Earlier in the week we talked about a study that looked at the top ways to boost your child’s IQ. We’re featuring these techniques this week as ways in which you can give your child a leg up on learning.
Studies show that interactive book reading (turning book reading into a conversation) can boost young children’s IQ. Of all the findings in the meta-analysis study, this is the one that parents can immediately try to implement at home with kids three and half and younger. And there could be more than six IQ points in it.
We all know reading is important. But it’s not enough to have shelves of books and perform a monologue at bedtime. It’s all about “dialogic reading,” which involves asking kids questions while they’re reading, asking them to think and extrapolate. It’s not clear why this style of reading works so well. There could be a specific cognitive benefit to all that outside-the-pages work. Or it could just play a role in speeding up language development, which is a known pathway to higher IQs.