What I notice as I sit listening with children is how much harder they concentrate on a heard story than a seen one. They can't cheat and follow the pictures to make sense of it, so they listen acutely. They ask questions, too: always relevant, though sometimes tangential. You can almost see their brains working.
But - and it is a big caveat - none of this works if the story is no good, if it has dull or over-earnest patches, or if it is badly read. Children are fierce judges of delivery, and if it is slow, patronising or somehow fails to catch their imagination, then they will dash upstairs and attempt to unearth the Gameboy.
Read the whole thing.
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