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Facts and figures

The numbers behind the children's books guides, each with its source. Figures are stated as the source states them.

  • Encourage shared reading beginning at birth and continuing at least through kindergarten, including, when possible, in the NICU (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2024).[1]
  • UAE fifth-grade students averaged 483 points in PIRLS 2021, a rise of 33 points on PIRLS 2016.[2]
  • The UAE sample in PIRLS 2021 was 27,448 fifth-grade students from 663 public and private schools.[2]
  • PIRLS 2021 was conducted in 57 countries and eight benchmarking entities.[3]
  • The 2016 Arab Reading Index ranked the UAE fourth among 22 Arab nations surveyed, with about 51 hours of reading a year per reader.[4]
  • The UAE's Year of Reading in 2016 included more than 1,500 initiatives across sectors.[5]
  • An AED 100 million allocation supports reading-related activities by NGOs and volunteer groups through 2026.[5]
  • Across 69 studies, the average correlation between phonological awareness and later decoding was .40.[6]
  • A meta-analysis of 19 randomised trials (2,594 children aged 1 to 6) found small effects of shared picture book interventions on expressive (d = 0.41) and receptive (d = 0.26) language.[7]
  • In 2025, 44.5 per cent of UK five- to eight-year-olds read daily, down 3.4 percentage points in a year.[8]
  • In a US study of 48 families, book reading made up only about 9 per cent of the talk children heard from parents.[9]
  • A meta-analysis of 99 studies (N = 7,669) found moderate to strong links between reading exposure and reading comprehension, technical reading and spelling.[10]
  • A survey of mothers covering 10,085 children aged 0 to 5 in 13 regions linked consistent bedtime routines with better sleep outcomes.[11]
  • In the UK Millennium Cohort Study, 10,230 seven-year-olds were followed to compare bedtime regularity at ages 3, 5 and 7 with behavioural difficulties.[12]
  • A systematic review of 67 studies found screen time adversely associated with sleep outcomes in 90 per cent of them (school-aged children and adolescents).[13]
  • A survey of 1,508 American adults found that 90 per cent used some electronic device at least a few nights a week within an hour of bedtime.[14]
  • One picture book read daily amounts to about 78,000 words a year, according to a model based on 60 commonly read children's books.[15]
  • Over the five years before kindergarten, children from literacy-rich homes are modelled to hear about 1.4 million more storybook words than children never read to.[15]
  • Around 25 per cent of caregivers never read with their children, according to nationally representative US data cited by Logan and colleagues.[15]
  • A meta-analysis of 19 randomised trials with 2,594 children aged 1 to 6 found a small effect of caregiver reading training on expressive language (d = 0.41) and receptive language (d = 0.26).[16]
  • The AASM recommends 10 to 13 hours of sleep per 24 hours, including naps, for children aged 3 to 5 years.[17]
  • WHO recommends 14 to 17 hours of good-quality sleep for ages 0 to 3 months and 12 to 16 hours for ages 4 to 11 months, including naps.[18]
  • WHO recommends no more than one hour of sedentary screen time for children aged 2 to 4, and says less is better.[18]
  • An fMRI study of 19 children aged 3 to 5 linked more home reading with greater activity in a left-sided brain region involved in processing meaning.[19]

Sources

  1. American Academy of Pediatrics Promotes Shared Reading Starting in Infancy as a Positive Parenting Practice with Lifelong Benefits
    American Academy of Pediatrics, 2024-09-29Encourage shared reading beginning at birth and continuing at least through kindergarten
  2. UAE students make remarkable advancements in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study
    UAE Ministry of Education, 2023-05-11Their average score reached 483 points
  3. PIRLS 2021 Results
    TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College, and IEA, 2023Successfully conducted in 57 countries and eight benchmarking entities.
  4. UAE ranks 4th in Arab Reading Index
    Khaleej Times, 2016-12-07ranks fourth among 22 Arab nations surveyed
  5. Year of Reading
    UAE Ministry of Economy (moet.gov.ae), n.d.make reading a habit and a lifestyle by the year 2026
  6. The National Early Literacy Panel: A Summary of the Process and the Report
    Educational Researcher (Shanahan and Lonigan), American Educational Research Association, 2010rhyme tasks had the weakest correlations of the phonological awareness measures
  7. Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
    Child Development (Dowdall, Melendez-Torres, Murray, Gardner, Hartford and Cooper), 2020the promise of book-sharing interventions
  8. Children and young people's reading in 2025
    National Literacy Trust, 2025-06-03especially steep among primary-aged children and boys
  9. Parents' early book reading to children: Relation to children's later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input
    Developmental Science (Demir-Lira, Applebaum, Goldin-Meadow and Levine); PubMed Central, 2019parent language that occurs during book reading interactions is more sophisticated
  10. To read or not to read: a meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood
    Psychological Bulletin (Mol and Bus); Europe PMC, 2011frequent readers are more successful students
  11. Bedtime routines for young children: a dose-dependent association with sleep outcomes
    Sleep (Mindell, Li, Sadeh, Kwon, Goh), 2015A consistent bedtime routine was associated with better sleep outcomes
  12. Changes in bedtime schedules and behavioral difficulties in 7 year old children
    Pediatrics (Kelly, Kelly, Sacker), 2013Children with nonregular bedtimes had more behavioral difficulties.
  13. Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: a systematic literature review
    Sleep Medicine Reviews (Hale and Guan), 2015We found that screen time is adversely associated with sleep outcomes
  14. Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Chang, Aeschbach, Duffy, Czeisler), 2015Participants reading an LE-eBook took longer to fall asleep
  15. When Children Are Not Read to at Home: The Million Word Gap
    Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (Logan et al.), 2019Home-based shared book reading represents an important resource for closing the Word Gap.
  16. Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
    Child Development (Dowdall et al.), 2020They had a large effect on caregiver book-sharing competence (d = 1.01).
  17. Recommended Amount of Sleep for Pediatric Populations: A Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine
    Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (Paruthi et al.), 2016Children 3 to 5 years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours
  18. To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more
    World Health Organization, 2019-04-24When sedentary, engaging in reading and storytelling with a caregiver is encouraged.
  19. Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories
    Pediatrics (Hutton et al.), 2015Parent-child reading is widely advocated to promote cognitive development

General information, not professional or medical advice. Found a mistake? Write to [email protected].