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The science behind the benefits of reading for babies

Find out why reading to babies gives them a head start in being able to focus, concentrate and learn.

Professor Sam Wass is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist who runs the Institute for the Science of Early Years at the University of East London. 

His lab carries out research into how babies’ brains work and develop, focusing closely on the interaction between parent and baby. Using brain-imaging technology and clinical observations, the lab has given us some fascinating insights into how shared reading changes babies’ physical and cognitive states as their rhythms synchronise with their parents’. 

At the 2024 Reading Rights Summit, Sam talked about what happens when a baby and adult share a story together. You can find out about more about the Summit in our Reading Rights report.

Find out more about the Reading Rights campaign

The physical closeness of reading shapes our body rhythms

When we are close to one another, our body rhythms, such as our breathing pattern, heart rate and movements, tune in to the other person’s [1,2,3,4,5]. 

For babies and young children whose body rhythms are messier, more erratic and more unpredictable than adults’, [6,7] sharing a story can help establish stronger, more stable and predictable rhythms. This, in turn, brings calmness and sustained concentration [6,8]. 

Co-regulation is a critical first step in being able to self-regulate, which means that babies who are soothed by being read to have a head start in being able to focus, concentrate, and learn. 

Books and stories are natural tools for learning

Brains are rhythmic: individual cells talk to each other through coordinated patterns of firing known as oscillations [9]. Language is rhythmic too [10], and speech rhythms ​‘piggyback’ on naturally occurring brain rhythms [11,12], which helps us to produce and understand language [10]. Children’s brain rhythms are naturally weaker [13], and there is evidence that child-directed language, which naturally has exaggerated rhythms [14] through features such as meter and rhyme [15], can help to ​‘nudge’ a child’s brain into strong, stable rhythmic activity [16,17]. This helps the developing brain to detect patterns and meaning in language [16].

One of the primary benefits of face-to-face book sharing – which is thought to explain why face-to-face learning is so much more effective than learning from screens [18] – is that, during face-to-face interaction, adults are constantly monitoring the attention, engagement and understanding of the child [19] and adapting both what they say and how they say it dependent on that [7,20]. Face-to-face book sharing is dialogic, active and child-led [21], which promotes effective learning [22,23,24]. 

Why sharing books is different from sharing screens

When we’re sharing a book, we go at the child’s pace and follow the child’s interest, repeating words that may be new and talking about the things that interest them. We may stay on a picture for a long time, or go backwards and skip ahead, re-reading some pages or the entire book [7, 9,20]. 

Babies’ brains process information much more slowly than an adults’, and pictures in books depict emotions that are ​“frozen” in time. When a baby is staring at a picture, they are absorbing information at the speed at which they need to learn. 

Crucially, reading together is child-led, matching the pace at which children’s brains work, whereas the speed at which content is presented on screen can’t be so easily controlled by the child. 

These are just some of the ways in which shared reading enables children to flourish and thrive. 

1. Feldman, R., Magori-Cohen, R., Galili, G., Singer, M. & Louzoun, Y. Mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms through episodes of interaction synchrony. Infant Behav Dev 34, 569–577 (2011). 

2. Shamay-Tsoory, S. Neuroscience of social touch: Emerging directions and challenges. Soc Neurosci 19, 229–230 (2024). 

3. Feldman, R. From Biological Rhythms to Social Rhythms: Physiological Precursors of Mother–Infant Synchrony. Dev Psychol 1, 175–188 (2006). 

4. Stern, D. N. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. (Routledge, 2018). 

5. Wass, S. V. et al. Annual Research Review: ​‘There, the dance is, at the still point of the turning world.’ Dynamic systems perspectives on co-regulation and dysregulation during early development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2024). 

6. Wass, S. V. How orchids concentrate? The relationship between physiological stress reactivity and cognitive performance during infancy and early childhood. Neurosci Biobehav Rev (2018). 

7. Beebe, B. et al. A systems view of mother–infant face-to-face communication. Dev Psychol 52, 556 (2016). 

8. Richards, J. E. The development of attention to simple and complex visual stimuli in infants: Behavioral and psychophysiological measures. Developmental Review 30, 203–219 (2010). 

9. Buzsaki, G. Rhythms of the Brain. (Oxford University Press, 2006). 

10. Poeppel, D. & Assaneo, M. F. Speech rhythms and their neural foundations. Nat Rev Neurosci 21, 322–334 (2020). 

11. Lakatos, P., Gross, J. & Thut, G. A new unifying account of the roles of neuronal entrainment. Current Biology 29, R890–R905 (2019). 

12. Haegens, S. & Golumbic, E. Z. Rhythmic facilitation of sensory processing: A critical review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 86, 150–165 (2018). 

13. Wass, S. V, Amadó, M. P. & Ives, J. Oscillatory entrainment to our early social or physical environment and the emergence of volitional control. Dev Cogn Neurosci 54, 101102 (2022). 

14. Leong, V., Kalashnikova, M., Burnham, D. & Goswami, U. The temporal modulation structure of infant-directed speech. Open Mind 1, 78–90 (2017). 

15. Labendzki, P. , Goupil, L. , & Wass, S. V. Temporal patterns in the complexity of child-directed song lyrics reflect their functions. pre-print (2024). 

16. Choisdealbha, Á. N. et al. Cortical tracking of visual rhythmic speech by 5‐​and 8‐​month‐​old infants: Individual differences in phase angle relate to language outcomes up to 2 years. Dev Sci 27, e13502 (2024). 

17. Goswami, U. Language acquisition and speech rhythm patterns: an auditory neuroscience perspective. R Soc Open Sci 9, 211855 (2022). 

18. Kuhl, P. K., Tsao, F. M. & Liu, H. M. Foreign-language experience in infancy: Effects of short-term exposure and social interaction on phonetic learning. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100, 9096–9101 (2003). 

19. Wass, S. V et al. Parental neural responsivity to infants’ visual attention: how mature brains influence immature brains during social interaction. PLoS Biol 16, e2006328 (2018). 

20. Fogel, A. & Garvey, A. Alive communication. Infant Behav Dev 30, 251–257 (2007). 

21. Murray, L., Rayson, H., Ferrari, P.-F., Wass, S. V & Cooper, P. J. Dialogic book-sharing as a privileged intersubjective space. Front Psychol 13, 786991 (2022). 

22. Goupil, L. et al. Leader–follower dynamics during early social interactions matter for infnt word learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, e2321008121 (2024). 

23. Begus, K. & Southgate, V. Curious Learners: How Infants’ Motivation to Learn Shapes and Is Shaped by Infants’ Interactions with the Social World. in Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood 13–37 (Springer, 2018). 

24. Krishnan, S. & Johnson, M. H. A review of behavioural and brain development in the early years: the ​“toolkit” for later book-related skills. University of Reading (2014).