Measuring the effect of stories on a child’s imagination means distinguishing between family rituals, language acquisition and the mental construction of images. The 2024 CNL/Ipsos survey documents a clear gap between the enjoyment of reading among younger children and its gradual decline during adolescence. This raises a specific analytical question: which aspects of shared reading have a lasting effect on the imagination, and when do they become less effective?
Reading aloud and the construction of mental images in children
When an adult reads a story aloud, the child isn’t given a ready-made image. A sentence describing a character or a place prompts the child’s brain to create its own visual representation, choosing colours, shapes and textures that aren’t in the text.
This process of creating mental images sets reading apart from cartoons and videos, where the visuals are provided. An oral story leaves room for the child to fill in with their own references, sensory memories and emotions.
The language of a story differs from everyday speech. Sentences are more elaborate, vocabulary is more varied and intonation changes more often.
This syntactic richness encourages children to work with structures they don’t hear in everyday conversation, expanding both their vocabulary and their ability to imagine new situations. Among the stories from Histoire D’Enfant, this narrative variety can be found in stories designed to actively engage young readers’ imaginations.
Psychologist Lev Vygotski described symbolic play as a driver of cognitive development. Shared reading works on the same principle: children mentally rehearse situations they haven’t experienced yet, strengthening their ability to solve problems and understand other people’s emotions.
Enjoyment of reading by age: when does it start to decline?
Data from the 2024 CNL/Ipsos survey show that enjoyment of reading declines significantly throughout adolescence. This decline doesn’t happen overnight. It sets in gradually, often between the end of primary school and the start of secondary school.
| Age group | Attitude towards reading for pleasure | Role of shared stories |
|---|---|---|
| 0-5 years | Sensory and emotional discovery of books | Central: enjoyment comes from the adult’s voice and handling the book |
| 6-8 years | Learning to decode words; reading can feel like hard work | Maintains an emotional connection with stories while reading skills develop |
| 9-11 years | Growing independence and a wider range of interests | Transition: children can read alone but still benefit from shared reading |
| 12 and over | Reading for pleasure often declines | Less shared reading and more competition from other activities |
The table highlights a point that’s often underestimated: between the ages of 6 and 8, the effort of learning to read can dampen enjoyment. A child struggling to sound out syllables doesn’t get the same immersive experience they had when listening to a story. Continuing to read aloud during this period preserves the connection between stories and enjoyment, even when reading independently remains a struggle.
Screens and audiobooks: competition or an extension of storytelling?
Drawing on the April 2024 CNL/Ipsos study, the French Ministry of National Education notes that young people spend far more time on screens than reading books for pleasure. However, attributing the decline in reading to a single cause would be an oversimplification: historical analyses show that some declines in reading began before smartphones became widespread.
The ministry’s recommendations include audiobooks as a complementary tool. Listening to a story during a journey or while doing household tasks creates more opportunities to engage with storytelling, including for children who don’t feel like opening a book at a particular moment.
The difference between formats lies in the type of cognitive effort involved:
- Reading independently requires visually decoding words while simultaneously creating mental images, making it the most demanding activity for the imagination.
- Listening to a story read by an adult or played on an audio device still involves creating mental images, without the effort of decoding words.
- Watching a video provides both images and sounds, leaving less room for a child’s imagination.
The point isn’t to pit these formats against one another, but to understand that each format engages the imagination to a different degree. A child listening to a narrative podcast uses their imagination more than a child watching a cartoon.
Keeping the joy of reading alive beyond the first stories
Assuming that a love of reading will automatically take hold after a few years of shared reading doesn’t match the available evidence. Enjoyment of reading can grow or fade depending on the circumstances in which children encounter books.
Several practical approaches emerge from institutional recommendations and documented practices:
- Continue reading aloud even after children learn to read independently, to preserve their emotional connection with stories.
- Vary the formats (picture books, short novels, audiobooks) so reading doesn’t become limited to a single format associated with schoolwork.
- Let children choose their own stories without ranking genres, because children read for longer when they read what they enjoy.
- Make time for reading outside school settings (holidays, journeys, quiet time) to separate books from obligation.
The “En vacances, je lis aussi” programme, run by the French Ministry of National Education, follows this approach: presenting reading as a leisure activity, separate from the school environment.
The role of characters in sustaining enjoyment
Stories that leave a lasting impression on children often share one feature: characters they can identify with or imagine as part of their own world. This connection makes them want to revisit a character, find out what happens next and continue the story through play.
Attachment to a character is often the first driver of independent reading. When a child asks, “What happens next?”, the pleasure of storytelling is at work. This motivation remains at any age, as long as the stories on offer evolve with the child’s interests.
Stories for children don’t work by magic. They work because they engage specific cognitive processes (creating images, working with language and emotional identification) and because an adult or a supportive environment sustains the conditions for these processes over time. The 2024 CNL/Ipsos survey confirms this by implication: when these conditions disappear, enjoyment of reading declines.
