it.

Show your child the words. Run your finger along the words as you read them.

Have fun. Animal books often have silly sounding words, so have fun making the sounds.

Get your child to participate by asking a question about the story, such as “what do you think will happen next?” or “what color is this truck?”

Use your local library. You can check out and read thousands of free books. Look to see if your library offers story hours or special events.

Make reading a part of every day; some easy times to consider are before bedtime or on the bus. Even reading to your child for only a few minutes is okay.

Read books that relate to what your child is experiencing in life, including events like starting preschool, going to the dentist, or moving to a new home.

For more information

Reach Out and Read http://www.reachoutandread.org/parents/index.aspx .

Inform yourself

To find this and other Advice for Patients articles, go to the Advice for Patients link on the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine website at http://www.archpediatrics.com .

The Advice for Patients feature is a public service of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine . The information and recommendations appearing on this page are appropriate in most instances, but they are not a substitute for medical diagnosis. For specific information concerning your child's medical condition, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that you consult your child's physician. This page may be photocopied noncommercially by physicians and other health care professionals to share with patients. To purchase bulk reprints, call 312/464-0776.

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Moreno MA , Furtner F , Rivara FP. Reading to Children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012;166(11):1080. doi:10.1001/2013.jamapediatrics.412

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Reading to Your Baby in the NICU

A stay in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) can be overwhelming for a new family as they often struggle with how to bond with their newborn baby.  Dr. Carmina Erdei , a neonatologist and the Medical Director of the Growth and Development Unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joins the ROR podcast to talk about how reading and talking to preemies can offer parents the chance to reclaim at least some of their role, and foster healthy growth and relationships while their child is in the NICU.  Reading with your newborn is one of the most important things you can do to support your baby’s growth and development.

“We understand that babies undergo a rapid period of brain development during the third trimester of pregnancy. For babies born prematurely, a lot of that happens not in utero, but in the sensory and socially atypical environment of the NICU”, says Dr. Erdei.  Studies have shown how important it is to read to your baby in these early stages of life in neonatal care.  When babies hear language/words, hundreds of their brain cells connect, which helps set up brain pathways for future learning.

In Part 2 of our “Reading in the NICU” series , we talk about the emotional and physical architecture of NICU reading programs and their effect on babies, their families, and the medical staff who implement them with Dr. Viral Jain , Assistant Professor of Neonatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Founder of NICU Bookworms. Dr. Jain explains how these programs give parents a way to bond with their babies, and how providers can offer practical reading help and guidance to NICU families.  “It’s a very different NICU than we had a decade ago, data shows we should have more family involved care for these infants.” says Dr. Jain.

Reading can strengthen the special bond you have with your baby and may help relieve some of the stress of having a baby in the NICU.  Click here to enjoy a video of families reading in the NICU with a song created by Dr. Viral Jain.

The CLEVNET app is back in action! Happy reading!

Born to Read: Reading to Your Baby in the Womb

By the third trimester, your baby’s ears are ready to hear! While a baby in utero hears what’s going on outside the womb at about 10 decibels lower than you do , the rhythm, melody, and other language patterns that serve as the foundation of speech are actually crystal clear. Wondering what the world sounds like to your baby? Try placing your hand over your mouth and speak. What you hear is very similar to how your voice sounds in the womb! 

Develop Baby’s Brain

Additional research suggests that third-trimester babies not only pick up on language patterns, but after birth, they can  recognize words they first heard in the womb. Though the extent to which babies in utero can learn has yet to be determined, prenatal reading is nonetheless a wonderful way to kick-start healthy brain development.   

Reduce Stress

Taking just a few minutes every day to kick back with a good book is a great way for anyone to relax, and it’s especially helpful for expecting moms. Relaxation activities such as reading aloud are essential to a healthy pregnancy.

