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Baby Shakespeare: Influence of Reading to

Infants
Jace Michaelson · Follow
8 min read · Aug 31, 2020

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The following article was written by my sister and she has allowed me to post this publicly
as long as her name was kept unknown.

The benefits of listening to classical music early in infancy have long been
discussed among scholars and parents (Rauscher, 2002). Mother’s reading to their
little ones while still in the womb have also been noted through research (Kolata,
1984). Similar to these studies and discussions, the idea of reading to infants to
increase cognition both in their current developmental stage and in the future is
coming to light. Research has already told us that reading to young children,
especially those in the early childhood stages, can help a child in their language
development, mental cognition, social interactions, and reading readiness. The
question remains, when do we start reading to a child? Early childhood
professionals claim that “it is never too early to begin reading with infants” (Hasson,
1991, p. 35). For many, it seems silly to read a book to an infant who, for all we know,
has no interest and no understanding of what is being read. However, we would like
to explore the benefits of reading to children as young as infancy. For this study,
infancy will be defined as a pre-language stage, and we will follow those in our study
from 3 months old through 12 months old.

Researchers in a variety of different studies have been able to identify links to the
increase in cognitive abilities among those infants who were read to. Some of this
research included infants who were delivered prematurely, and were held in a
hospital’s NICU (Resnik, 1987). This research proposal will take this information and
craft a new study researching infants. We will be focussing on infants living with
their parents in the Utah County area. The households selected for this study will be
those from an average socioeconomic status of income. While their parents read to
them on a daily basis over a period of nine months, or not read to at all, we will
track the stimulus that is given to each infant. Our belief is that greater exposure to
literature, even in infancy, allows children to acquire greater levels of cognition
throughout their development than infants who do not have exposure to literature.

Review of Literature

Empirical/Theoretical Background

An infant’s development is influenced by several factors within his/her life. Some of

these factors may include socioeconomic status of the family, birth order, family
relationships, educational background, etc. In an article written by Robert Michael
(2003), he explores the influence of a family’s “culture” on the child’s verbal ability or
the development of their oral language. Some of these findings show a link between
the language and frequency of language spoken in a household and its correlation to
the child’s oral language development. Many younger siblings will develop words
and oral language faster than if they did not have siblings because this family
dynamic shows them more frequently how to communicate in this manner. This
information is useful to us in our research proposal because we believe the
frequency of language experienced here will relate similarly to the frequency and
consequential growth of cognition in reading.

For this reason, we believe that the amount of reading and access to books should
have an influence on a child’s development. In 2006, a study was conducted among
Latino families. In this study the number of toys and the number of books that were
found in the home, along with the amount of time that infants were read to, were
recorded and analyzed. Later, these infants were tested to measure their cognitive
and language development along with a caregiver-child Interaction test
(Tomopoulos, et al.). The findings of this research showed that the more
experiences that the child had to interact with toys, books, and people, the greater
their cognitive growth, the wider their language development, and the better the
secure attachment with their caregiver. These findings will help us in our study as
we hope to find similar conclusions through
Open in appthe specific amount of caregiver to
child reading experience.
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We already know that books and reading have an intriguing effect on cognition as
“reading experts have long advised mothers to begin reading to their children early
in life,” (Resnik, et al., 1987). The benefits of reading are so vast among different
cultures and personalities, but it has been shown that it is helpful in joint-productive
activity , reading readiness for later on in their development, and the development
of language (Hasson, 1991; Murray, 2013; Resnik, et al., 1987). All of these factors
support the development and growth of mental cognition.

Gaps and Limitations

The gaps in the research about infant’s cognitive development neglect the direct
correlation of reading to infants and their capacity for cognitive growth. Because
infants rely on us for everything, it is important that we know how to best provide
proper stimuli to support their learning. For this reason, we would like to bridge the
gap between infant development and cognitive growth through the influence of
reading to children.

Some of the limitations of this research come with the territory of studying infants.
As we do research with infants, we must rely on inference and our understanding of
what we think they are thinking. For this, we will be using natural observation and
parent-reported data. We recognize that not all parent-reported data is accurate, and
we expect some parents to forget to read to their child every single day.

In an attempt to prevent forgetfulness, and to give us the greatest amount of data

possible, we will be sending out automated daily reminders to each participant at a
time that they self-decide. One reminder will be sent to those chosen to read to their
child on a daily basis. This will give them the reminder to read to their child and
record the data, as is expected in their participation of the study. Another reminder
will be sent to those asked to eliminate explicit reading to their infant. This
reminder will be to record any related stimulus that the child experienced
throughout the day.

