Reading to children has been advocated to enhance language and literacy skills.

The effect of the frequency of parent-preschooler book reading is not dependent on the socio-economic status of the families. Even in lower-class families with (on average) low levels of literacy, book reading frequency affects children's literacy skills.

This result is in accordance with the assumption that book reading is not just a minor part of a literate environment but rather a main condition for developing the knowledge necessary for eventual success in reading acquisition. Even in families with few other incentives to become literate, the frequency of book reading causes an effect.

This result supports the movement in several countries to start family literacy programmes that aim to stimulate parent-preschooler reading, particularly in low-socioeconomic status families.

The age at which parents begin reading to their children correlates with children’s language development. Children who are read to from an early age tend to have higher scores on language measures.

For example, in a study of 515 families in the Family Life Project, which covered four major geographical regions of the U.S. with the highest child poverty rates, it was found that fathers’ picture book reading sessions with their child at 6-months old were significantly related to better child communication at 15 months, and later child language development at 36 months of age.

Another study showed that the positive effects of being read to from an early age continue to be observable in the elementary school years.

According to experiments conducted in the Early Childhood project in Baltimore, USA, conducted for the National Reading Research Centre, children are likely to become intrinsically motivated to read when their home literacy experiences promote the view that reading is a source of entertainment.

Some key factors in home environments that impact literacy development include literacy resources, opportunities to learn, socio-economic status, parents’ educational level, and parental expectations. Among the key factors in home environments, the role of the parents is the most important factor for their child’s literacy development because they are the teachers, guides, and models whom their child first meets.

Creating a literacy orientation (i.e. having interest in books, reading and writing) has to begin with exposing a child to literacy routines in the home environment from a young age. Such routines include exposing the child to books, talking about words and books, reading to the child, and allowing the child to be exposed to writing and handling writing implements.

Adults reading to infants and toddlers has been linked to future language development and starting reading early ensures that reading habits continue into later years.

How a reading adult carries out conversations during the reading process can have an impact on a child’s later language skills, especially when reading to children who were at risk of language deprivation. Although children’s language skills at 24 months were associated with the reported frequency of caregiver reading in the home, caregivers’ use of questions had a relationship with the frequency of reading.

Studies have also found that while reading to children, specific parent behaviours, such as asking open-ended questions, adding information, focusing on print concepts, and eliciting abstract language, are related to children's later language skills.

One of the most powerful pieces of shared reading is what happens in the pauses between pages and after the book is closed. The use of ‘‘de-contextualised’’ or non-immediate talk and active engagement has proven to be particularly beneficial for children’s language enhancement.

Non-immediate talk is talk that goes beyond the information in the text or the illustrations, for example, to make connections to the child’s past experiences or to the real world (e.g., ‘‘you like ice cream’’), or to offer explanations (e.g., ‘‘he cried because he was sad’’), including explanations of word meanings (e.g., ‘‘a piglet is a baby pig’’).

Mothers’ use of non-immediate talk while reading to their preschoolers was related to children’s later performance on measures of vocabulary, story comprehension, definitions and emergent literacy.