Bond with Baby

Studies show that third-trimester babies not only hear but also recognize the sound of their mother’s voice. Mom’s soothing tones cause a baby’s fetal heart rate to lower and can help establish auditory bonds that carry on after birth. Hearing Mom and Dad read solidifies these early bonds, and encouraging family participation helps others connect with the baby. 

Build Good Habits

Reading together is one of the  best things you can do to help your child grow into a reader and a successful learner. Why not start now? Make reading a habit today, so it will be a part of your tomorrow.  

Don’t worry about the time.

Reading to your baby should always be a positive experience. Set a flexible schedule that works for you. Reading as little as 10 minutes every other day can be a great way to reap the relaxation and relationship-building benefits of this activity.

Pick books you love.

What on earth do you read to an unborn baby? Repetitive books with bouncy rhythms and rhymes are great choices for fetal ears. However, the most important thing to remember is to pick books that you love, and that you hope your baby will love, too!

Do you have a favorite book that you or your partner read as a child? None are coming to mind? Take a walk through the children’s department of your neighborhood library and see what you remember. If you’re feeling unsure, talk to a librarian for recommendations. Children’s librarians are early literacy experts and will be happy to point you in the direction of some great titles.

Get the family involved.

Prenatal reading is a great bonding opportunity not only for moms, but also for a baby’s entire future family. Invite your partner, parents, or any loved ones to read to your baby. Do you have other children? Try asking a big brother or sister to select books to read with their sibling-to-be.

Don’t turn up the volume.

While you might be tempted to amplify your voice to help baby hear, experts advise skipping the speakers. Too much audio stimulation isn’t good for a baby’s developing brain or sleep cycles.

Don’t worry about your voice, mispronounced words, or skipped-over sentences. Your baby isn’t going to judge you, so put your insecurities aside and use reading as a fun bonding activity. 

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When do kids start reading? Here's what experts say.

L earning to read is a major milestone in a child's life, and it takes time and patience for kids to get to the point where they're cruising through books on their own. Given how important reading is to everyday life, though, it makes sense for parents to want to do what they can to move the process along. 

So when should kids learn to read, and how much should parents do to help? Doctors say that there is a range of ages at which kids start reading — and that parents shouldn't stress about this too much early on. "I have parents who are concerned when their kid is not reading books at 4. Your kid is 4, " Dr. Gina Posner, a board-certified pediatrician at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. But, she says, there are things parents can do to encourage a love of reading in kids, along with helping them learn the life skill. 

Here's what major medical organizations say about when kids should learn to read, plus what parents can do to help. 

What does the research say?

Most children learn to read by the time they're 6 or 7, but some learn when they're 4 or 5, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics . The AAP stresses that even if kids have a head start on reading, they may not stay ahead once school starts — and other students will likely catch up by the second or third grade.

In fact, the AAP cautions against pushing children to read before they're ready. This, the organization says, can get in the way of a child's interest in learning. 

Research has shown that reading to kids from birth can have an impact on helping them learn to read. One study recruited more than 250 pairs of mothers and their babies (who were between the ages of 6 months and 4.5 years). The researchers analyzed data on how often the pairs did shared reading and how well the babies could understand words when they got older. 

The researchers found that good reading quality — meaning, having conversations with the child about the book while reading, talking about or labeling the pictures and the emotions of the characters in the book and whether the stories were age-appropriate — predicted early reading skills, while book-reading quantity and quality was strongly tied to literacy skills, like whether a child was able to write their name at age 4. 

Studies have shown that learning to read the English language involves learning to recognize letters as well as the sounds they make. How well children know their letters is a strong predictor of how well they'll learn to read. 

But there's much more to it than that, Dr. Naline Lai , a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, tells Yahoo Life. "It's a misconception that reading is about a specific age or specifically about ABCs," she says. "Reading is a journey, and it starts from infancy. What you're doing is building skill sets."

What can parents do to help?

Doctors say parents shouldn't put too much pressure on their kids to read by a specific age. "I have parents who are very upset when their preschool-age child is not learning specific words," Lai says. 

