Yes, but why is reading aloud to your children good for them?
Words, words, words!
Many studies have shown that there is a direct relationship between how many words a child is exposed to birth to age five and how well they will do later in school.
Does this mean you should read aloud from the dictionary before bedtime each night in hopes of turning your children into geniuses? Nope. Picture books will do just fine. Not only are there lots of words in your average picture book that you would not use in every day speech, but picture books have fun words and sounds.
For example, when you open the picture book, Down by the Station by Will Hillenbrand (Soon to be distributed to Raising Reader 3-year-olds) and read the silly words, "Puff, puff, Toot toot, Thrump, thrump, Peep, peep," you are showing your child that words and books are enjoyable. When something is enjoyable, your child will want it again and again.
More books, more words = more brain development.
To show how much people are thinking about how words and communication help in a baby's development, a group in Britain studied how caregivers talked to their children while out for a stroll.
It turns out that caregivers who used toward-facing strollers (otherwise known as baby buggies, prams, baby carriages--see photo) communicated with their babies twice as much as caregivers that used the more common strollers that faced their baby out to the world. (Read more in the New York Times article.)
Do you need to rummage through the attic for your grandmother's baby carriage? Perhaps, perhaps not. Just remember--the more words, the merrier!
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