Many Baoma know the benefits of reading for children. Even if they don't know the details, they at least know that reading is the "biggest" factor that has a positive impact on children's growth. However, a Harvard study found that reading is not the best way to promote children's brain development.
This is a research project on infant brain development. During the research, the researchers divided the research objects into three groups. The children in the first group were equipped with picture books, and the children in the second group were equipped with toys. The children in the third group were not equipped with anything as a control.
After three months of statistics, the researchers found that the first group, children equipped with picture books, had obvious brain development, but the second group, children equipped with toys, had better brain development. The third group, the control group, lagged behind the first two groups in brain development.
The final research results show that the best way to stimulate children's brain development in infancy is not reading, but toys that are often ignored by parents.
Why do toys stimulate infant brain development more than reading?
Many parents may question, saying that "all things are inferior, only reading is superior", why is playing with toys such a "frustrated" behavior more beneficial to children's brain development than reading? This is actually related to the development characteristics of infants and young children.
During the infant period, the baby's development status belongs to the comprehensive development status, and its various abilities are seriously insufficient, which requires external stimulation to achieve better growth.
▲ The brain stimulation of reading is relatively simple
In this case, the reading behavior is just a visual stimulation and thinking flexibility exercise for the baby, and it is difficult to have some deeper influence on the baby, such as literacy, context, tone, word and sentence accumulation, etc., because the baby at this stage is in the "nothing" stage, and the main purpose of reading is to cultivate the foundation for future reading habits and strengthen the parent-child relationship.
▲ Playing with toys will stimulate the baby's brain more
But toys are different. Toys can stimulate babies in a variety of ways. For example, acousto-optic toys can stimulate babies' vision and hearing, toy grasping can stimulate babies' sense of touch, limb coordination, hand eye coordination, etc. Some building blocks and other toys can also exercise Baobao's sense of balance, sense of space, etc. It can be said that in the process of playing with toys, babies' senses will be more directly and comprehensively stimulated, This will enable the baby's brain to receive more signals, so that it will be in a more active state, and the brain will naturally develop faster and better.
That is to say, the behavior of playing with toys is more suitable for the development characteristics of infants than the behavior of reading, so it will bring more brain stimulation to the baby, and the brain development of the baby will naturally be better.
Although the behavior of playing with toys can make the baby's brain develop better when he is an infant, it does not mean that he can not read.
Reading habits still have a great impact on baby's growth
Reading has an irreplaceable impact on the growth of children. In infancy, parents still need to keep reading with their children. First, it is to lay a foundation for developing reading habits in the future. Second, in infancy, although reading is not the best way to stimulate the brain, it has an irreplaceable positive effect on the growth of children, such as language enlightenment and improvement.
Therefore, parents should not give up reading because playing with toys is more stimulating to the baby's brain. As the baby grows up, the importance of reading will gradually become apparent. If the child does not lay a good foundation for reading and help the baby develop a habit of reading, it will not be easy to cultivate it when he grows up.