However, experts say there are certain things parents can do to help the process along. "Exposing young children to books is very important," Dr. Jennifer Cross , a pediatrician specializing in developmental and behavioral pediatrics at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. "Make it a habit to read with your child every day and show them the words and the pictures." 

Reading books with repetitive words and rhyming books is especially helpful; it can help children hear the patterns in words that look and sound the same, Cross says. 

"You should be reading with your child every day, but hopefully encouraging them to enjoy books," Posner says. "If they show an interest in sounding things out, it's OK to start talking to them about sounds, but you don't need to force it when they're young."

It's also a good idea for parents to be seen reading by their kids. "Children model what their parents do, so having them see their parents enjoy reading also helps encourage them to enjoy books," Cross says. "Taking them to the library regularly is a great way to expose children to a variety of books. Many libraries also offer a story time for young children."

Once children start school, parents will usually receive information about what they can do to help their child learn to read, including working with them on sight words and starter books, Posner says. "Around age 5, 6 — that's when you really need to start working with them, but you don't necessarily need to push it before that," she says. "If they're interested when they're younger, you can work with them a bit, but I wouldn't make it a project."

When should you talk to your pediatrician?

While every child is different, there are certain reading milestones that children are expected to reach, Posner says. Your pediatrician will usually ask how your child is doing with them during well visits and, once your child starts school, their teacher will be keeping track of progress, she notes.

According to the children's health resource Nemours , the milestones specifically include:

Ages 1-3 : Answering questions about objects in books, naming familiar pictures, pointing to identify objects and pretending to read books

Age 3 : Listening to longer books that are read aloud, singing the alphabet song with prompting and cues, making symbols that resemble writing, recognizing the first letter in their name and imitating the action of reading a book aloud

Age 4 : Recognizing familiar signs and labels, especially on signs and containers, recognizing words that rhyme, naming some of the letters of the alphabet, writing their name, matching some letters to their sounds

Age 5 : Producing words that rhyme, matching some spoken and written words, writing some letters, numbers and words, recognizing some familiar words in print, reading simple words in isolation and in context (i.e., using the word in a sentence), retelling the main idea, identifying details and arranging story events in sequence

Ages 6 and 7 : Reading familiar stories, sounding out or decoding unfamiliar words, using pictures and context to figure out unfamiliar words, self-correcting when they make a mistake while reading aloud, writing by organizing details into a logical sequence with a beginning, middle and end

Ages 7 and 8 : Reading longer books independently, reading aloud with proper emphasis and expression, using context and pictures to help identify unfamiliar words, correctly using punctuation and using new words, phrases or figures of speech that they've heard

Ages 9-13 : Exploring and understanding different kinds of texts, like biographies, poetry and fiction, learning to read to extract specific information, like from a science book, correctly identifying major elements of stories, like time, place, plot, problem and resolution, and reading and writing on a specific topic for fun

"The inability to rhyme words in pre-K, lack of knowledge of the alphabet or history of a speech and language delay are considered red flags for a possible reading delay," Cross says. If your child is struggling with learning to remember letters and sounds despite being taught them in kindergarten, or doesn't understand that “bat” and “cat” are rhyming words with one sound changed, they "could be at risk for a reading disorder," Cross says. "It is always important for the pediatrician to check vision and hearing for any child with academic concerns," she adds. 

But doctors stress that there is a range within learning to read and that parents shouldn't panic if their child seems to be slow to pick up the practice. "I have plenty of kids who have not had any education before kindergarten and they don't know how to ID their name or anything — and they do just fine," Posner says. "They catch up."

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An artificial womb could build a bridge to health for premature babies

Surgeon Christoph Haller and his research team from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children are working on technology that could someday result in an artificial womb to help extremely premature babies. Chloe Ellingson for NPR hide caption

Surgeon Christoph Haller and his research team from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children are working on technology that could someday result in an artificial womb to help extremely premature babies.

