I suppose the point is that a study comparing reading to nothing can demonstrate that one particular type of parental attention is more useful than lack of atte

I suppose the point is that a study comparing reading to nothing can demonstrate that one particular type of parental attention is more useful than lack of attention, but can’t conclusively show that there’s something special about reading aloud per se. Maybe just talking, or building with blocks, or kicking a ball back and forth, or digging in the dirt, or just doing whatever the kid wants to do but together, .... would accomplish as much, or maybe reading aloud has some unique benefit, but such a study can’t distinguish those. Edit: but actually looking at the article under discussion here, the intervention seems to be videotaping parents playing and reading with their kids and then showing them back the videotape and talking about it. So maybe what is most needed here is more explicit external feedback to the parents, rather than any specific schedule for the kids. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/04/05/peds.2017-3393 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/04/...