A new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics states that parents who read to their children build critical language skills, literacy development and parent-child relationships.  Children are also more likely to be interested in reading once they reach school age.

Despite the report’s findings, the National Survey of Children’s Health found that only 34 percent of children younger than 5 years old, in families below the poverty threshold, were read to on a daily basis, compared with 60 percent of children from affluent families.  Recent research from Stanford University found that by the age of eighteen months, children from low-income families heard approximately 30 million fewer words than children from affluent families.

Source: http://aapnews.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/06/24/aapnews.20140624-2