With the new year upon us, the Read Lab is exploring a new question about the benefits of shared reading. In a study lead by Honors Student and Research Assistant extraordinaire, Ellen Kruse, we are looking at whether 4- and 5-year-olds really pick up on the “lessons” that some children’s books are meant to impart.

Lessons can be complicated (e.g., what’s going on in The Giving Tree??) but also simple (e.g., “sharing is good”), and there may be some aspects of the books themselves that make the lessons easier or harder for children to relate to (e.g., how much is the main character really like me?). So Ellen is tackling this with a new storybook study in our lab, and if you have a 4-year-old who likes to hear new stories and who might want to tell us what they think of ours, let us know and we’ll be happy to share our study with you!