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Growing up through a screen

The cozy ritual of parents reading bedtime stories to their children is in today’s world, fraught with interferences, by the…

Growing up through a screen

(Photo: Getty Images)

The cozy ritual of parents reading bedtime stories to their children is in today’s world, fraught with interferences, by the presence of modern day innovations beginning with television, mobile phones and the Internet.

We need to assess whether today’s innovations are better than reading a story to a child before bedtime. Or has the practice of reading bedtime stories to children disappeared altogether?

Perhaps it has and we must analyse what a child may be losing. Recent research explains that bedtime stories begin to develop a child’s brain.

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These gains range from improved logical skills to lower stress levels. The most startling benefit of bedtime stories is the way by which they help rewire children’s brains and thus facilitate their mastery of language.

Dr Lyon, of the NHS, UK, reports about a clear indication of a neurological difference between kids who have been read to and those who were not. Studies underway at Yale University, US, have observed images of brains of children considered poor readers, showing less activity in the verbal processing areas.

But after researchers spent two hours a day reading to the poor readers for eight weeks and conducting other literary exercises, the children’s brain activity changed and began to resemble images of brains of good readers.

Rewiring works in the following way — if a child is read Margaret Wise Brown’s classic bedtime story, Goodnight Moon, and the reader exaggerates the sound “oo” of moon, what the reader successfully accomplishes is stimulating connections related to the part of the brain that handles language sounds or the auditory cortex. In English there are 44 of these sounds called phonemes, ranging from “ee” to “ss”.

So the more often children hear these sounds, the faster they begin processing words with those phonemes. Virginia Walter, assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, US, states that when children listen to a book being read often, they notice patterns and sequences. Experts suggest that parents should continue reading stories into the child’s teenage years.

This encourages conversations of different topics, such as racism, as in Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The book, published in 1960, was in a period when mobile phones and the Internet were still decades away.

Reading was a pastime integral to most people. With the average age for children receiving their first mobile phone being about 12, a child with a mobile phone on a bedside table is at a disadvantage.

A new study reveals that bedtime phone use causes a child to sleep less, thereby being tired the next day and resulting in repercussions to health. Dr Ben Carter, says, “Sleep is crucial to the development of a healthy child. Poor sleep can lead to obesity, reduced immunity, and poor mental health.”

Researchers from King’s College, London, reviewed 20 studies involving 125,198 children with an average age of 14. Studies revealed that devices being used at bedtime, including television, resulted in poor sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness.

In contrast reading stories at bedtime imparted better quality of sleep. We must realise that parents need empowerment and support from teachers, in an integrated approach, leading to a proper routine, of regulating use of mobile phones, the Internet or television. Bedtime stories, for kids, are brimming with endearing characters.

Goodnight Moon was published in 1947. It narrates the tale of a little rabbit’s bedtime routine, the importance of rituals and the in-nocence of early childhood. On the other hand, The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is about a small caterpillar that emerges from his egg and begins eating all the vegetables in sight, and then is no longer small! This tale of science and gluttony is colourful and a bold affirmation of the beauty of nature. An additional input is teaching kids the days of the week.

A study was also conducted about reading by teenagers during World Book Day (2 March) in the UK. The event was designated by Unesco, which reported that teachers and librarians do not encourage teenagers to read challenging titles.

The top 10 books to “shape and inspire” teens was listed. Some of the authors in the list include the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, George Orwell and Harper Lee. In fact, it may be recalled that Orwell’s Animal Farm, was in the syllabus for the Cambridge Board exams during the late 1960s in Indian schools.

Harry Potter’s adventures were high up in the list, although critics do not envisage Rowling’s books becoming classics but she poses some questions in her books, like standing up to authority or sacrificing everything for an ideal.

These factors are close to a teenager’s thoughts. Similar to books for younger kids, books for teens also need to equate and relate to the reader.

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