TORONTO — A surgical team scurries around a pregnant female pig lying unconscious on an operating table. They're about to take part in an experiment that could help provide a new option to help premature babies survive.

"The ultimate goal of today is to transition a fetus onto that artificial womb," says Dr. Christoph Haller , motioning to a clear rectangular plastic sack with tubes running in and out of it.

"We're transitioning it into an artificial environment that allows the fetus to still maintain its regular physiology," says Haller, a pediatric heart surgeon at The Hospital for Sick Children.

Today, it's a pig fetus that Haller and his colleagues will be using to test their artificial womb. But their hope is that someday, technology like this will help humans survive extremely premature birth and avoid serious complications, such as blindness and permanent damage to lungs and brains.

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"We're basically trying to find a new concept on how to preserve fetuses to allow them to mature more physiologically compared to the regular preterm. That would be the target — to treat extreme premature babies," says Haller, who's also an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Toronto. "This would hopefully be a big deal — a game changer."

NPR was granted exclusive access to watch Haller's team test their artificial womb.

Research like this is generating enormous excitement among doctors who treat babies who are born prematurely , a major cause of infant mortality and disabilities. But the prospect of an artificial womb is prompting a long list of questions.

"I think it's a really promising and fascinating technology," says Dr. Mark Mercurio , a professor of pediatrics who directs the program for biomedical ethics at the Yale School of Medicine. "But certainly it raises ethical concerns and questions that need to be addressed."

The procedure remains highly experimental

A metal tray next to the pig's belly is covered with blue paper. Haller's team just drew a picture of a pig's face on the paper surrounded by the words "Oink. Oink. Oink." and "We ❤ you." Then they laid out the artificial womb on top of it. Some call this kind of contraption a "biobag."

A technician scans the belly of a pregnant pig before an operation to transfer a fetus to an artificial womb. Chloe Ellingson for NPR hide caption

A technician scans the belly of a pregnant pig before an operation to transfer a fetus to an artificial womb.

Next, the surgical team arranges equipment and examines the 10 fetuses in the sow's womb with an ultrasound. Haller uses a clipper to make some last-minute adjustments to tubing he'll stitch into the fetal pig's umbilical cord.

The tubes will supply the fetus's blood with oxygen, remove carbon dioxide from the blood and supply nutrition and medicine.

"I'm MacGyvering stuff here to make things work," he says with a laugh.

Finally, everyone's ready to remove one of the fetuses.

"All right, I think we're going to get started," Haller says, prompting the team to gather tightly around the pig.

Wisps of smoke rise from the pig's belly as Haller makes an incision with an electric scalpel. An assistant suctions the area to keep it dry.

Dr. Christoph Haller performs surgery to remove a fetal pig from the adult pig's womb. Chloe Ellingson for NPR hide caption

Dr. Christoph Haller performs surgery to remove a fetal pig from the adult pig's womb.

"So what you're looking at is basically the uterus. And then in here is the fetus. The head's somewhere here, where I have my hand. The rest of the body is still inside," he says.

After deciding which fetus looks best on the ultrasound, Haller makes another incision in the uterus and pulls out a bright pink fetal piglet. The fetus looks peaceful, like it's sleeping.

Once the fetus is completely out, Haller and his team quickly assess its health and cut the umbilical cord so they can transfer the animal into the artificial womb.

A "biobag" becomes the new womb

After gingerly sliding the fetus into the "biobag," Haller quickly attaches the three umbilical cord tubes. His colleagues fill the bag with a clear, warm liquid meant to mimic amniotic fluid and seal the artificial womb.

"It's going to be a bit of a rocky period now," Haller says.

A fetal pig rests inside an artificial womb. Chloe Ellingson for NPR hide caption

A fetal pig rests inside an artificial womb.

The team carefully monitors the fetus's heart rate, blood pressure and other vital signs. Once it looks stable, the researchers surround the biobag with warmers.

