When kids hear a story through audio only, they strain to understand. When they watch an animation, their visual and audio perceptual networks are firing, but there’s not enough integration between them. This requires the most energy for the kid to figure out what everything means. Comprehension was lowest in this condition.
When kids hear a story with static illustrations, there is more connectivity between all the networks, such as visual perception, imagery, language, andsomething called default mode (internal reflection of how the story matters to you). This improves their understanding of the story.
However, the best conditions are reading on mom or dad’s lap! 😊 Nothing comes close to that physical closeness and bonding. 😍