Professor Sam Wass explains the science of reading aloud, children’s brain development, attention and learning, and why sharing physical books with children still matters.

At LoveReading4Kids, we've long admired Professor Sam Wass' work exploring how children's attention, connection and emotional development shape the way they learn. We first heard him speaking alongside Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce, whose Reading Rights campaign champions every child's right to stories. After hearing Professor Wass speak at the Children's Laureate Lecture we asked him to share what science tells us about why shared reading matters so profoundly. 

What happens in a child’s brain when we read aloud to them, and why can sharing a physical book be so powerful for children’s attention, language, learning and emotional development? In this fascinating Q&A, Professor Wass explains how stories help young brains recognise patterns, why the rhythm and repetition of reading aloud can create calm and connection between children and adults, how books and screens engage attention differently, and why predictable, repeated experiences matter so much for early brain development. He also shares some of the children’s books his own family loves reading together.

LoveReading4Kids in conversation with Prof. Sam Wass of The Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth 

What actually happens in a child's brain and body when they're being read to?

Young children's brains work very differently from ours. Our brains are prediction machines: we make sense of the world by constantly guessing what's coming next. Young children's brains are slower, messier and much less able to predict. Reading stories is crucial because it gives that jumbled, inexperienced system some structure to latch onto: a voice that rises and falls predictably in rhythm; sentences that follow a pattern, with repetition and rhyme; and a story that comes round again and again - as many times as they want.

The real world doesn’t repeat - but stories do. This is why they are crucial in helping us first learn to spot patterns in the world around us. 

There’s another element to this too: reading aloud to a child creates synchrony. Your baby's brain tracks the rhythms your reading creates, like two brains learning to dance. It isn't just brains, either. Breathing, heart rate, movement and facial expressions all show the same kind of coupling.

This synchrony influences language: tuning into those rhythms helps babies pick apart the stream of speech. It also creates calmness: adults are naturally calmer than children, and tuning into our slower rhythms helps a child settle. Finally, it creates connection. Sharing rhythms with someone seems to build mutual understanding and empathy, although neuroscience still can't fully explain why.

Shared reading brings all of this together in one daily ritual: closeness, a voice to tune into and a rhythm to follow.

What does reading a physical book together still offer that other media cannot?

A book slows the world down to the child's pace. A picture on the page shows a moment, frozen in time. A child is free to look for as long as they need, to go back a page, or to ask for the same page again. 

This is different to how we consume stories through screens. On a screen, the pace is set in advance by the programme maker, and it carries on whether the child has kept up or not.

That matters because young children's brains are much slower and less reliable at predicting what comes next. Sometimes they're ready to take something in, and sometimes they're not. When things happen too fast for us to predict, our brains shift into high alert: fight or flight.

Books and screens also draw on different kinds of attention. Movement captures our attention automatically. This tendency to pay attention to movement - which probably developed as an early, automatic, threat detection system - is very hard to ignore. A lot of screen content is designed to exploit it. A child’s attention can be captured to a screen even if they don’t understand what they are seeing.

But a page is different. It doesn’t move, to capture their attention in the same way. When we are paying attention to a book, attention is generated internally. That's why reading tends to produce calm, focused attention.

What's the biggest misconception about children's attention or learning?

The biggest misconception is that the mind is a machine. People assume that if you put the right information in, learning comes out. They assume more stimulation, more novelty and a faster pace mean more learning, and that a child can simply decide to pay attention.

Young brains don't work like that. They're still building their predictions about the world. They learn by spotting patterns for themselves in experiences that are predictable and repeated, not by being told, "Here's something, let me teach it to you." And sometimes a child's brain just isn't in a state to take things in.

Predictability is also how we stay calm. Our bodies don't just react to change; they prepare for it. 

That's why reading matters so much. It gives rhythm, and predictability, to young children’s lives. 

Which children's books do you most often recommend to parents today?

So many! It changes all the time. Right now, with my five- and seven-year-old, we’re re-reading two series which regularly have them hooting so loudly with laughter that they wake their baby sister from her slumbers:

Dory Fantasmagory by Abby Hanlon. Dory is six, definitely (although it’s never stated) somewhere on the autism spectrum, vividly imaginative - and crackers in the most brilliant way imaginable. Sometimes - such as when describing Dory’s struggles in learning to read, or being ignored by her brother and sister, and how she plunges into imaginative play to escape, the books are unbreakably poignant. But they’re also laugh-out-loud funny on virtually every page.

Grimwood by Nadia Shireen. Two fox cubs, Ted and Nancy, go on the run from the city and end up in Grimwood - where the pond filled with abandoned shopping trolleys is presided over by a washed out diva duck called Ingrid and her paramour Sir Charles Fotheringay, and a psychotic wire head eagle called Pamela tries to protect her friends with CCTV that she’s rigged up from stolen electronics. The characters are all nuts - but detailed, believable, and lovable.  

On a more meet-your-subconscious note - another favourite author of ours is Viviane Schwarz. I’m not sure whether her dream exploration book The Sleepwalkers is meant for children or not - but my kids love it.

And I Am Henry Finch, by Alexis Deacon and Viviane Schwarz, is the deepest, most metaphysical picture book you will ever read.

Why Reading Together Matters for Children’s Brain Development

Professor Sam Wass’s insights offer a fascinating reminder that reading with children is about far more than learning words or following a story. Shared reading gives young brains time, repetition, rhythm and predictability, while creating opportunities for language development, focused attention, emotional regulation and connection with the adults around them. Whether children are returning to the same favourite picture book for the hundredth time or discovering funny, imaginative stories, those apparently simple moments spent reading together can play an important part in how children learn to understand both the world and one another.

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