"It's as close to a good transition as you can get I think," Haller says. "I'm excited as if it was a proper human surgery I would say — just because I want to get it right and I want to see the fetus doing well there."

This will go on for hours.

"You may see the fetus starting to have breathing-like movements. But that's what's in line with what's happening in utero too — as if they are training basically a bit. You may see that it kicks its legs," Haller says. "That's what we like to see because it signals a certain level of health."

An artificial womb could be a bridge to better health

If very premature babies can be safely sustained on a device like this for just two or three weeks, it could make all the difference between life and death or a life with severe disabilities and health problems or not, Haller says.

The Toronto group has seen blood clots and heart problems develop. So far, they've only been able to sustain a pig fetus for about a week.

But researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have safely sustained fetal sheep on a very similar device for four weeks, making the Toronto group and others optimistic the approach will eventually work.

"If this artificial womb technology could sustain a patient even for a period of weeks and get them to a later stage and a bigger size, that could potentially be quite a dramatic change in our field," says Dr. Mike Seed , an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto who is working with Haller.

Scientific progress prompts ethical concerns

But the possibility of an artificial womb is also raising many questions. When might it be safe to try an artificial womb for a human? Which preterm babies would be the right candidates? What should they be called? Fetuses? Babies?

"It matters in terms of how we assign moral status to individuals," says Mercurio, the Yale bioethicist. "How much their interests — how much their welfare — should count. And what one can and cannot do for them or to them."

But Mercurio is optimistic those issues can be resolved, and the potential promise of the technology clearly warrants pursuing it.

The Food and Drug Administration held a workshop in September 2023 to discuss the latest scientific efforts to create an artificial womb, the ethical issues the technology raises, and what questions would have to be answered before allowing an artificial womb to be tested for humans.

"I am absolutely pro the technology because I think it has great potential to save babies," says Vardit Ravitsky , president and CEO of The Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank.

But there are particular issues raised by the current political and legal environment.

"My concern is that pregnant people will be forced to allow fetuses to be taken out of their bodies and put into an artificial womb rather than being allowed to terminate their pregnancies — basically, a new way of taking away abortion rights," Ravitsky says.

She also wonders: What if it becomes possible to use artificial wombs to gestate fetuses for an entire pregnancy, making natural pregnancy unnecessary?

"Science fiction writers have been playing with this notion for decades. It's not like we never thought about it. It's just different to think about it as a thought experiment and to think about it as something that's potentially around the corner," Ravitsky says. "The scenario of a complete use of artificial wombs could become pretty scary, pretty quickly."

But Haller and his colleagues say the darkest worries are unfounded.

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"We've heard people fearing that this translates into women not having to go through a full pregnancy anymore — kind of more like a Matrix -style of dystopian future," Haller says.

"But it would be outrageous to assume that any artificial intervention in any way is better than nature. So if you're not running into problems in your pregnancy, I think there's a lot of evidence that you're better off being born as you should be from what nature intended," he says.

Haller and his colleagues, he says, are just trying to save babies.

"Every tool can be misused," he says. "Like AI — it has its benefits, but if it's not regulated adequately a lot of harm can arise from something like that as well."

Meanwhile, the fetal pig is settling into its new artificial womb.

"I think it looks pretty, pretty comfy and settled," Haller says. "It looks pretty, pretty happy in there. Yeah, it's good."

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An Ozempic baby boom? Some GLP-1 users report unexpected pregnancies.

Across social media, women who have used Ozempic or similar medications for diabetes or weight loss are reporting an unexpected side effect — surprise pregnancies.

The Facebook group “I got pregnant on Ozempic,” has more than 500 members. Numerous posts on Reddit and TikTok discuss unplanned pregnancies while on Ozempic and similar drugs which can spur significant weight loss by curbing appetite and slowing the digestive process. The drugs are known as “Glucagon-like peptide 1” or GLP-1 drugs.

