Reading with Infants from 6-7 Months Improves Long-Term Language Skills (A Cross-Examination Of Empirical Evidence)

admin  •  January 2, 2024

The benefits of reading with children are widely known and intuitively understood by most parents. But what is less widely known or understood is the age from which reading with children contributes to the development of their oral-language skills. At what point is joint picture book reading (JPBR) not just a nice thing to do but a formative experience for the child? This seems like an important question to ask, but only within the last decade or so has it received much scholarly attention.

The indications from a growing body of research are that the second half of infancy (from 6 months onwards) is an appropriate age to begin JPBR, and that JPBR contributes to a language-learning trajectory that leads well into the pre-school years (3 to 4 years). In other words, there are long-term improvements to the oral-language skill of children when there is shared reading from a very young age.

JPBR from 7 months improves language skills at 26 months. This is the conclusion of a study done in Germany based on a large body of data gathered from 3,500 children when they were 7 months old (in 2012), then again at 14 months and 26 months. From this data gathered from the children over a period of time, researchers were able to see that JPBR with 7-month-old infants contributed to improvement in the child’s language skills at 26 months:

Our data add to this finding [of another researcher that JPBR with 10-month-old infants improves language skills] that already at the age of 7 months picture book reading is associated with later language development and that the effect still remains even when considering later joint picture book reading as well as other characteristics of the HLE [home literacy environment] within the same model. ¹

Of importance here is also the second finding that the “effect” of JPBR with the 7-month-old infant “still remains.” This suggests that at 7 months a learning trajectory begins that can be consistently built upon throughout later infancy and into the toddler years. In other words, 7 months is a good natural starting point to begin JPBR with an infant, a point from which there can be a steady progression of learning.

JPBR from 9 months improves language skills of the 4-year-old. This is the significant conclusion of a study done in America, one that shows the long-term improvements to oral-language skills that result from beginning JPBR with young infants. This study was based on The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which collected data from 10,700 children in the USA at 9 months of age (2001–02), and then again at 2 years old and again at 4 years old. A published study of this data confirms that infancy is a beneficial time to begin reading:

Our result points out the timing of the family literacy activities as early as 9-month is important. Throughout various model specifications, reading a book every day of the week consistently showed up as statistically significant and positive. ²

It should be noted that this study and the previous one do not rule out an earlier date of 6 months. The earliest data with which researchers have to work is 9 months for the US-based study and 7 months for the Germany-based study. A study of infants from Dublin, Ireland, is one of few that has looked at the 6-month-old infant. This study found language-skill benefits from JPBR from the age of 6 months, in addition to other positive outcomes: “Daily reading at 6 months predicted higher vocabulary comprehension and production, cognition, and socioemotional competence at 12 months.” ³

Are other factors responsible for improved language-skill outcomes? Can lower levels of JPBR be compensated for by other activities such as speaking with the child? A very recent study published in 2022 suggests that this is not the case and that JPBR has a unique part to play in building the child’s oral-language skills. This study was based in Ireland and drew on data collected from 9,000 families across Ireland. As suggested by earlier research, this study showed that JPBR with 9-month-old infants had a noticeable and unique role in improving language ability outcomes by the time the infants were 36 months. But what is of particular note is that this study also asked whether parents were doing other things with children that was leading to an improvement in language outcomes, particularly in terms of speaking. Did mothers who spoke more with their children have children who scored better in the language tests at 36 months? The study found that most (approximately 90 percent) of the primary caregivers (usually mothers) communicated to a significant extent with their children, and that the caregiver’s speech with the child did not fully explain differences in language ability of the children:

The home literacy environment at 36-months does not fully account for the variance observed in children’s language abilities and that a small yet significant portion of variation in child language ability is attributable to the presence of shared reading at 9-months. ⁴

In other words, to quote the title of this study, there are “unique effects of book-reading at 9-months on vocabulary development at 36-months.” There is beneficial development for the child that can come only through JPBR.

The reason oral-language skills matter. Oral-language ability at 36 months is significant because of the “strong relations between preschool oral language skills and future reading comprehension and broader academic achievement.” ⁵ The research therefore suggests that beginning JPBR with infants as young as 6 months has a unique part to play in supporting the child on a learning trajectory that leads into improved literacy and academic outcomes in the school years.

Selected References:

¹ M. Attig and S. Weinert, “What Impacts Early Language Skills? Effects of Social Disparities and Different Process Characteristics of the Home Learning Environment in the First 2 Years,” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020), 14, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.557751.

² Li Feng, Yunwei Gai and Xiaoning Chen, “Family Learning Environment and Early Literacy: A Comparison of Bilingual and Monolingual Children,” Economics of Education Review 39 (2014), 124, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.12.005.

³ C. O’Farrelly, O. Doyle, G. Victory and E. Palamoro-Munsell, “Shared Reading in Infancy and Later Development: Evidence from an Early Intervention,” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 54 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.12.001.

⁴ K. Leech, S. McNally, M. Daly and K. Corriveau, “Unique Effects of Book-Reading at 9-Months on Vocabulary Development at 36-Months: Insights from a Nationally Representative Sample of Irish Families,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 58 (2022), 250, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.09.009.

⁵ Leech et al., “Unique Effects of Book-Reading,” 250.