What a bedtime story does to a child, according to the studies

1. 19% vs 23%

   A story at the same time every night means better sleep and better days.

   What we do: BestKids is built to be that routine: the same calm shape every night, ending in silence.

   The finding: 10,085 children in 13 countries. More nights with a routine meant earlier bedtimes, faster sleep onset, fewer wakings, more sleep, and fewer daytime behaviour problems: 22.9% with no routine, 9.1% with one every night.

   Mindell, Li, Sadeh, Kwon and Goh (2015). Bedtime routines for young children: a dose-dependent association with sleep outcomes. Sleep, 38(5). Read the paper

2. 2Sleep = memory

   Sleep is when the day’s learning is written into memory.

   What we do: A story that leads into good sleep is the part of the day where the learning sticks.

   The finding: Preschoolers remembered more of what they learned when they slept afterwards than when they stayed awake for the same time. Deep sleep did the work.

   Kurdziel, Duclos and Spencer (2013). Sleep spindles in midday naps enhance learning in preschool children. PNAS, 110(43). Read the paper

3. 3Just right

   A picture, a warm voice and the words to follow is the format a young brain likes best.

   What we do: Every BestKids story is exactly that: one picture per page, a voice, and read-along text.

   The finding: The “Goldilocks” study. Illustrated stories produced the most connected activity across language, visual and imagination networks in 4-year-olds. Animation was “too hot”, audio alone “too cold”.

   Hutton et al. (2020). Differences in functional brain network connectivity during stories presented in audio, illustrated, and animated format in preschool-age children. Brain Imaging and Behavior. Read the paper

4. 4290,000 words

   A child who hears a story every day arrives at school with far more words.

   What we do: One story a night, in the languages the family speaks.

   The finding: One picture book a day is about 78,000 words a year. A child read to daily hears roughly 290,000 more words by age five than a child never read to; five a day, about 1.4 million more.

   Logan, Justice, Yumuş and Chaparro-Moreno (2019). When children are not read to at home: the million word gap. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 40(5). Read the paper

5. 53× more honest

   Children learn honesty from stories that praise honesty, not from stories that punish lying.

   What we do: Our stories are chosen and written for what they praise. The lesson is inside the story, never a lecture at the end.

   The finding: 3 to 7 year olds who heard George Washington praised for confessing were three times more likely to tell the truth. Pinocchio and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, which punish lying, made no difference.

   Lee, Talwar, McCarthy, Ross, Evans and Arruda (2014). Can classic moral stories promote honesty in children? Psychological Science, 25(8). Read the paper

6. 6Books, not TV

   Storybooks teach a child that other people have thoughts and feelings of their own. Television does not.

   What we do: Stories with characters, not clips. A voice and a page, not a cartoon.

   The finding: In 4 to 6 year olds, storybook exposure predicted understanding of other minds, controlling for age, vocabulary and income. Television exposure did not.

   Mar, Tackett and Moore (2010). Exposure to media and theory-of-mind development in preschoolers. Cognitive Development, 25(1). Read the paper

7. 7Family stories

   Children who know their family’s stories are more resilient and secure.

   What we do: Every family can add their own stories, told by the people who were there, in their own voices.

   The finding: Children who knew more of their family’s stories had higher self-esteem, more sense of control and less anxiety, and coped better over the two years after September 2001.

   Duke, Lazarus and Fivush (2008). Knowledge of family history as a clinically useful index of psychological well-being and prognosis. Psychotherapy, 45(2). The “Do You Know?” scale. Read the paper

8. 888% less melatonin

   Bright light before bed switches off a preschooler’s sleep hormone.

   What we do: The screen stays dim and warm, and the read-along text lets a parent read while the child listens with eyes closed.

   The finding: One hour of bright light before bed suppressed melatonin in preschoolers by 88% on average, and it stayed low for 50 minutes after the light went off.

   Akacem, Wright and LeBourgeois (2018). Sensitivity of the circadian system to evening bright light in preschool-age children. Physiological Reports, 6(5). Read the paper

9. 9Less screen, more words

   More screen time in the preschool years goes with weaker language pathways in the brain.

   What we do: BestKids is built to be put down: no feed, no autoplay, no streaks. It is done when the child is asleep.

   The finding: In 3 to 5 year olds, more screen use went with lower integrity of the white-matter tracts that support language and literacy, and lower language scores.

   Hutton, Dudley, Horowitz-Kraus, DeWitt and Holland (2019). Associations between screen-based media use and brain white matter integrity in preschool-aged children. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(1). Read the paper

These studies describe what stories, routines and sleep do for children in general. They are not medical advice, and BestKids is not a treatment for any sleep or learning difficulty.