THE ESSENTIAL
- The nap promotes physiological and nervous balance in children
- A study carried out with children aged 3 to 5 showed the benefits of a nap on the basics of learning to read
Parents of young children, make sure they can take a nap every day! This habit has recognized virtues on physiological and nervous balance. Corn a study conducted in Australia and published in Child Development has just shown that the nap of children of preschool age would also be very beneficial for learning to read by promoting the memorization of letters and sounds.
The study involved 32 children between the ages of three and five enrolled in two daycare centers in Sydney where the little ones usually take naps. Each of these children was given a pre-test to assess their basic level of knowledge of letters and sounds. Then they received training on the link between letters and sounds, for some taking a nap, for others without taking a nap. Finally, their learning was measured once following a nap and once following staying awake.
A positive effect on knowledge transfer
As a result, “the nap seems to have a positive effect on performance in knowledge transfer tests”, underline the authors of the study. Specifically, children who had taken a nap, did better at reproducing letter sounds they had learned earlier and when it came to identifying unfamiliar words containing letter sounds they had learned earlier And this benefit was seen once more when the exercise was repeated the following day.
“This work provides evidence that naps facilitate the acquisition and application of letter-sound mapping, skills that are crucial for the early development of reading,” said Professor Anne Castles who participated in this study.