Below the link to Perri Klass’s post on bedtime reading and how children process the stories they hear.  I love the accompanying image, which reminds us of the tactile experience of reading together and how books create a contact zone between child and adult, giving them something to talk about as well as to hear and see.

What was especially novel was that children who were exposed to more books and home reading showed significantly more activity in the areas of the brain that process visual association, even though the child was in the scanner just listening to a story and could not see any pictures.

“When kids are hearing stories, they’re imagining in their mind’s eye when they hear the story,” said Dr. Hutton. “For example, ‘The frog jumped over the log.’ I’ve seen a frog before, I’ve seen a log before, what does that look like?”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/bedtime-stories-for-young-brains/