The reports of an Ozempic baby boom are anecdotal, and it’s not known how widespread the phenomenon is. Experts say significant weight loss can affect fertility. Others speculate that the GLP-1 drugs could interfere with the absorption of oral contraceptives, causing birth control failures.

“I got pregnant on a GLP-1,” posted Deb Oliviara, 32, on her @Dkalsolive TikTok account, which has 36,000 followers. She had noted in another video that she’d previously suffered two miscarriages and a stillbirth.

Oliviara, who lives in Michigan, said in a direct message that she had been using Ozempic for three months before getting pregnant. “I was three weeks along when I found out,” Oliviara said. “I am now 3 months pregnant, and baby is doing amazing.”

“My little Mounjaro baby is almost 6 months old after trying for over 10 years with PCOS!” another woman commented on the post, referring to polycystic ovary syndrome , a hormonal health condition that is a leading cause of infertility.

Paige Burnham, 29, who lives in Louisville, had lost about 80 pounds while using Ozempic, also known as semaglutide, for Type 2 diabetes when she began feeling nauseous on a trip to Disney World. She assumed the symptom was due to the drug. “My most typical Ozempic side effect was nausea,” she said.

But she learned the symptom was actually morning sickness due to pregnancy — a surprise since she and her partner had tried for four years to conceive. She stopped taking Ozempic and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Creed, in March 2023.

A lack of research on pregnancy and GLP-1 drugs

Little is known about the effects of Ozempic and similar drugs on women who want to get pregnant or who become pregnant while taking the drugs because they were specifically excluded from early clinical trials of the drug.

A spokesman for Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, said the company is collecting data to evaluate the safety of becoming pregnant while using Wegovy, the version of semaglutide approved for weight loss.

“Pregnancy or intention to become pregnant were exclusion criteria in our trials with semaglutide in both obesity and type 2 diabetes,” the company said in a statement.

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Eli Lilly, maker of the GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, did not respond to requests for comment.

The biggest concern among women who become pregnant using a GLP-1 is whether the drug poses a risk to the fetus. While women like Burnham and Oliviara have posted reassuring stories of delivering healthy babies, doctors say it’s important to use backup birth control and stop the drug immediately if you become pregnant.

A Novo Nordisk spokesman said in a statement that there isn’t enough available data to know if the drug poses a risk for birth defects, miscarriage or other adverse events related to pregnancy. Based on animal reproduction studies for Wegovy, the company said there “may be potential risks to the fetus from exposure to semaglutide during pregnancy.”

The company recommends stopping Wegovy at least two months before a planned pregnancy.

According to Ozempic’s prescribing information , pregnant rats administered Ozempic showed fetal structural abnormalities, fetal growth problems and embryonic mortality. In rabbits and cynomolgus monkeys, there were early pregnancy losses or structural abnormalities as well as marked maternal body weight loss.

Controlling diabetes is important for a healthy pregnancy, and experts say patients taking Ozempic for diabetes should discuss the risks and benefits with their doctor.

Why drugs like Ozempic might affect pregnancy risk

While it’s unclear whether women taking a GLP-1 have a higher risk of unplanned pregnancies, doctors say there are a few explanations why some women are getting pregnant while using the drugs.

Weight loss can have an effect on ovulation and fertility, said Lora Shahine , a reproductive endocrinologist with a fertility practice in Seattle and Bellevue, Wash.

“I think that with weight loss and balancing of hormones and improved insulin resistance, the hormonal access clicks back in, and all of a sudden they start ovulating again — they might not have been ovulating for years,” said Shahine, who is also an associate clinical professor at the University of Washington.

Stephanie Fein , an internist in Los Angeles who specializes in helping women lose weight for their fertility, said that losing just 5 to 10 percent of body weight can help someone conceive. “No one knows exactly the reason,” she said. “Fat is hormonally active. We know it has effects on estrogen, and it will impact ovulation and possibly egg development.”

