READING TO CHILDREN ENHANCES SOCIAL INTERACTION BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHILDREN AND AFFECTS NOT ONLY LANGUAGE BUT ALSO THE SOCIAL EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN

Literacy is found in the ecology of meaningful social interaction as it builds parental bonds with the child and leads to children’s social emotional development. Reading between the parent and child has been clearly linked to children’s social-emotional development.

Researchers suggest that effectively sharing books with very young children may be used to establish physical closeness and support the development of meaningful social and secure attachments. Children who are immersed in rich language experiences that are nurtured by significant adults will identify such experiences (i.e. reading) as pleasurable throughout life.

Shared reading results in less harsh parenting and children with less hyperactive and disruptive behaviours when they are older. A study at Rutgers University reviewed data on 2,165 mother-child pairs from 20 large U.S. cities in which the women were asked how often they read to their children at ages 1 and/or 3. The mothers were interviewed again two years later about how often they engaged in physically and/or psychologically aggressive discipline and about their children’s behaviour. The study controlled for factors such as parental depression and financial hardship that can contribute to harsh parenting and children’s disruptive behaviour.[4][]

The results showed that frequent shared reading at age 1 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 3. Additionally, frequent shared reading at age 3 was associated with less harsh parenting at age 5. Mothers who read frequently with their children also reported fewer disruptive behaviours from their children, which may partially explain the reduction in harsh parenting behaviours.

This kind of improved sensitivity of the mother towards their child was also found in a pilot study on shared reading in South Africa. In this study involving 31 mothers with 12-14-month-old infants, mothers who had received training and were sharing books with their infants were found to be more sensitive, more facilitating, and more elaborative with their infants during book sharing, and they also became more sensitive to their infants during toy play. In addition, infants whose mothers who were carrying out the book sharing showed greater benefits than the comparison group infants in both their attention and language.

A study found that parents and toddlers interact more when reading print books instead of e-books. The team studied 37 pairs of parents and their two or three-year-olds in a lab set up to look like a living room. Each pair read three Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer with a different format — print, basic electronic or enhanced electronic, which had features like sound effects. Parents were more likely to ask their children open-ended questions to get their opinion on the story or what might happen next when reading print books compared to both basic and enhanced e-books. They also put stories into context, relating the material to children’s own experiences.

With electronic books, they spent time talking about the device itself, distracting from the story. Toddlers also talked more in general and about the stories when they were in print, perhaps due in part to their parents’ prompting. The study concluded that pediatricians should help parents understand that enhancements often found in electronic books will not help child development as much as enhancements provided by parental interaction.

Print books allow more face-to-face interactions compared with e-books. Research has found that face to face interactions may help in language development. Parents who can interact with infants and toddlers on a face-to-face basis, through eye gazing and talking about what they both are seeing and experiencing, can help the child to build attention, language and learning skills.

In very young infants, neural studies have found that parents and child looking at one another and looking and talking about things together plays a crucial role in young infants’ speech processing, specifically enhancing infants’ attention to relevant social information, both about the speaker and the objects the speaker refers to.

Another study on tablet e-books found that when e-books are designed well, preschool-aged children learn equally well and sometimes more than from print books. However, enhanced e-books with sounds, animations, and games can distract children and reduce learning. When book-sharing with an adult, conversations during e-book reading are often about the platform while print book conversations are more often about the book content. For young children (0-2 years old), there is a lack of research, but broader studies on learning from screens suggest limited educational benefits of tablet use for this age group.

Studies by the American Academy of Paediatrics have suggested digital media for toddlers younger than 18 to 24 months other than video chatting. For children 18 to 24 months, watch digital media with them because they learn from watching and talking with you. Limit screen use for preschool children, ages 2 to 5, to just one hour a day of high-quality programming. Co-viewing is best when possible and for young children they learn best when they are re-taught in the real world what they just learned through a screen. So, if Ernie just taught the letter "D", you can reiterate this later when you are having dinner or spending time with your child.

Individual and group interactions contribute to building emergent literacy skills. Reading can also be facilitated among peer groups. Fifteen toddlers (two to three-years old, nine boys and six girls) in a university preschool classroom were observed for 7 months while spending time with books during transition time, between story time and lunch. This qualitative case study investigated the ways that teachers can facilitate toddlers’ reading habits by providing literacy opportunities in unstructured learning environments.

The study also explored the contexts in which toddlers engage in independent reading activities. The findings showed that toddlers can develop literacy through participating in meaning-making activities with peers while reading books together in unstructured environments and toddlers want to read and choose to read in order to satisfy their curiosity, immersion, and social interaction.