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Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday the 3rd of February, the Commons Education Committee began an inquiry into the benefits and barriers to enjoin a good book.

At the start of the session, it was obvious this wasn't going to be like the Gruffalo or that one about the girl who goes through the wardrobe into a snow book. At the start of the session, it was obvious this wasn't going to be like the

gruffalo or that one about the girl who goes through the wardrobe into a snowy forest.

More complex understanding of syntactic structures, expressive and receptive for or

language. Also symbolic thinking. That is of course correlational, not causational evidence,

but it's hugely corroborated.

Well, the expert witnesses were themselves clearly able to cope with very long and difficult words.

And according to Professor Jesse Ricketts from Royal Holloway, University of London, being able to read confidently is key to enjoying it.

The proficiency is fantastically important.

Like it's the access point.

So what we want is young people to get into this wonderful virtuous circle of feeling success

in their reading, being good at reading, then reading more and then practicing that

reading skills so that they get better at reading.

Well, the academics had a long list of the benefits of enjoying a good book. Even before they can read themselves, looking at a book could help small

children bond with their parents. It could help them learn words they wouldn't hear day-to-day

and it could help them understand how people might think or act in situations they haven't

themselves experienced, as Dr Joe Taylor from

University College London explained. She reads her toddler a picture book called, Not Now,

Bernard. Bernard finds a monster, the monster eats him, and then the monster basically pretends

to be Bernard. Bernard is being ignored by his parents and the child is basically learning about this whole concept of potentially being ignored and how that might make you feel

...