Reading to young children every night promotes empathy and creative thinking

Reading to young children every night promotes empathy and creative thinking

A short, family-friendly bedtime reading routine boosted cognitive empathy and creativity in young children, and simple pauses for reflection gave an extra boost to imagination.

Study: Keep the bedtime story: A daily reading ritual promotes empathy and creativity in children. Photo credit: Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock.com

In a recent study published inPLUS oneResearchers examined the effect of daily reading routines on the creativity and empathy of six- to eight-year-old children.

They found that daily reading was associated with improvements in cognitive empathy and creativity in children before and after the intervention, regardless of reading style. Reflective breaks also led to additional, targeted benefits for creative fluency.

Reading together encourages imagination

Empathy is a multidimensional skill that includes both understanding the thoughts of others (cognitive empathy) and sharing the feelings of others (emotional empathy). It develops early in childhood through social interactions and learning experiences.

Research has shown that creativity and empathy are declining in young people, which may be linked to changes in technology use, education and lifestyle. Because empathy supports emotional well-being, social connection, and academic success, it is becoming increasingly important to find simple, effective ways to promote it early in life.

Previous studies suggest that empathy is malleable and can be strengthened through experience, particularly through exposure to the perspectives of others. Reading fiction to children is a promising avenue as it promotes identification with characters, understanding of emotions, and reflection on social situations. Creativity and empathy are also closely linked and together rely on imagination and flexible thinking.

Testing a two-week bedtime reading intervention

Researchers examined whether a short daily reading routine before bed can increase creativity and empathy in children in the sensitive developmental period between six and eight years.

The study involved 41 children from central Virginia and their caregivers. Children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a reading group, in which caregivers read picture books without interruption, or a break group, in which caregivers paused once during a story to ask reflective questions about the character's feelings and actions. The intervention lasted two weeks, with each of the seven books included being read twice.

Empathy was measured pre- and post-intervention using a child-adapted version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, assessing cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and fantasy-based perspective taking. Responses were simplified to a three-point verbal scale to ensure developmental appropriateness. Creativity was assessed using a task that measured both creative fluency (the number of ideas generated) and originality.

Assessments were conducted individually by trained researchers. Statistical analyzes included mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) and ordinal mixed effects models to examine changes over time and differences between groups, with corrections for multiple comparisons. Additional analyzes examined whether child characteristics such as age, gender, or previous reading habits influenced the results.

Reading alone increased empathy and creativity

Most families reported regular reading habits before the study. Contrary to the primary hypothesis, children in the break group did not show significantly greater increases in empathy or creativity overall compared to the reading group. However, significant improvements in cognitive empathy, overall empathy, creative fluency, and creative originality were observed in both groups from baseline to follow-up. Emotional empathy did not change significantly over the two weeks.

A notable exception emerged for creative fluency: Children in the recess group showed significantly greater progress over time than those in the reading group, suggesting that reflective questions can improve idea generation when repeated across multiple reading sessions. Fantasy-based empathy also showed greater improvement in the recess group when differences between children, such as gender and previous reading experience, were taken into account.

Moderator analyzes showed that age influenced some results, with older children having lower originality scores than younger children. A post hoc power analysis found that the study was sufficiently powered to detect large effects, but likely underpowered to detect smaller empathy-related differences. In practice, this means that the study was more likely to identify significant changes than subtle differences between reading styles. Overall, the results suggest that daily reading alone promotes empathy and creativity, with reflective breaks providing targeted benefits for creative fluency.

Why reading together can be more important than technology

This study suggests that a short, consistent bedtime reading routine can meaningfully support the development of empathy and creativity in young children over a short period of time.

Improvements in creativity and cognitive empathy in both groups suggest that shared reading itself provides valuable opportunities for perspective taking and imaginative engagement. Reflective breaks did not improve empathy beyond just reading, but did lead to additional increases in creative fluency, highlighting the role of controlled imagination in idea generation.

The study's strengths include its ecological validity, developmentally appropriate measures, and focus on a practical, family-friendly intervention. However, limitations include the lack of a non-literacy control group, a small and socioeconomically homogeneous sample, and a short intervention duration. These factors limit causal inferences and generalizability.

Overall, the results suggest that daily shared reading, whether reflective questions are included or not, is a simple and accessible strategy for promoting empathy and creativity in early childhood. However, the results should be interpreted as preliminary rather than definitive evidence of cause and effect.

Future studies can examine the impact of meaningful conversations with caregivers, the importance of physical contact or other types of children's interactions with adults in their lives, and also examine whether these benefits persist over time and ultimately help them demonstrate creative thinking and prosocial behavior in the real world.

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