ExclusivePhysical books increase learning and retention so must be cherished and shared

Welcome to Epoch Insights with Tiffany. My name is Tiffany Brannan. We all know that reading is an excellent way to improve your mind and to even increase your brain capacity. Especially during the child's developmental years, reading is oh so important for becoming an intelligent, well-rounded human being. In the digital age, much of the reading that the average person does has become on a screen. Whether it's reading the latest news on a website instead of in a newspaper, reading that classic novel in an e-book instead of a hardbound copy, and even for musicians, using an iPad for their scores instead of a hardbound copy. But some new studies are showing that just changing the format is a lot more than a convenient digital swap. Beyond developing basic literacy, physical books are crucial for establishing important child and parent relationships because the situation of a child sitting in a parent's lap to read a beloved storybook is something that isn't quite as cozy with the Kindle. But it goes much deeper than that. An article on the front page of the Mind and Body section of the Epoch Times called The Paper Advantage poses the question, does how we read matter as much as what we read? Now the assumption has long been that reading is reading and that it's great to get children and people of all ages reading no matter what format is used. But a paper published by the Social Psychology of Education is showing that the number of print books in a home strongly predicts academic achievement, whereas the number of e-books shows no similar correlation. In a 2024 meta-analysis of 49 studies involving thousands of readers from elementary school through college, the findings showed that people who read on screens reliably scored lower on comprehension tests than their peers who are reading the same text but in print. And results highlight that the benefits of reading depend at least in part on the reading medium itself. Study found that children who spend more time reading books have greater connections between brain regions involved in language processing and cognitive control. In contrast, the children who spent more time using screen-based media demonstrated fewer connections between these same regions. These cortical alterations from screen exposure start early and may lead to underdeveloped sections of the brain. The scientist has said, as developmental cognitive neuroscientists we are afraid that certain abilities like attention, processing speed, and inhibitory control will not develop as they should. Another one of her studies used two groups of preschoolers. One of them enjoyed the traditional story time. An adult read a book to them while interacting in the typical way. The other group watched a video of the same story, seeing the book's pages on the screen, with the same adult's voice in an audio accompanying it. Six weeks later, they did another test and the children who'd watched the screen performed significantly worse on tests of attention and showed brain wave alterations similar to those of children with ADHD. Reading from screens, even at this young age, makes it harder to pay attention to what's being read. And they find that when reading an electronic device, the reader tends to go through it very methodically and not backtrack at all. So you're less likely to really absorb the information. I've certainly found when I've been reading the hard copy of the Epoch Times that it is more impacting. You get that feeling of really seeing it and studying it. And when I study music, it's much easier to really get a sense of it after I print out those pages instead of trying to scroll. And that's another reason why it's harder. You have to constantly be making decisions. Are you going to scroll? How quickly are you going to scroll? When are you going to go to the next page? You don't think about that when you're holding a book. It creates another level of focus that you have to have, and it makes it harder to focus on the subject matter. With all this scientific information, it's pretty obvious that reading hard books, whether paperback or some other kind of printed matter, is far more beneficial at all ages than reading something electronically. Then how, as parents, educators, and mentors, or even just friends, do we encourage young people to create a love of reading real books? Well, in the Life and Tradition section, there's a story about one family which has inspired 60 local families to be involved in a private library of what they call living books. Sarah Masaryk is a writer, a podcaster of literary reviews, and particularly of classics and children's books. So her friends would often ask her for advice on good books for their children to read. She herself was a mother of five and a homeschooler, so she was very qualified to help others on this matter. The thing that gave her the idea to start a library was a simple little incident in the fall of 2022. She had a friend of hers who was another homeschooling mother, and she came to her saying, please help me buy the right books for my daughter, because she's an innocent soul and a voracious reader, and I just can't keep taking her to the public library and being sure that I've read all these books before I know they're going to be good. She took this other young mother under her wing, and she gave her recommendations as well as loaning her a lot of books, because she had such a good