This week in their AskWell blog, the New York Times reported on how reading to a young child increases activity in the brain “in a region of the left hemisphere called the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex:”

“A little more than a year ago, the American Academy of
Photo courtesy of New York Times

Pediatrics issued a policy statement saying that all pediatric primary care should include literacy promotion, starting at birth.

“That means pediatricians taking care of infants and toddlers should routinely beadvising parents about how important it is to read to even very young children. The policy statement, which I wrote with Dr. Pamela C. High, included a review of the extensive research on the links between growing up with books and reading aloud, and later language development and school success.

“But while we know that reading to a young child is associated with good outcomes, there is only limited understanding of what the mechanism might be. Two new studies examine the unexpectedly complex interactions that happen when you put a small child on your lap and open a picture book…”