It may sound a bit counterintuitive, but new research by researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book.

Professor Daniela O’Neill summarizes: “Too often, parents dismiss picture storybooks, especially when they are wordless, as not real reading or just for fun. But these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school.” (source)

In the study the researchers recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures. What they than found was that the researched moms used significantly more frequently forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book.

Abstract of the research:

This study investigated the influence of book genre (narrative or didactic) on mothers’ language use during a book sharing interaction with their 18- to 25-month-olds. Mother–child dyads were videotaped sharing both a narrative and a didactic book, adapted from two commercially available books, and matched in terms of length, quantity of text, and target content. A greater proportion of mothers’ talk was complex (i.e., predictions, text-to-life comparisons) during narrative book sharing than during didactic book sharing. Mothers also used a greater variety of verb tenses and referenced more mental states during narrative book sharing. These results differ from findings from previous studies with older children where it has been concluded that didactic books offer greater opportunities for complex talk than narrative books. The results also highlight the importance of taking situational factors into account when investigating parent–child communicative interactions.