{
 "title": "Kindergarten readiness: five-year-olds read to almost every day are further ahead — in feelings as well as letters",
 "description": "Kindergarten readiness, OECD 2026: of 23,000 five-year-olds, those read to 5+ days a week scored higher in literacy, numeracy and recognizing emotions.",
 "url": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/reading-to-children-kindergarten-readiness",
 "question": null,
 "measure": "Score-point difference",
 "unit": "score points (IELS scale, standard deviation 100)",
 "source": {
  "short": "OECD · IELS 2025",
  "name": "OECD (2026), Building Strong Foundations for Life: Results from the 2025 Early Learning and Child Well-being Study, Figure 5.4 (IELS 2025 Database, Table B.5.16)",
  "url": "https://doi.org/10.1787/02bf8efe-en",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. This is an adaptation of an original work by the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this adaptation should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Member countries",
  "licenseUrl": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
 },
 "license": "CC BY 4.0. This is an adaptation of an original work by the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this adaptation should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Member countries",
 "method": "Values from the OECD's StatLink data for Figure 5.4 (IELS 2025 Database, Table B.5.16): the IELS average across participating countries and regions, score-point difference for children whose parents read to them from a book five or more days a week (and one to four days) compared with less than once a week, after accounting for the IELS index of socio-economic status. The 95% ranges are our approximation (estimate ± 1.96 × the standard error in the same file); the OECD marks significance on its own chart. The report warns that parent questionnaire response rates were low in some countries, including England and the Netherlands. Hangzhou (China) took part, but its results were not yet published.",
 "takeaways": [
  "Children read to from a book five or more days a week scored 32 points higher in early literacy and 23 points higher in early numeracy than children read to less than once a week — roughly a third and a quarter of a standard deviation.",
  "It isn't only letters and numbers: they also scored 17 points higher at identifying emotions, 14 higher in mental flexibility and 9 higher in working memory. For working out why someone feels a certain way (emotional attribution) the difference was small and not statistically clear.",
  "Reading one to four days a week sits in between — for example +12.5 points in literacy and +9.3 in identifying emotions.",
  "From the same report: talking with the child about how they feel is the most common home activity (76% of parents do it at least three days a week); 54% read from a book that often. 46% of five-year-olds use a digital device every day, and links between device use and scores were weak and mostly not significant."
 ],
 "items": [
  {
   "label": "Emergent literacy",
   "value": 32,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Emergent numeracy",
   "value": 23,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Emotion identification",
   "value": 16.7,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Mental flexibility",
   "value": 14.4,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Working memory",
   "value": 9.1,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  },
  {
   "label": "Emotional attribution",
   "value": 4.7,
   "range_low": null,
   "range_high": null
  }
 ],
 "csv": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/data/reading-to-children-kindergarten-readiness.csv",
 "chart_embed": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/embed/reading-to-children-kindergarten-readiness",
 "image": "https://raisingstoics.com/research/og/reading-to-children-kindergarten-readiness.png",
 "credit": "Raising Stoics (raisingstoics.com)"
}