A short, family-friendly bedtime reading routine helped young children grow in cognitive empathy and creativity, and simple pauses to reflect gave imagination an extra lift.
Study: Keep the bedtime story: A daily reading ritual improves empathy and creativity in children. Image credit: Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock.com
In a recent study published in PLOS One, researchers examined the effect of daily reading routines on the creativity and empathy displayed by six- to eight-year-old children.
They found that daily reading was associated with pre- to post-intervention improvements in cognitive empathy and creativity in children, regardless of reading style. Reflective pauses also produced additional, targeted benefits for creative fluency.
Shared reading supports imagination
Empathy is a multidimensional skill that involves both understanding others’ thoughts (cognitive empathy) and sharing others’ feelings (emotional empathy). It develops early in childhood through social interactions and learning experiences.
Research has shown concerning declines in creativity and empathy among young people, which may be linked to changes in technology use, education, and lifestyle. Because empathy supports emotional well-being, social connection, and academic success, identifying simple, effective ways to foster it early in life is increasingly important.
Prior studies suggest empathy is malleable and can be strengthened through experience, particularly by engaging with the perspectives of others. Reading fiction to children is one promising pathway, as it encourages identification with characters, understanding emotions, and reflection on social situations. Creativity and empathy are also closely related, sharing reliance on imagination and flexible thinking.
Testing a two-week bedtime reading intervention
Researchers investigated whether a short daily bedtime reading routine could enhance creativity and empathy in children during the sensitive developmental period between the ages of six and eight.
The study included 41 children from central Virginia, along with their caregivers. Children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a read-through group, in which caregivers read picture books without interruption, or a pause group, in which caregivers paused once during a story to ask reflective questions about the character’s feelings and actions. The intervention lasted two weeks, with each of the seven included books read twice.
Empathy was measured before and after the intervention using a child-adapted version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, assessing cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and fantasy-based perspective-taking. Responses were simplified to a three-point verbal scale to ensure developmental appropriateness. Creativity was assessed using a task that measured both creative fluency (the number of ideas generated) and originality.
Assessments were administered individually by trained researchers. Statistical analyses included mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) and ordinal mixed-effects models to examine changes over time and differences between groups, with corrections for multiple comparisons. Additional analyses tested whether child characteristics such as age, sex, or prior reading habits influenced outcomes.
Reading alone improved empathy and creativity
Most families reported regular reading habits before the study. Contrary to the primary hypothesis, children in the pause group did not show significantly greater overall gains in empathy or creativity compared to the read-through group. However, significant improvements from baseline to follow-up were observed across both groups in cognitive empathy, total empathy, creative fluency, and creative originality. Emotional empathy did not significantly change over the two weeks.
A notable exception emerged for creative fluency: children in the pause group demonstrated significantly larger gains over time than those in the read-through group, suggesting that reflective questions may enhance idea generation when repeated across readings. Fantasy-based empathy also showed greater improvement in the pause group when differences between children, such as sex and prior reading experience, were taken into account.
Moderator analyses indicated that age influenced some outcomes, with older children showing lower originality scores than younger children. Post-hoc power analysis revealed the study was sufficiently powered to detect large effects but likely underpowered for smaller empathy-related differences. In practical terms, this means the study was better suited to identifying substantial changes than subtle differences between reading styles. Overall, the findings suggest that daily reading alone supports empathy and creativity, with reflective pauses offering targeted benefits for creative fluency.
Why shared reading may matter more than technique
This study suggests that a brief, consistent bedtime reading routine can meaningfully support the development of empathy and creativity in young children over a short period of time.
Improvements in creativity and cognitive empathy across both groups suggest that shared reading itself provides valuable opportunities for perspective-taking and imaginative engagement. Reflective pauses did not enhance empathy beyond reading alone but did produce additional gains in creative fluency, highlighting the role of guided imagination in idea generation.
The study's strengths include its ecological validity, developmentally appropriate measures, and focus on a practical, family-friendly intervention. However, limitations include the absence of a no-reading control group, a small and socioeconomically homogeneous sample, and a short intervention duration. These factors limit causal inference and generalizability.
Overall, the findings suggest that daily shared reading, whether or not reflective questions are included, is a simple and accessible strategy for nurturing empathy and creativity during early childhood. However, the results should be interpreted as preliminary rather than definitive evidence of cause and effect.
Future studies can examine the effect of meaningful conversations with caregivers, the importance of physical contact, or other ways that children interact with the adults in their lives, as well as whether these benefits are sustained over time and eventually help them engage in creative thinking and prosocial behaviors in the real world.
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