When 85% of kids who get into trouble with the law have poor literacy skills it’s clear that reading to young children pays big dividends.
Megan Cox Gurdon’s book, The Enchanted Hour, lauds the practice of reading aloud to children. The rhythms found in nursery rhymes and poetry when read aloud play a crucial role in children’s language and literacy development, creating critical neural patterns in their brains.
Gurdon also points out that reading aloud is the only action proven to counteract the damage excessive screen time wreaks on children’s brains.
As adults, we are not immune to the damage wrought by excessive screen time. If reading aloud to your kids helps ensure their future success, what benefits might be reaped by reading aloud to adults? Surely, a little reading aloud would help us as well.
Reading aloud synchronizes our actions and emotions with those of others and leads to greater intimacy. We derive comfort in the sound of another’s voice and through the act of falling into a story together. A WayWord Books subscriber says reading aloud to her partner is actually, a rather sexy thing to do. She is not alone.
Vogue magazine, in 2025, declared reading together as “the sexiest date night activity. Sarah Manavis, in her article “Read Me a Story: Why Reading Out Loud is a Joy for Adults as Well as Kids” in The Guardian, says the effects of reading aloud have been transformative for her and her partner, both as individuals and as a couple. “It guarantees I’ll sleep through the night, that I’ll wake up without being tired… My anxiety, which becomes extra ghoulish at bedtime, retreats entirely – as effective for my mental health as a run or yoga, if not better. We have both noticed we are generally calmer people in the middle of a long reading stretch and especially notice the lack of serenity the days after we come out of one.”
Plus, reading aloud is so much fun! Mimi M., another subscriber and voice-over artist, told us reading aloud to her children is one of her most special memories, both for her and for her children. All-time favorites were Soloman Snow and the Silver Spoon by Kaye Umansky and Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Musel and Blair Lent. “The kids still quote Soloman Snow and The Silver Spoon back to me, using different voices,” she says. “None of us have ever forgotten that long name: Tikki Tikki tembo-no sa remb-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.”
Her son Dan, now an adult, says [reading was] “always such a big part of my childhood—such vivid memories of mom making up character’s voices.” He is carrying on the tradition and is reading to his young son.
So tonight, instead of turning on the TV, why not pick up a book and read to whomever is sitting next to you.