During research with infants, we understand that other factors including, emotions,
hunger, sleepiness, and more can affect their willingness to participate in the
research. For that reason, we will only be using the data collected from those infants
who participated in the full study, start to finish.
Rationale

Understanding the influences that caregivers have on infants is immensely

important as we interact with them and strive to give them all the support that they
need. Familial influences correlate to a child’s score on the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary test, as demonstrated in the research by Robert Michael (2003).
Therefore, we can conclude that the interactions we have within our homes and
with our families influence the development of an infant. For this reason, we would
like to engage in observational studies and data collection that will help us further
understand if reading is the best stimulus to provide our infants.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis is that the more often an infant is exposed to literature, and is read
to explicitly, the higher he/she will score on different tests of cognition. We expect to
see a difference between the amount of growth of those that were exposed to daily
reading and those that were not exposed to reading at all over the course of the
study. This hypothesis is based on previous research done in various fields including
the findings that were acquired through the shared-reading of preterm babies, and
their improved cognition (Braid and Bernstein, 2015).

Participants

Our study will involve infants that were carried to term, who will first be tested at
the age of three months and followed up through one year. Infants will be selected
at random from within the Utah County area. These selections will be taken from
households that are at an average socioeconomic status. Each infant must have at
least one primary caregiver that is willing to participate fully in the study.

Procedures

The first step in our study will be to test the current mental cognition levels of each
child. This will be done by administering a few cognitive tests in our lab.
Descriptions of these tests are described further in the “measures” portion.

Each participant will be randomly assigned, via a random generator, whether or not
they will be provided with books and daily reading, or if they will be asked to not
read to their children for the next nine months.
Throughout this process, we will be asking each parent to record the daily
interactions with their child. Each caregiver assigned to the reading instruction will
record what books were read, for how long, and the child’s engagement level with
the book. This data will help us draw conclusions between the amount of reading
done and the level of cognition that each child achieves.

Similarly, we want to make sure we take into consideration the other exposures to
literature in a child’s life. We will ask every parent involved to record the data of
interaction that the child has with educational and literature rich media. Although
this is not the heart of our research project, we believe that it is important to not
disregard other exposures to literature aside from the daily reading to an infant.

Measures

Much of the measures will come from the data that is collected from the parents.
However, in order to measure their level of cognition, at the end of the reading
period, when the child has reached one year of age, the child will be re-tested by the
same measures of cognition that they were originally tested with.

The first test will be an oral language and picture matching test. As the caregiver
asks each child to identify a pictured item, the child will be measured to see if they
can successfully point out the item in question.

The second test will be that of the Bayley Mental Development Index (MDI). We will
focus on the subset section of the first measure in Bayley’s scales of Development:
Cognition. This will test their cognition by measuring their attention to familiar and
unfamiliar objects, and looking for a fallen object (Bayley, 2005).

We will also give the “Ages and Stages Questionnaire” for 12-month olds for the
caregivers to fill out. Some of the gross motor and fine motor skills listed within this
questionnaire will be used in the observation as well, as we meet with the caregiver
and child in our lab. (Squires and Bricker, 2009).

References

Bayley, N. (2006). Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development– Third Edition.
San

Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment.

Benasich, A. A. (2000). Infant Perceptual Abilities as Cognitive Precursors.
Braid, S., & Bernstein, J. (2015). Improved Cognitive Development in Preterm
Infants

Development in Young Latino Children. Ambulatory Pediatrics, 6(2), 72–78.

Dunst, C., Simkus, A., Hamby, D. (2012). Center for Early Literacy Learning.

Hasson, E.A. Early Childhood Educ J (1991) 19:

35.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01616937

Honig, A., Shin, M. (2001). Early Childhood Education- Infants and Toddlers.
Reading

Intervention Supporting Parent-Infant Interaction and Later Book Reading, 32(2)

Kolata, G. (1984). Studying learning in the womb. Science, 225, 302.

Lariviere, J., Rennick, J. (2011). Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Parent

Mendelsohn, A. L. (2006). Books, Toys, Parent-Child Interaction, and

Michael, R. T. (2003). Family influences on children’s verbal ability.

Murray, A., Egan, S. (2013). SAGE: Child Language Teaching and Therapy. Does
Reading to

Imfants Benefit their Cognitive Development at 9 Months Old? An Investigation Using a

Large Birth Cohort Survey, 30(4).

Rauscher, F.H. (2002). Mozart and the Mind. Factual and Fictional Effects of Musical

Enrichment.

Resnick, M., et al. (1987). The Reading Teacher. Mother’s Reading to Infants: A New

Observational Tool, 40(9), 888–894.

Squires, J., & Bricker, D. (2002). Ages and Stages Questionnaires, 1(1).

Tomopoulos, S., Dreyer, B. P., Tamis-LeMonda, C., Flynn, V., Rovira, I., Tineo, W., &

Mendelsohn, A. L. (2006). Books, Toys, Parent-Child Interaction, and

Development in Young Latino Children. Ambulatory Pediatrics, 6(2), 72–78.

Walker, C. M., Walker, L. B., & Ganea, P. A. (2013). The Role of Symbol-Based

Experience in Early Learning and Transfer From Pictures: Evidence From Tanzania.
Developmental Psychology, 49(7), 1315–1324.

Early Childhood Education School Management System Music Shakespeare

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Just a college student writing about marketing, tech, and fun things.

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