Read To Your Child: This Boosts Brain Power, Study Reveals

There's no doubt that reading to your children sets an excellent example for the future. But did you know it could also help them with language development and a want to read more as they grow into adults?

New findings presented at the at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego found that reading to little ones is actually associated with differences in brain activity that support early reading skills.

"We are excited to show, for the first time, that reading exposure during the critical stage of development prior to kindergarten seems to have a meaningful, measurable impact on how a child's brain processes stories and may help predict reading success," study author John Hutton said in a statement. "Of particular importance are brain areas supporting mental imagery, helping the child 'see the story' beyond the pictures, affirming the invaluable role of imagination."

Health officials encourage parents to read to their children from birth to foster early learning and create essential connections in the brain that promote language development.

Researchers analyzed data on 19 healthy preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5. Thirty-seven percent were from low-income households and each child's primary caregiver was asked to complete a questionnaire designed to measure cognitive stimulation in the home.

All children underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measured brain activity as they listened to appropriate stories on headphones. With this, researchers looked to measure the differences in brain activation that support comprehension of the stories in areas that are specific to language.

"This becomes increasingly important as children advance from books with pictures to books without them, where they must imagine what is going on in the text," Hutton said.

Researchers found that reading exposure was oftentimes associated with supporting specific brain areas through "semantic processing," or extraction of meaning from language.