No one can learn to play the piano just by listening to someone else play. Likewise, no one can learn to read just by listening to someone else read. Children learn most from books when they are actively involved. Dialogic reading works. Children who have been read to dialogically are substantially ahead of children who have been read to traditionally on tests of language development.
Children can jump ahead by several months in just a few weeks of dialogic reading.
These effects have been found with hundreds of children in areas as geographically different as New York, Tennessee, and Mexico, in settings as varied as homes, preschools, and daycare centers, and with children from economic backgrounds ranging from poverty to affluence. Dialogic reading is just children and adults having a conversation about a book. Children will enjoy dialogic reading more than traditional reading as long as parents learn to mix-up questions with straight reading, vary what they do from reading to reading, and follow their child's interest. Parent-child book reading as an intervention for young children with language delays. Community-based support for preschool readiness among children in poverty.