collection herself. And she said, I felt like the Lord was suggesting strongly that this was something that I was supposed to do. So I invited that family in, and then my kids and I started to organize our books and put them into a catalog online. That family became our guinea pig. That was the beginning of what is now the Plumfield Library. From January 2023 to April of that year, Sarah Masaryk and her family turned the large basement of their home in Denmark, Wisconsin, into the Plumfield Living Books Library. They currently had 3,500 books, and they were right in the middle of the woods, so they wondered, who's going to want to come out here to get our books? But she said, then we thought, well, here goes God, if you send us seven families, I think we'll know that this is what you intend for us to do. And by May, they had 15 families, and no sign of it slowing down. So they took that as a sign. Since then, the focus and energy of their family has shifted into building that library. The children love getting involved, and during the two years, they've really turned it into quite a place. The basement houses the books, and it's not just a basement anymore. It really is a little library. It's well-lit and attractively decorated with nooks and crannies, tables and chairs, and even a piano, where they have lessons and classes as well as books. Since then, the collection has grown from 3,500 books to more than 12,000, most of them children's books given by donors. 60 families have joined Plumfield, with more than 220 children among them. The annual cost is $100 per family, and at any given time, more than 1,000 books are in circulation. One of the most popular genres of books they're finding is classic literature, children's books, particularly from the late 40s to the early 50s. People are really hungry for that, it seems, and there's the fastest turnover of those books. You see, most of the parents in this group were much too young to have observed and enjoyed these books themselves, so maybe their parents or grandparents liked them, but they're discovering them now and realizing what great, wholesome entertainment and educational tools they are, so they want their children to enjoy these great books. The term living books is one which comes from a renowned educator, Charlotte Mason, for inspiring tales well told, the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas, and pictures of life. These are the books which have inspired Sarah and her husband and their children to help others come to enjoy these books themselves. Right out of the gate, Masaryk and her family harnessed a program that a friend built called Picture Book Preschool, and that's units of 7 to 10 picture books per week, 18 weeks a year. There'll be one on rain, perhaps, or one on the fathers, or one on American folktales. In 2016, she found a public outlet for her literary enthusiasms when she teamed up with her friend and fellow literature lover, Diane Pendergraft, and they opened Plumfield and Paideia, which is a website where they wrote their reviews of living books. And they eventually began producing and posting podcasts about literature and homeschooling as well. They've recently redesigned the website and renamed it Plumfield Moms. More recently, Sarah and Diane, along with some others, have created a private lending library directory, which now lists more than a hundred such libraries throughout North America, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Masaryk was also instrumental in putting together a website called the Card Catalog, which answers questions that other people might have about setting up a library with details like barcodes, online software, and even what sort of tape works best on books. She's connected with people who are already operating private libraries, as well as people who have mobile libraries, and she's encouraged many people who want to start their own. Because deep down, she believes that this helps books to live their best purpose, being held and loved by a child, and it helps children to have this lifelong love of libraries and books. And private libraries like these are encouraging families to create their own collection of books and come to love them. And I think it's very interesting that they have a lot of these really old books from the 40s and 50s, because one way you can get some great literature for a good price is buying used books, either on eBay or Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, or in your local antique store, or at a yard sale. Sometimes you can find wonderful literature for a very reasonable price, and it's a great way to get a better understanding of the past and to appreciate those virtues and values which were so regarded and taught. There's something about holding a book holding a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a copy of an old history book, a copy of the Bible, a copy of some other faith-based work, an old beloved children's book, that can never be replaced by a digital copy. And that's something that we shouldn't forget if we want to continue to encourage an education program which has intelligent, well-learned people. Thank you for spending this time with me, talking about the importance of reading and sharing good literature. If you enjoyed this video, I hope you'll like it, subscribe to the channel, share it with your friends, and leave a comment letting me know what you think about reading books and private libraries. Thank you for watching!