If you write for younger children, a new study by the University of Texas and Vanderbilt University, published by Frontiers in Psychology, has some pointers to make your work more appealing. Researchers Margaret Shavlik, Jessie Raye Bauer and Amy E Booth note: ‘From a young age, children have a strong interest in discovering the causal structure of the world around them.’ Or, in other words, as parents are often all too aware, children want to know ‘why?’
Now in their study exploring this innate desire of young children to find out how the world around them works, the researchers created two books for three to four-year olds. The books were closely matched for content and complexity, their main difference being in how much they explained things. When the books were read by or to children, they strong preference for the book which offered the most satisfying explanations. This is not inconsistent with educational psychologist Jean Piaget’s famous description of children as ‘little scientists’.
Find out all about what the big American scientists discovered at https://writ.rs/whywhywhy