The drugs also may interfere with oral contraceptives in some patients, doctors say. The GLP-1 drugs help people lose weight by slowing gastric emptying, curbing hunger and leaving people feel full sooner. It may be that the GLP-1 drugs also affect the absorption of oral contraceptives, said William Dietz, physician and chair of the STOP Obesity Alliance at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. “This may mean that birth control medications are metabolized or ineffective,” he said.

Dietz said most experts recommend discontinuing GLP-1 medications when pregnancy is detected. “I don’t think we know the impact of these drugs on fetal development,” he added.

Shahine recommends that women using oral contraceptives who are taking a GLP-1 drug use a second form of birth control. The drugs also aren’t recommended for mothers who are breastfeeding. Animal studies have shown semaglutide is present in the milk of lactating rats treated with the drug.

After Burnham stopped breastfeeding, she resumed taking Ozempic. Because of her past struggles with infertility, she doesn’t want to take birth control, although she said she is concerned about getting pregnant too soon. “I’m not ready yet,” she said.

Amy Klein is the author of “The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant without Losing Your Mind.”

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All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds

Fifteen young billionaires are among the first wave of a $5.2tn transfer of wealth by the ageing super-rich

All of the world’s billionaires younger than 30 inherited their wealth, the first wave of “the great wealth transfer” in which more than 1,000 wealthy people are expected to pass on more than $5.2tn (£4.1tn) to their heirs over the next two decades.

There are already more billionaires than ever before (2,781), and the number is expected to soar in the coming years as an elderly generation of super-rich people prepare to give their fortunes to their children.

Research by Forbes magazine found there were 15 billionaires aged 30 or under but that none had created their own wealth, instead benefitting from huge inheritances.

Among them are Ireland’s Firoz Mistry, 27, and his brother Zahan, 25, who each have an estimated $4.9bn from their stakes in Tata Sons, the parent company of the Indian conglomerate Tate Group, which owns car brands including Jaguar Land Rover. They inherited their 4.6% stakes in the company in 2022 after the death of their father, Cyrus Mistry, who died less than three months after their grandfather Pallonji.

Three children of Leonardo Del Vecchio, the founder of the luxury sunglasses company Luxottica, became billionaires after his death in 2022. Leonardo Maria, 28, Luca, 22, and Clemente Del Vecchio, 19, each inherited a 12.5% stake in the family’s Luxembourg-based holding company Delfin, which owns nearly a third of EssilorLuxottica, the company behind Ray-Ban and Oakley. The siblings has a fortune estimated to be worth $4.7bn each.

The world’s youngest billionaire is Livia Voigt, 19, who has a $1.1bn fortune thanks to a 3.1% stake in WEG Industries, a Brazilian electrical equipment producer co-founded by her grandfather Werner Ricardo. He died in 2016. Her older sister Dora Voigt de Assis, 26, is also on the list.

Experts at the Swiss bank UBS said: “During the next 20 to 30 years, over 1,000 of today’s billionaires are likely to transfer more than $5.2tn to their heirs . How do we calculate this number? Simply by adding up the wealth of the 1,023 billionaires who are aged 70 or more today.

“Looking to the longer term, the exceptional wealth resulting from the boom in entrepreneurial activity since the 1990s has established a foundation for future generations of billionaire families.”

The richest person on the planet is the majority owner of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, Bernard Arnault . He is 75 and has recently promoted his children to key roles in the business . Arnault has an estimated fortune of $233bn, a 10% increase on last year.

Charles Koch, the elder of the US billionaire industrialist brothers, is 88. Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, is 86.

A total of $70tn is expected to be inherited by the next generation over the next 20 years, according to estimates by the consulting firm Cerulli Associates. The transfer is expected to make millennials the “richest generation in history” , says research by the real estate agent Knight Frank.

One of the youngest billionaires to have made – rather than inherited – their fortune is Ben Francis, 31, the British founder of athleisure brand Gymshark . His wealth is estimated at $1.3bn.

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